Page 3 of Of Song and Scepter
My tail slices with swift precision. I track the male by the iron scent of his wounds. Odissa’s blue light dims the farther I swim from her. My pulse races through my body in a thudding rhythm as fear creeps in. Sloppiness in the Drink is a death wish.
This was supposed to be a solo mission. Odissa would wait at the Hissing Bloodfish, connect with the client, and I’d deliver the body. Instead, my master showed up mid-mission, lit up the water with her glowing globe of a head, and distracted meenough to let a soldier slip through my fingers. Just so she could taunt the poor thing before I killed her?
Odissa isn’t a strong swimmer. Her gelatinous body is soft, with the exception of her torso, arms, and face. Where my hair sprouts from my scalp, Odissa has four oral arms and a jelly bell. Where I have a sleek tail, her torso fades into strings of wispy tentacles. I can control my bioluminescence with a flick of my magic; her skin glows ceaselessly, a beacon in the darkness. Her talents as a death-dealer are advantageous in long-game missions, in complex schemes with moving targets.
She observes. She analyzes.
I kill.
It’s the way we’ve operated since she found me in the royal city of Dredgemaw. Magic-wielders don’t usually mix with mermaids; not in the Abyss. The sirens are glad of the divide the Drink creates between us. But I'm a half-breed, so I belong nowhere.
Odissa sees potential in me. From a distance, I look full siren, and with my Voice and high-born upbringing, I can blend in at the royal court. Her appearance would raise questions.
We make a good team—when we stick to our expertise. When we don’t, shit like this happens. And I’m the one who has to clean it up.
Odissa calls out to me, the panic in her voice diluted by the water stretching between us. “Let him go, Enna!”
The soldier’s tail is almost within my grasp. I fight to swim through his current, reaching up with both hands. My core burns with exertion. Blood roars in my head, matching the heat of my fury.
He will not escape me. Not this time.
“Enna! Let’s go!”
A rumble sounds in the deep, low and grating. Then comes the clicking, echoing across the Drink—a dredgebeast seeking its prey.
My claws graze the slippery edge of the merman’s tail.
“ENNA!” Odissa’s shriek is desperate. She treads in a cloud of the soldiers’ blood, tethering a fresh corpse, with no hope of outswimming the beast.
Another boom. The sound ripples through the water, pushing me off course. The merman dives out of my reach. If I let the witness go, the whole mission could fail. He’ll report us to the Abyssal King, and we’ll be dead in two sleeps’ time.
The beast draws closer, its clicking tongue growing louder. Gritting my teeth, I pull up short. The soldier is bleeding. Odds are, the beast eats him, too.
“ENNA!”
I dive deep, following the light of Odissa’s skin until I find her fumbling with the tether rope. I check her knot around the princess’s waist, make an adjustment, and loop the cord through my harness. One final cinch, and the corpse snugs against my back like a rucksack.
“Let’s go!” I kick my tail without waiting for her response. The corpse is heavy but not unmanageable. As long as I don’t dive or twist too much, the body should stay in the proper state for delivery to the client waiting for us in Vespyr. With the extra weight, however, I cannot reach my usual speed. I pray to Tephra below that the dredgebeast goes for the wounded soldier.
Odissa undulates behind me, her tentacles contracting as she propels through the water. Her glowing skin is a moving target, the only light between here and our destination.
The clicking noises of the beast grow closer. Odissa’s hands grasp my tail, hitching on for a ride. I struggle to cut through the water, anchored by not one but two dead weights.
“You just had to come out here, didn’t you?” I scold her. “I had it under control!”
“Clearly not. That soldier should be dead.”
She pulls herself up the length of my tail, twisting to latch onto my belly. Her wispy tentacles thread beneath my harness, and she clutches me tightly. The soft, gel globe of her head nestles beneath my chin.
I growl, knowing she can feel it rumble through my body. “And he would be dead if you had stayed in Vespyr and let me handle it.”
“You would have sliced her neck.”
“That’s my protocol.”
“Then you should be thanking me. The client needs the body in perfect condition.”
Behind me, the dredgebeast increases its clicking. The water around us ripples as the beast’s large, scaly form forces through. I can’t see its paddle-like fins, but I can sense them—churning the deep.
