Page 153 of Lifebound

Rune looked up at me, eyes dark and mouth open, and he looked just as terrified as he had been when the tunnel was about to fall on our heads.

“Run at the first chance you get. Don’t hesitate, don’t wait for me—justrun.”

Then he slipped into the water.

A scream ripped out of me before I could help it. Rune let go of my hands as his lit up from within, and his shadows came out and slipped into the water, but they faded away again quickly. He wasn’t drowning, though—the pool only reached up to his waist when he sat at the bottom of it, and the fish, big and small, all glowing,wereeatingthe shadows that had come out of him.

“What is happening, fuck, what is happening, Rune?!” I grabbed him by the arm and tried to pull him up, but I couldn’t even move him. It was like his ass was glued to the bottom of that pool, which made absolutely no sense to me.

“We’re in a mermaid cavern. Calm down, breathe,” Rune said. “You can’t get me out—save your strength.”

“But…but?—”

“Breathe, Wildcat.Look.”

So, I did.

I fell on my ass and I finally looked around, but I found it very hard to believe what my eyes were telling me. We were in a cavern with a large pool of water ahead, and eight other, smaller ones around it. Moss and glowing plants grew on the yellowish stone walls and the ceiling, which was as high as that of the tunnels. There was a tiny hole close to the other end of the cavern where a little sunlight slipped through, but that’s it. That’s the only connection this place seemed to have to the outside world—over water, that is.

There were wooden boxes in the distance, full of fish that still glowed even though they weren’t moving, a couple full of plants, and a few full of those crystals we’d seen in that tunnel.Tempest crystals,Rune had called them, and more grew on the rocks, too, at the edges of the smaller pools.

But it was what moved in the biggest one that made me freeze and made my heart stop and my breathing slow down all the way.

Mermaids.

Three mermaids were in the water, swimming slowly, with only the upper half of their faces above the surface. Their big wide eyes were on me and Rune, and they moved fast, so fast, from one side to the other. I could only see their silhouettes through the light of the fish that swam with them.

They had arms. They had fishtails instead of legs.

Mermaids are real.

“Listen to me,” Rune whispered. “Others have already gone to notify their leader. They’ll be here any minute. I will try to distract them, and you can run.”

“No.”

“Yes.Do you see that hole in the ceiling where the sun is coming through? Try to climb up there. Try to get out.”

“Rune, I’m not going anywhere without you,” I said, eyes on the mermaids, the anticipation killing me.

“Youmust,” Rune said. “Listen to me, damn it?—”

“Stop talking,” I said. “I am not leaving without you and that’s the end of it. You said mermaids have elemental powers and can control water.” Which I’d seen firsthand when the water of that pool wrapped around his legs to pull him down. So fucking impossible, but it had happened right in front of my eyes.

“They do. And these fish can consume my magic. It’s not strong enough to kill them,” Rune said.

“Why aren’t they puttingmein the water?” I asked, and one of the mermaids swam up, revealed to me her entire face.

Big eyes. Long, pale lips. Her hair must have been blonde though it shone blue because of the lights of the water, and it was sleeked back behind her head. She wore nothing, no shells for a bra, and I could see half her breasts and half her nipples just peeking through the surface.

Slowly, she moved a little closer to the edge, which was possibly ten feet away from us, but I still had the urge to move back.

“Because you’re mortal. They can sense it,” Rune said, and he tried again to release his magic into the pool he sat in, but the fish, more than fifteen of them, simply swam around andatethe shadows.

“What if we just pull them out?” I tried to reach for the fish, but Rune grabbed my wrist.

“Don’t touch the water,” he told me. “Listen to me, Nilah. You have to run.Now,before the leader gets here.”

I swallowed hard because the mermaid was now at the very edge, and she raised her hands and put them on the rocks.

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