Chapter 14 The Siren's Request.
The siren's fingers tighten around mine. Her glowing eyes flick toward the darkness spreading through the sea, an ink cloud that moves against the current. A very suspicious-looking ink cloud that kind of feels like it wants to eat my soul. My heart lurches. I don’t know what that is, but every instinct screams run...or swim...or flail your limbs around uselessly to try and get us the hell away from that. The siren doesn’t wait for me to figure it out. She pulls me harder. The water seems to obey her, wrapping around us and hurling us forward in a blur of speed that steals my breath—even though, technically, I’m not supposed to be breathing at all. I try to look back once, but all I see is black water and the faint suggestion of something moving inside it. Something too large to make sense. The ocean around it quivers like it’s afraid. Okay, I think. Not friendly. Definitely not friendly. Bubbles stream past us, and my hand grips tighter to hers, but she doesn’t let go. Her hair glows in the dark—a long white veil whipping behind her—and for a second, I’m convinced she’s made of light, not flesh. Gilfred clings to her wrist, wide-eyed, his tail wrapped around her fingers. Every few seconds, he lets out a tiny stream of bubbles that look suspiciously like curses. The darkness stretches toward us, a living shadow reaching with tendrils of murk, and I can feel it. It’s cold, not my kind of cold, but the kind that eats things. The kind that wants. I don’t ask questions, not like I could manage any right now. I let the siren drag me wherever she wants.
The light ahead starts to brighten again, streaks of blue and green filtering through the black. Coral towers rise like spires, their surfaces pulsing faintly as we shoot between them. The sound—the pressure—the sense of being hunted—it all fades the farther we go. Finally, we slow. The glow steadies. The water around us stills like a held breath. The darkness behind us recedes. She releases a trembling exhale, bubbles spilling from her lips. Her eyes flick to mine, and for the first time since she kissed me, I see fear. Not of me. Of whatever that was. Then she gestures upward. I follow her gaze to where the cavern twists into a narrow tunnel, soft light bleeding through the cracks above. She gives me a small smile, exhausted but reassuring, and then swims ahead, leading the way and pulling me behind. We wind through the tunnel, the walls smooth and glittering like cut glass. Gilfred scurries up my sleeve again, muttering chirps under his breath that sound an awful lot like “never again.”
“Noted,” I whisper back, though the words just hum through the water.
The tunnel bends sharply upward, and she gestures for me to follow. Not like I have anywhere else to be right now. The glow at the end burns brighter, and when we break the surface, air hits my face like a slap. I gasp. Real, actual air floods into my lungs, burning a little as it replaces whatever strange magic kept me alive below. I cough, splutter, and flop against a rock shelf that juts from the cavern wall, water streaming from my hair and clothes. Gilfred climbs out of my collar and onto the stone, glaring daggers at me with his tiny lizard eyes.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I pant between coughs. “I’m an idiot. You can add it to the growing list of life lessons I’ve ignored.”
The siren's laugh is soft and melodic, echoing faintly around the cavern. I glance up, and nearly forget how to breathe all over again. She’s… breathtaking. I don't think that I'm into girls that way but damn...that's who gave me my first kiss? I'm checking that off my bucket list with a mental tick.
Her upper half looks almost human, though far too perfect for it. Her skin glows faintly with a pearlescent sheen, and her hair—white, luminous, almost translucent—floats around her shoulders in soft waves. Her eyes are the colour of deep water in sunlight, blue with shifting silver threads. And below her waist, her tail unfurls in long, graceful arcs of shimmering blue-green, the scales catching what little light there is and scattering it like diamonds. And yes, she’s wearing… seashells. Big ones. Held in place by strips of knotted seaweed that, by all logic, should not be working.
I stare. “How… how do those even stay on?”
She blinks, then follows my gaze downward. When she realises what I’m staring at, she grins and giggles. The sound is soft and chiming, like bells underwater.
“Magic,” she says simply, with a teasing glint. “Not all of it is useful, but some of it is fashionable.”
I choke on a laugh and wipe the salt from my face. “Right. Okay. Noted.”
She tilts her head, studying me for a long moment. “I’m sorry for the theatrics,” she says finally. “I'm Serel, and it’s not as if I could just walk onto your boat and ask you for help.”
I pause mid-cough. “Wait—help?”
Her expression softens. “Yes.” She swims closer, resting her hands on the rock near mine. “I think you can help me.”
“Me?” I blink, half incredulous, half still trying to wrap my head around the part where I’m not dead. “You dragged me to the bottom of the ocean, kissed me, almost got me eaten by… whatever that was—and I’m the one who’s supposed to help you?”
Her smile doesn’t falter. “I saw what you did to the sea,” she says. “The ice that answered your call. It runs through you, doesn’t it? Ice in your veins.”
A chill crawls down my spine. “You saw that?”
“I felt it,” she says quietly. “And that could help me.”
“Help you with what?”
Her eyes darken, the light in them flickering like a candle in the wind. “With her,” she whispers.
The word ripples through the air, heavy and cold.
“Who’s ‘her’?” I ask, even though deep down, I already know.
Serel’s gaze drifts toward the tunnel we came through, the water still shivering faintly in the dark.
“The one who wakes when the sea is angry,” she says softly. “The one who sent the shadow.”
She meets my eyes again, voice trembling like the tide. “Vasra.”