Page 19 of The Ocean's Heart
I needed to find a break and make a run for it. But they were constantly moving, circling, and lunging, making it impossible to focus on anything but evasive maneuvers. I was tiring, and was it my imagination or were their red eyes glowing?
A bat bird to my left lunged at the same time as the one to my right in a pincer movement. I hit the ground, rolled to avoid their lethal beaks, spotted a break in the circle they’d created around me, and made a scrambling dash for it.
The edge of the clearing rushed to meet me, but something snagged the back of my tunic and yanked me away from escape.
I hit the ground on my back hard enough to wind me.
The creatures surrounded me again, covering me in shadow before tipping their heads back and letting out a collective blood-curdling scream, and I knew with a primal instinct that the game was over.
I was about to die.
ChapterEleven
VAARIN
The sea fae writhes and bucks in my grip, his black eyes saturated with venom. We float above the Everdeep Chasm, a place filled with sea horrors. He’s aware of the threat to this life, and yet there is no terror in his eyes.
A part of me marvels at the conviction that lends him such boldness in the face of death. To believe in something so completely. To want it, ache for it. To be willing to die for it…That is indeed a wonder.
I squeeze his throat a little harder, and his dark eyes bug. “Tell me where your leader is. Tell me the location of your base.” My voice is a sonic vibration in the water that surrounds him.
He curses at me in the old tongue, something about fake kings and impostors, and I know I’ll get nothing from him.
I break his neck and allow his body to drift into the chasm below to join his comrades. The deep-sea creatures will surely relish the feast of flesh. Three Obsidian Pearl members and no answers from any of them. I would consider it a failure, but I am coming to realize that these zealots would rather embrace death then betray their cause.
My wounds heal as I swim toward the riptide that will bring me close to the Cursed Isle. Willing scales to form over my body and my legs to shift to a tail, I’m able to cut through the water like a dartfish. The ocean fuels me, rejuvenating me, but I find no pleasure in it. My thoughts are with the princess alone on the isle.
How terrified must she have been to see me weakened. But her fortitude in successfully tipping me into the ocean must be commended.
Meredith will have ensured her safe passage.
The princess will be on the beach as instructed.
The Cursed Isle is a perilous place, filled with hungry, lethal creatures, and it is why I chose it as the location of one of our secret ships. Hidden in a cave on the far northern side of the island, accessed only via the mountain pass, the ship is an escape vessel, should my people ever need to leave these seas for another. It will allow us to traverse above the waves and above any dangers that may spawn below it.
But we will not be taking this ship to Merida Isle. We will commandeer one of the smaller vessels docked beside it.
The riptide appears up ahead, a vortex spinning in shades of blue and purple. I dart into it, swallowed by a rainbow of colors for but a moment before I’m ejected into warmer water.
Red coral lines the ocean floor here.
I’m close. I’m tempted to use my power to swim harder and faster, but the trek across the isle will take two days, and I must conserve my energy for it.
I swim as fast as I can, drawing from the ocean as I go, siphoning its natural power and storing it inside me. The coral bleeds from red to purple, and I rise, breaking surface to see the isle fifty lengths away.
A fire burns on the shore, but there is no sign of the princess.
Would she have disobeyed my instruction?
No…
Tides!
I shoot toward shore like a dagger shark looking for its prey.
* * *
I wadeout of the sea, and my body absorbs the water clinging to it before allowing my human clothes to reappear to cover me.
