Page 103

Esmyra

E smyra staggered back from the Veil of Visions, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps.

Her hands trembled at her sides, sparks igniting at her fingertips as her emotions threatened to spill over into raw, uncontrolled fury.

Her chest heaved, tattoos swirling wildly with an iridescent, silver glow that pulsed like a storm.

She stared at the water in the small pool, its surface still rippling, mocking her with the scene it had just revealed. It replayed in her mind like a cruel echo—Cyrus Blackwood’s body crumpling to the ground, crimson blood soaking his front as his life was stolen from him by the king’s blade.

Draevyn was there, and he did nothing . He abandoned her father as he was held in the death grip of his brother’s shadows.

Betrayal burned in her veins like acid.

“No,” she whispered, her voice breaking as she shook her head. Strands of silver hair clung to her face, damp with tears she hadn’t realized she shed. “No, no, no, no. NO !”

It was the only word she could manage to voice.

“Esmyra?” Syrena called from across the basin. “What did you see?”

She turned to her, her once blue eyes blazing and emanating a now silver glow with wrath and pain. “Cyrus is dead,” she choked out, her voice cracking. “My father. They killed him.” Her stare darkened as it lifted to meet her sister’s. “ He killed him.”

Syrena froze, her brow furrowing as her eyes darted back and forth. “Who? Who killed him?”

“The king of men,” Esmyra spat, her voice hardened with rage. Her throat tightened as the name threatened to escape her lips. “And his sons. Both of them were there.” She slammed her fists against the stone edge of the bowl.

The impact sent a shockwave through the room, rattling the tower’s wall, and the pool rippled violently. Sparks danced along her skin, and the surrounding air crackled with the tension of her barely-contained power.

“Esmyra,” Syrena said carefully, “any surge of emotion can cause an eruption of power. We’re not used to keeping it contained. Please, just for a moment, take a breath and calm down.”

Esmyra whirled on her sister, her silver hair levitating and whipping around her like a storm cloud.

“Calm down?” she snarled, her voice rising.

“I saw him. I trusted him. The man who abandoned me here and fled without a word, breaking oaths he had no intention of keeping. Cyrus was freed from his curse, and a moment later, they ripped his life away from him. The life he craved more than the air his lungs refused to take in!”

She paused and took in a breath, her voice darkening. “This was Draevyn’s doing.”

Syrena’s expression hardened. “You’re sure?”

Esmyra nodded, her fists clenched so tightly that blood beaded where her talons bit into her palms. “The Veil doesn’t lie. You said so yourself.”

Her sister stepped forward and placed a hand on Esmyra’s shoulder, her golden glow mingling with the crackling silver sparks that surrounded her. “No,” Syrena admitted, “it doesn’t.”

Esmyra wrenched herself free of Syrena’s grip, pacing the tower like a caged animal.

The weight of what she witnessed pressed down on her like a tidal wave, threatening to drag her under.

Her chest heaved, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t draw a full breath.

It felt as though the room was closing in around her, the walls tightening with every passing second.

Her thoughts were a chaotic storm, each one sharper and more unbearable than the last.

My father is dead. They killed him—Draevyn is the reason he’s dead. I trusted a man, and all it did was shatter my world.

The image of Cyrus collapsing replayed in her mind, over and over, searing itself into her soul.

Sparks danced across her skin, unbidden and wild. The water of the Veil rippled again as a misty steam began to levitate from it, reacting to the surge of her power. She stumbled backward, clutching at her chest as if she could somehow force herself to breathe.

“Esmyra, you need to be careful!” Syrena bellowed, her voice sounding both distant and near all at once.

Everything suddenly became too much. It was her fault— everything was her fault. If she had never left The Night Wraith that day in search of this place, he never would’ve been captured. If she had found a way to break him free of that velsinyte cage, he would be alive, breathing in the sea air.

And if she had never set eyes on Draevyn Rowe, the world would have remained as it always was—hers. But now that was gone. Everything she loved was ripped from her grasp, and she had no one to blame but herself.

“I-I can’t be here.” Esmyra turned and bolted from the tower.

“Wait!” Syrena’s voice echoed behind her, but Esmyra didn’t stop. She couldn’t.

She threw open the door to the chamber and fled down the spiral staircase. The walls blurred as she descended, the narrow staircase twisting endlessly before her, but she didn’t care where she was going. She just had to get out —out of the tower, out of the palace…

Out of Maerinys.

