Page 134 of Rise of the Siren Queen
My heart pounded in my chest, each beat syncing with the growing tension, pushing me further into the heart of the palace, into whatever awaited me.
Soon—though the word had no meaning anymore, not when time dragged its feet like a funeral dirge—the hall yawned open to splintered doors barely hanging on their hinges. I stepped through, and the world ended.
An icy fist gripped my lungs. My tail stopped working. I stood there, useless, while everything inside me screamed.
There she was.
My woman. My siren.
My Queen.
Crushed against the stone floor, curled over a body that no longer breathed. Her body trembled with each shallow breath, spine hunched as if it couldn’t bear the weight of what she’d lost. Of what she was still losing. Blood smeared her hands, streaked down her arms like war paint, but she wasn’t a warrior here. She was a girl undone. A child in mourning.
Her hands—gods, those hands that once reached for me with warmth—shook as they clutched the elderly siren’s lifeless form. The woman’s skin dimmed, gray, drained of its glow. I didn’t need to ask who she was. The grief told me.
And I just stood there. Watching.
My mind raced, snapping like a thread from a ripped fabric. Everything we’d been through—every flicker of pain, every wrench in my chest through the bond—it all flashed into place with surgical precision. This was it.
She wasn’t just suffering. She obliterated.
The water suffocated me—the simple act of breathing a burden. I couldn’t breathe.
I wanted to scream, to tear down the fucking walls, to crawl to her and gather her up in my arms, piece by piece, even if I had to bleed for it. But I remained frozen. No flame, no fury, just a jagged, gaping chasm inside of me carving out something vital.
She was everything.
And she was falling apart.
And I—
I broke with her.
I had always seen her as the steady one, the unshakable, emotionally guarded. But now, she was a mess of blood and agony, her heart splintering with every passing moment. And I couldn’t help her.
I couldn’tfuckhelp her.
My chest caved in on itself, sharp and suffocating. It hurt. Gods, it hurt. She was shattering right in front of me, and I was just standing here. Useless. Watching her break.
And I wasn’t here.
I let her go.
I could’ve stopped this if I had only left with her.
The guilt chewed through me like rot, savage and relentless. I hadn’t been there. Hadn’t protected her. Didn’t even know she needed me until it was too damn late. That truth clawed at my ribs, carved itself into my spine.
I wanted to run to her. Drag her into my arms and lie to her if I had to—tell her it would pass, that we’d be alright. But there was no lie strong enough to cover this kind of pain.
There was no “alright” anymore.
She wasn’t okay. And I couldn’t fix it.
So I reached for the bond.
Grief poured through it, thick and choking. I staggered under theweight of it, of her agony. It didn’t pulse—it crushed me. Her pain didn’t speak in words; it screamed in silence. I tasted ash, blood, endings.
She had lost everything.
