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Your rage will free you, my dear sister, she says to me faintly.

I’m contemplating what she’s said when I suddenly feel another presence in the room.

“What in damnation is going on here?”

I turn to see Ramsay standing in the doorway, staring at me aghast. I must look quite odd kneeling beside a mermaid in a tank, her hand in mine.

“Stay back!” I tell him, getting to my feet. “I can’t let you hurt her! I won’t!”

He shakes his head, utterly befuddled. “Did I not just tell you all the stories about what vicious beasts they are?”

“Vicious beasts or not, she is dying, can’t you see? How cruel of a man do you really wish to be? You want to drink her blood and torture her further?”

His dark brows come together and he walks over to me, staring down at my sister in the tank. “She’s dying,” he agrees quietly, his words little more than a noise in his throat.

“She’ll be no good to you,” I tell him. “She can’t give you what you want in this state, there’s nothing left inside her. The right thing to do would be to let her go.”

He nods slowly, running his hand over his jaw as his eyes flit over her Syren form. “You’re right, Princess.”

My heart swells with hope and I look back down at my sister adoringly.

You’re going to be okay, I assure her.He’s the captain of this ship and he might be a good man at heart.

The corner of her mouth twitches weakly.There are no good men, sister. But there are no good Syrens either. We are all just trying to survive.

Her gaze goes to the captain’s now, meeting his eyes. She gives him the slightest nod and I don’t know what it means.

Until I see him pull out his knife.

“What are you doing!?” I scream, trying to grab his arms.

But he moves to the other side of the tank and says, “I’m letting her go.”

Before I can stop him he takes the knife and plunges it right into my sister’s heart.

For the second time the room is filled with deafening roar of my scream, the sound so high and awful that cracks appear on the glass tank and Aerik and the captain have to cover their ears.

I love you, Asherah says to me as her eyes close and she chokes on her last breath.Be free.

“Why?!” I cry through a wailing sob, staring at the captain in blinding horror. “Why did you do that!?”

I reach into the tank and try to stop the bleeding but there’s barely any blood coming from the wound. I reach down for her hands, holding on tight, hoping this isn’t the end. But much like it was with Daphne, there’s nothing left in her to hold me back.

“She was at death’s door,” Ramsay says, straightening up. Through my blurry tears I see him wipe his knife on his shirt and stick it back in its holder. “I was putting her out of her misery.”

“You said you were going to let her go! You could have let her go into her home, into the sea!”

“Do you honestly think she would have just swam away? She could barely move, barely breathe. She’s been drained of all her blood.”

“You don’t know! You could have tried.”

“So she could be picked off by a shark? I know we have differing opinions on what constitutes cruelty, but that’s cruelty to me.”

“Captain!” someone yells from in the ship.

“Be right there!” he barks. He looks at my sister, then at me, and finally at Aerik. “I’ll be back. Don’t do anything stupid.”

I can’t tell who he’s talking to, but it doesn’t matter.