Page 81 of Of Song and Scepter
“Wait.” My voice rings like shattered glass. I refuse to look at the prince, even as my scalp prickles with painful awareness of his eyes on my face.
He steps toward me, sliding his arms up my arms. I cup his cheek as his eyes search mine, even as my vision blurs. His skin is soft, smooth. A parting gift.
This is it, then. This is how I die.So fucking be it.
I force the words with a choking gasp, “Soren, she’s not the real princess. Her name is Odissa, and she’s a death-deal—”
Before I can finish, the world descends like a heavy black cloak, smothering me with its embrace. The last thing I see is Soren’s eyes, tightening with fear.
Chapter forty-eight
Soren
One moment, Enna issafely in my arms. The next, she is crumpling like paper. Her eyes roll to the back of her head, and she collapses against my chest, twitching like a wrigglefish.
I cry out her name, clutching her close as her body continues to writhe in unnatural angles. “A healer!” I shout. “Call the healer!”
The room explodes into chaos around me. My mother’s voice rings with command, and metal clinks as weapons draw. Aris—if that’s even her name—screams. Footsteps shuffle in endless, scuttling rhythm.
In my arms, Enna’s face grows unnaturally pale, the usual soft pink hue of her skin draining quickly into cold white. I repeat her name until my throat grows sore, and even then, I whisper it with a dry, cracking voice. This cannot be happening. Whateversick twist of fate this is, I want out. Enna is mine. The death goddess has no right to take her from me. Not now, not this soon. Not until after we’ve spent centuries fading our scales and hollowing our bones, on the verge of dissolving. Only then will I part from her.
I touch her neck, confirming the fluttering beat of her heart, the passage of her breath. She’s still with me, for now. Hands clap my shoulders, then curl around my hands, prying my fingers loose. I growl, the sound rumbling deep in my chest.
“Don’t touch her,” I say, holding her more tightly. The guard backs away, stuttering something about the healer preparing the wing. “I will take her myself.”
I walk forward on numb legs, following the familiar twists of the hallway. The marble walls tilt in a blur of white, and I nearly stumble. Someone catches my elbow, straightens me, then guides me forward. Enna shifts in my arms, her eyes darting in rapid rhythm underneath her eyelids. I increase my pace, flying through the halls as fast as I can without jostling my precious cargo. The crisp, clean scent of the healer’s wing floods my nose. The door swings open with a bang, and I’m ushered inside.
A healer points me to the back of the vast, white room. The healing tank lies horizontal on a steel platform; the glass tube clamps to the marble floor with metal straps, open to the air at the top.
I lower Enna into the warm salt water. Her body twists and snaps, clothes tearing, and her legs snap together as they form her slick black tail. Bits of cloth float to the surface of the tank. Her back arches as the water absorbs her weight, suspending her. The healer touches my shoulder, and I step away from the tank.
“We’ll take it from here,” the healer says. Her eyes are warm as honey. She approaches the tank, beginning to hum a spell.Golden light slips from her mouth, diving into the tank to surround Enna with its tendrils.
I lean against the wall, watching the magic swirl and kiss Enna’s skin. The moment's weight tugs my limbs, and I succumb, sliding down the stone to land on the floor. My head falls into my hands. I sit there, waiting, until my body becomes one with the stone.
Chapter forty-nine
Enna
The Drink is warmerthan I remember. The water, once so bitterly cold to evoke a sharp sense of clarity, now feels thick as soup. My gills struggle to filter the water, sucking in deep pulls but finding no relief from the burning in my chest. The scent is unbearable, acrid in its sting. Eyes firmly closed, I pump my tail but do not move forward, only drag it a small increment up, then down, hanging suspended in the broth of the deep.
I have to get out of here. This is not right. I was in the middle of something important, somewhere far away from here. My mind spins, searching for the thought I’ve misplaced. It had something to do with Odissa.
I open my eyes. The water is not black, but a thick, brackish green, the color I imagine the inside of a dredgebeast’s stomach would be. I blink my outer lids to clear the fog from my vision,but the haze does not focus, only thickens. I attempt to turn my head, to scan my surroundings for danger, for this certainly is not the Drink. I am out of my element here. Much like my tail, I get nowhere fast. With painful slowness, my neck swivels, and my periphery expands, revealing a white shape: a mermaid skeleton.
The skeleton floats in the murk, its arms limp at its sides. The cavern of its ribs hosts a lone bloodfish, nibbling a rib bone for final scraps. The skull is nearly picked clean, with only a few threads of sinew clinging to its cheek. Awareness prickles the back of my neck, and my spines rise in warning. I am not alone. The skeleton moves, swiveling its head to lock its cavernous eyes on me. Its teeth snap shut with a creak of its jaw, the tail bones stir, and the bloodfish darts away.
I scream at my body to move. My tail is dead weight, my gills fluttering in normal rhythm. The skeleton lurches forward, extending its bony arms. Its fingers grip my neck and yank, towing me through the water.
Through the murk comes a sinister laugh, deep and rumbling and terrifyingly familiar. The water trembles in its wake. Cold fear twists my panic-stricken heart. The laughter morphs into the sound of my name, a dark, gnashing phrase on repeat.
The skeleton speeds forward, the bones of its tail thrashing my scales, cutting deep. Blood clouds the water. In my periphery, dark shapes begin to move. I open my mouth to shout, to spell, anything to get me out of here, but my voice will not sound. A few bubbles escape, popping on my cheeks as I’m dragged through them.
“You have broken your oath, Enna Valomir,” Tephra’s voice calls again, clearer, louder. “I will take the blood you owe me.”
I glance around as best I can, but do not find the goddess. Her voice echoes from every angle, disembodied.
Something rumbles below me, and the water trembles. A dark, colossal shape comes into view, half buried in a garden of bones on the sea floor. Four flat fins protrude from the long, muscular body, paddling the water in the rhythm of sleep.
