Page 114 of Rise of the Siren Queen
I said nothing as I passed him, threw my fishnet bag onto the obsidian table, and pulled out the damned shell. Its surface gleamed with a sickly sheen, as though it enjoyed being handled. I didn’t give it the satisfaction of hesitation.
“I found this near one of the old vessels at Sapphire’s training grounds,” I said, the words like grit in my mouth. “It’s from him. I want the spell signature traced.”
Ronan took the shell silently. The moment his fingers curled around it, the recording played again, that voice dripping with arrogance and venom.
Ronan stiffened. His eyes darkened, the light bleeding out of them until nothing but shadow remained. His power reacted before he did, casting jagged streaks of darkness across the room. The threat embedded in the message echoed again, vile and familiar, and the air thickened with his fury.
Good. At least I wasn’t the only one raging.
“Rein it in,” I snapped, sharper than intended. My voice echoed against the glass walls. “I’m furious too, but Elora can handle herself.”
His jaw clenched as he sucked in a breath that scraped through his throat. Slowly, reluctantly, his shadows receded.
“Now,”I continued, tone flat, “what could Elora have found to set off that rotting coward?”
He hesitated, something twitching in his expression.
“I don’t know. We’re… not on speaking terms right now. She blocked me out.” His voice was raw around the edges in a way Ronan rarely allowed.
“Again?” I groaned, scrubbing a hand down my face. “Solve whatever mess you two created and focus. I don’t have time to babysit bruised egos.”
I made a mental note to check in with Elora myself, and make sure she hadn’t gotten herself killed chasing ghosts. Or worse, turned into bait.
“Do you at least know where she is?”
“She said she’d be at her father’s when we… parted ways.” The pause was heavy, the weight of unsaid words pressing between us.
I didn’t ask. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t care. She is my best friend, after all.
“Fine. Trace the signature. Bring me everything.”
I dismissed him with a wave of my hand, already turning toward the window when it hit me—atugagainst my mental shield.
Familiar. Unwelcome. I lowered it just a sliver. And there he was again.
That voice.
“You liked my present, little divinity?”
His voice slithered into my mind like oil, coating everything in filth. I locked down every stray thought like a vault sealing shut. Not aflicker of Adrian. Or a trace of my plans. Not even the satisfaction I’d feel watching his blood stain the gold on my father’s trident. I became what my mother raised me to be—the heir, carved from ice and iron. Turned into a cold, calculating queen with the desire for revenge.
“Why don’t you come see for yourself?” My tone was low, each word honed to a blade. “And while you’re at it, impale yourself on my father’s trident. Save me the trouble.”
He laughed.
That laugh.
Smug. Familiar. Poison.
“You’re angry today, aren’t you, my sweet little lioness?”
I hate him.
No,hateis too small a word for what lives in me now. It’s something deeper. Something corrosive. I once believed I loved him. Foolish, wide-eyed, deluded. Now I see clearly. There is nothing in him but rot, and in me, nothing left for him but the cold precision of retribution.
“Now, now. I know you’re eager for our wedding, but I have matters to settle before I take your crown.”
He says it as a joke. As if my entire lineage, my birthright, is a pawn on his board. It takes everything in me not to unleash the full weight of my fury. But he feeds on reaction. So I starve him.
