Page 113 of Rise of the Siren Queen
All I could do now was wait. Wait for Sienna and Kieran to return so I could strike. Elora and Ronan had already unearthed enough to damn Thalor for the rest of his miserable life. A poetic sentence, turned to stone and condemned to watch the goddess’s temple rot from the outside, powerless and forgotten. He was what, sixty? He’d live another sixty, maybe more if the gods were feeling cruel, and I’d make sure every single second was a slow descent into regret.
It gave me time. Time to sharpen the blade he’d buried in my back and carve out a reckoning with it.
As the wall thickened under my will, sweat trickled down my temple. My arms trembled from the effort. Normally, I could hold this kind of shield for an hour. Today, I barely crawled past the ten-minute mark. My control was slipping, and I hated it. Hated the weakness. Hatedhimfor dragging me back into this mental ruin.
I was pushing toward the eleven-minute mark when I heard it, a soft, deliberateclickthat echoed from the far end of the training grounds.
I dropped the shield and turned toward the noise.
The training fields behind the military school of Aetheria were quiet and remote, surrounded by coral and wreckage, a place reserved for solitude and silence. That was the point. That’s why I came here. To be alone with my fury. With my failure. With my ghosts.
I swam toward the sound, weaving through broken masts and the bleached ribs of long-dead ships. And that’s when I saw it.
A small enchanted shell sat nestled in the hull of a half-sunken sailboat, glowing faintly, humming like something alive. Then it played.
That laugh.
Gods, thatlaugh. I would’ve carved out my own eardrums just to forget it. But there it was again, dragging me back to that night.
Then his voice followed, slick and venomous, curling around me like poisoned ink in water.
“I’m coming for you, my little divinity.”
That name. That stupid, sacred name I once let him use. I told him too much. Trusted him too deeply. That mistake would be the last I ever made.
“You belong to me.”
Once, those words had made my heart stutter. Now, they only made my stomach turn. But I wasn’t that girl anymore. I didn’t freeze. I wasn’t helpless.
I snatched the shell, scanning the shadows between the broken ships, checking every crevice and jagged coral edge. No green tail. No trace of him. Coward.
“You think I don’t know you’ve been looking for me, my little divinity?” he drawled, his voice soaked in amusement. “I’ve been watching you. Every step. Your court every whisper. Every trail you thought you were clever enough to follow. I let you find only what I wanted you to find.”
My blood ran cold. Not from fear—rage. Pure and volatile.
“I told you that you would understand. But I can’t stay away forever, baby. So how about you keep your bitch of an enforcer out of my business?”
He meant Elora. My tail twitched, a reflex I couldn’t suppress. The threat was obvious. But it backfired.
I grinned.
She rattled him. Elora was close, closer than he expected. And that meantwewere winning.
The shell fell silent. I knew he was long gone. This was just a message, a performance. Still, I searched, just to be sure. Once satisfied, I tucked the shell into my fishnet bag and turned back toward the city.
I swam fast, slicing through the water with violent strokes, mybody thrumming with adrenaline and fury. The glowing lights of Hyrem blurred past me, but I didn’t care.
Because this time, I wouldn’t freeze. This time, I wasn’t breaking.
I was hunting.
“Meet me in my study.”
I sent the thought to Ronan, sharp and clipped, severing the mental thread before he could respond.
The swim back burned through me. Every stroke carved deeper into the already aching muscles, but I didn’t slow down. I couldn’t afford to. Fatigue had become a parasite, gnawing at bone and will alike, but I shoved it down like everything else, like the pain in my joints, the pressure behind my eyes, the cold echo of his voice still coiling through my mind.
Ronan was already outside my study when I arrived, arms folded, expression carved from stone. Of course he was. Ever the loyal shadow.
