Page 152 of Fallen Stars

“Have we met before?”

It echoed and spiralled around him, Elara’s low voice permeating his very being as he spun and spun and screamed and spun.

“You’re a titan, Adrian.”

The voice sounded like Elara’s, but older. Ancient.

He winced against it, even as he felt water flow through his veins, cooling and cleansing. “No, I’m not,” he whispered.

The voice grew vicious. “Youare.Accept it. Accept your destiny. You were made to balance the world, to gift it seas and rivers. You were made to save people, to cleanse people. You are water itself; you rule the very element. And together, we worked to move the ocean.”

A pain started in Adrian’s heart, but this time, it was not from the blade. He heard a sob—couldn’t be sure if it was within his mind or something outside of him.

“Remember, Adrian,” the voice whispered. “Remember.”

A wave began to grow—he could feel it starting at his toes, rising through his legs, past his stomach. It was too much, too powerful, and he tried to run from it, but his legs were below the water, weighed down. It rose and rose, engulfing him. He tried to breathe, but he was drowning, and drowning and—

“Fuckinghell!”

Adrian sat bolt upright before falling to his side, retching as the poisonous seawater drowning his lungs heaved out of him.

It was then that he realised he could still only see out of one eye, and he squeezed it shut again.

His entire body was shaking as though he’d just been yanked out of a bad dream.

Breathe, a voice was saying—Elara, he realised. “It worked,” she whispered. “Oh, my gods, it worked.”

“What’s happening?” Adrian croaked, his heart pounding.His heart.It shouldn’t be beating, and yet…

He opened his eye and looked down. Impossible. The space where Elara had plunged the blade was smooth, no wound, no scar.

But wasn’t he—

“Dying?” A cool voice asked. “Why yes, you were.”

He forced his gaze up, seeing that he was lying, not in the rowboat, but on the deck of a ship that most definitely wasn’t The Starred Siren.

“Wh—” He blinked, then blinked again at the amused face looking back.

“Eli?!”

Adrian scrambled back as his body continued to vibrate. He felt off-kilter, like at any moment he was about to faint.

He heard an admonishing murmur before another face appeared. This was a face that he knew.

He lunged, the room spinning as he wrapped his hands around Elara’s throat.

“Youstabbedme,” he hissed, squeezing.

Elara’s face remained impassive as she flicked a look to whoever was behind Adrian.

“I’llreallykill you if you don’t remove those hands right now,” another voice growled in his ear.

Great. A person he hated even more than the Moon.

Adrian eased up, turning slowly as Elara smoothed her hair.

Enzo crossed his arms, a scowl on his face, Eli beside him leaning against the mast of the ship. Adrian had met the god a few times in passing and seen him at the ball, and he still had that arrogant smirk that made Adrian want to punch him.

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