Page 12 of Rise of the Siren Queen
Where is it?
I twisted again, pushing harder, my heart thundering in my ears, the silence of the water suffocating, overwhelming.
And thena dead end.
I crashed into the wall. The impact piercing my ribs, leaving me gasping in shock. Panic gripped me, cold and merciless, spreading through my body like wildfire.
No,no, no.
My hands slapped against the jagged stone, nails scraping at it as I thrashed in desperation, trying to claw my way out. But there was nowhere to go.
No path. No escape.
My second mistake today, and this one would take my life.
A bitter laugh bubbled up inside me, the sound distorted and swallowed by the water. I felt it now, the inescapable truth sinking in as fast as my oxygen was depleting.
I thrashed harder, as if sheer willpower could break through the solid rock. My muscles ached, burning from the exertion, my mind racing in a thousand different directions, yet unable to find a way out.
How could I have been so careless?
Relief had been so close, almost tangible, and now it mocked me from the other side of this stone tomb. I had been so sure, so stupidly certain, that this was my escape. That I would swim out of here, leave this place behind. But all I had done was dive headfirst into my demise.
And for what? Pride? Stubbornness? Stupidity?
In the last moments, I thought of the ocean, endless and free. The place where I had always felt most alive. But this… this was not the freedom I had sought. This was the price of my arrogance.
This is how it ends.
4
Trust yourself
Among the sirens, some are born with a gift greater than voice or will, the Seers, blessed by the ocean’s gods with the power to glimpse what is yet to come. Their visions are timeless, drawn from the tides that whisper the secrets of past and future alike.
In dreams and signs, they see fate unfold, some visions bright as sunlight through water, others as shadowed as the deep abyss. They read omens in waves and sea creatures, hearing the voice of the divine in every current. But this gift is not theirs alone. It flows from the goddess within the ocean’s heart. The Seers are her conduits, their minds touched by power.
Foresight is both blessing and burden. To know what may come is to carry the weight of choice and consequence. Their words shape kings, guide warriors, and ripple through history.
But fate is ever-moving… and even a Seer sees only fragments of what the goddess allows.
* **
Iryen
I paced the cold stone floor of the cave, the echo of my footsteps swallowed by the oppressive silence. My thoughts pressed heavily on me, like the ocean itself.
Invisibility cloaked me, a shield against the harsh realities of what I was doing. He couldn’t know about our world, not yet. Not until I could figure out what his arrival meant. Through the shadows, I watched him.
Adrian Nikolai.
A man from the surface, trapped here beneath the waves in a world he didn’t belong to. He wandered around the cave, frustration etched into every line of his face as he tried to find an exit. But the spells, layers upon layers of magic woven so tightly, would keep him here. For now.
He was a prisoner, despite my insistence that he wasn’t. How could I claim otherwise? This place was a cage, and I was its warden.
Food and water, the bare essentials for survival, had been left for him, but it wasn’t enough. I knew it wasn’t enough. His spirit, restless, defiant, needed answers. Yet all I could give him was silence.
I felt a pang of pity. Cast into a world of secrets and shadows, cut off from everything familiar. How terrifying that must be. And yet, I envied him. For his ignorance. For not knowing the destiny that had pulled him into my life.
