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Sereia smirks. “You think you hide four souls? Foolish girl. You possess five. One that was not meant to leave the lands and cross the veil.” She reaches forward, curling her fist into my damp jacket and dragging me off the ground to stand before her.

“I possess four,” I emphasize since she must be incompetent of counting after years trapped under her sea.

“You want death? Trust me girl, you will find it.” She slams her palm into my chest again, but just like before a flare of lightning slices between us, shoving both of us away from the other. This time we both remain standing. Her snarl echoes, rippling the mist with the feral noise, as she glares at me.

“What are you doing?” I demand. She’s not a Blood Witch at all. Maybe a demented sea witch with half her brain made of coral. I feel like my chest is tightening, coiling almost like armor to protect the souls.

She rises to her full height, several inches taller than my own frame. “You cannot–” Abruptly she quits hissing, her gaze snapping to something behind me.

My shoulder twists, masking sure to keep her in my peripheral vision as I turn to see what captured her attention. A movement disturbs the mist around us. Something dark begins to take shape, a form growing larger the closer it gets.

There’s no glowing eyes, nothing to give warning about the creature coming to investigate. Then, a heartbeat later, a snakelike tentacle slides between us. Urchin-like points barring Sereia from reaching me.

Whatever this creature is, it’s protecting me from her.

Sereia glares at the black arm. “She crossed the veil into my sea.” Huffing at the immovable tentacle, she turns her focus back on me. “You cannot die here.”

I blink rapidly. “What do you mean I can’t die here? I want to die here! That’s the whole reason I jumped!” I glare at her. “Is it the lightning that’s stopping you?” Because I will find a way to void it somehow. I refuse to step foot back in Tellus.

“Lightning?” Sereia frowns. “No, immortal, it is you. You have magic shrouding you. Something I cannot penetrate. It is keeping those souls locked into your body and sealed tightly. Someone stronger than I will have to take them out.” Her lip curls in disgust. “Whoever chose you for their vessel chose you for a reason. The four souls inside of you are bonded to the fifth, making them linked and impossible to remove.”

So I can’t die. I want to throw my head back and scream into the universe at the unbelievably shitty luck surrounding me. Then a hysterical peel of laughter breaks through my chest. Of course I can’t fucking die. Lady Gwenyth probably did something to ensure that was never the case.

I will never get my freedom.

Never be allowed to rest eternally.

Never be able to seek the peace I know is waiting just out of reach.

This is utter bullshit.

All of this for nothing.

I fucking jumped into the Blood Sea like a goddamn lunatic because I thought it would free me. But here I am, still trapped.

“I have to go back?” I can’t help the vile tone my words take on.

Immediately the tentacle coils, looping loosely around my feet as to keep me grounded here beneath the sea.

“There are fates worse than death here on this side of the veil,” Sereia cryptically delivers her non-answer. “But no, I am not sending you back. I do not allow the veil to be crossed without bargain.” Her lip curls as she glances down at the tentacle. “I cannot bargain with you, but there is someone who you might be able to plead to if he’ll hear you out.”

I honestly didn’t think dying would be this hard to accomplish.

When I fail to respond to Sereia, too lost in my own head, she heaves a sigh loud enough to draw my attention. “My son could potentially get through the magic binding the souls to your form.”

Her son. My distrust and anger rises at her words. Not at her directly, but at Franklin for feeding into my delusional mind that I would somehow be able to pull this off. He could have pushed harder to tell me this idea was useless. Who am I kidding? I wouldn’t have listened to him. Justin and his daft rumor got to me when it shouldn’t have. The goal is to die, not meet every single god who participated in the Province Wars.

“His magic is strong.”

I’m sure it is.

They took his conscience but left his brain.

What kind of monster did the District gods leave in their wake? What can the Lord of Shadows do that no one else can? Something his own mother is too magically weak to do?

And what did Lady Gwenyth do to me? I’m beginning to think she was never going to be able to undo it, even if I reached whatever prophetic number to find my freedom.

“Those are my choices? Go forward to meet the Lord of Shadows and see if he can kill me? Or what? I stay trapped beneath the Blood Sea since you won’t send me back over the veil? Am I missing anything?” I snarl sarcastically. There’s not a choice here. I have to go forward.