Page 22 of Siren Problems
I can’t.
Because right now I’m not Calder Thorne, brooding fisherman of the Bluffs.
Right now I’m what I was before—prince, voice-binder, heir to a forgotten throne made of salt and silence. A man who once believed he could save a world with song.
And I remember what happened the last time someone believed in me.
I failed her.
The sea took her.
And I paid the price.
I close my eyes, the wind cold against my face, and swear softly in the old tongue.
Luna Wilder is a problem I didn’t plan for.
And if I let her in, this whole place might unravel with me.
But gods...
She’s still there.
Still watching the tide.
Still not afraid.
And that scares me more than anything else ever could.
CHAPTER 9
LUNA
There’s a particular kind of silence underwater.
Not the peaceful kind you romanticize in poems or spa commercials. No, this one’s tight. Coiled. Like the ocean’s holding its breath while you trespass somewhere sacred.
I kick harder, fins slicing through the frigid green-blue as the trench yawns open below me.
“Ten more meters,” I mutter through the comm charm clipped to my ear. Not that anyone’s listening.
Because I didn’ttellanyone.
Because if I toldhim, he’d lose his mind.
Again.
My scanner pings off a series of sharp ley echoes, flashing in frantic pulses. It doesn’t like this zone—neither do I, if we’re being honest—but I’m done playing safe. Done letting Calder guard secrets like treasure in a drowned kingdom.
The altar’s close. Ifeelit.
Pressure deepens around me. Not just physical—magical.The kind that squeezes your bones and whispers in your blood.
I flick on the light built into my diving mask. A shimmer pulses ahead, right at the edge of visibility. A pattern, half-covered in sediment, carved into the rock shelf. Not random.Deliberate.
“I knew it,” I whisper, even though my lungs are starting to burn.
But before I can blink, the shimmer moves.