The suffocating weight of the tower gave way to the open air as she burst through the castle’s doors and onto the front steps.

The stairs’ edge loomed ahead, the great open expanse of the city stretching before her, where the crowd remained. She staggered to a stop, her chest heaving as she bent forward, clutching her knees next to the Aeress trident.

But air wouldn’t fill her lungs, and the tempest raging within her couldn’t be calmed.

The all-consuming power she had been holding back now surged to the surface, unrelenting.

Lightning crackled across her skin, brighter and fiercer than ever.

Her tattoos burned with silver-blue light, their intricate designs shifting and swirling.

She gritted her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut as the energy built within her. A wave she couldn’t contain.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Control it!

Her thoughts were frantic. But her control on the magic was slipping through her fingers, barrelling through her, raw and wild, like the storm she always feared would one day consume her.

Memories clawed at her mind, painfully scraping down with sharpened talons. Her father’s kind smile, despite his black heart. The crew aboard The Night Wraith , and how they were her family. The way Draevyn had once looked at her like she was his entire world.

The lies.

The betrayal.

The blade.

The blood .

Esmyra let out a gut-wrenching, soul-shattering scream, her voice breaking as she threw her hands out at her sides while her silver hair whipped violently around her on a conjured wind.

A storm erupted from her in a blinding burst of crackling power—lightning shot from her fingertips, striking the ground and scorching the stone.

She sank to her knees, her head bowed as it raged around her, her tears streaking her glowing skin. Esmyra, no— Kaelypso wanted to scream again, to let the power tear through her until there was nothing left.

“Esmyra, stop !” Syrena’s voice cut through the storm. “You’re going to destroy the dome!”

The dome. That was what kept them trapped beneath the tides .

She knelt there, her chest heaving with raw emotion, as she slowly lifted her gaze and stared up at the vault. The massive barrier shimmered faintly in response, almost as if it were taunting her.

“If it’s a monster they want, then it’s a monster they will fucking get.” Her voice echoed as if it were spoken by a thousand people at once.

Esmyra staggered to her feet, her body humming with the growing power that pulsed within her as her eyes locked on the dome. The sparks around her hands fused into pure streams of lightning, brighter than anything she had unleashed before.

With a look to the trident beside her, she wrapped her taloned, webbed fingers around its staff and watched as her magic surged through it.

Raising her opposite hand to the sky, she let out a cry that was both fury and grief—a primal sound she imagined reached the shore of every kingdom.

Crackling bolts of silver-blue erupted from her fingertips, the force of it making her stagger back as it arced upward.

Her power struck the dome with a deafening crack, and the entire barrier shuddered from the force.

Esmyra gritted her teeth, her hands trembling as more magic surged from her, each bolt growing stronger, more precise.

The dome rippled violently as cracks of light sputtered across its surface like veins.

Gasps and horrified screams rang out from all sides of Maerinys. In the crowd, some were ducking and trying to take cover, while others gazed up in awe.

The power burned through Esmyra relentlessly, but she didn’t flinch. She felt alive in a way she never had before, her energy pouring out in a raw, untamed torrent.

The dome pulsed with light, the once-transparent barrier glowing as if alive. Colors danced across its surface—blues, silvers, and golds intertwining in dazzling patterns. The air grew thick with energy, an electric charge that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end .

Esmyra’s power didn’t relent—only it wasn’t just hers, it was the power of Kaelypso.

The power of a god.

The magic she unleashed grew fiercer, her screams echoing as she allowed her emotions to fuel the storm. As the dome trembled, a low, rumbling groan resonated through its cracking surface.

The entire city shuddered. The trembling intensified, spreading from the ground beneath her feet to the furthest reaches of the kingdom. Buildings creaked and swayed, and more screams rang out from the people.

Esmyra felt the shift deep in her bones—in her soul. The sea surrounding them seemed to roar in response, currents twisting and swirling violently just beyond the fracturing dome.

Then, with one final, earth-shaking crack, the dome burst.

The ocean itself seemed to gasp, currents surging upward as Maerinys itself began to rise.

“ESMYRA!” Syrena screamed, but it faded away on the deafening winds.

And then Esmyra was levitating, her body mimicking the kingdom itself as it ascended to the surface. Her hair fanned around her like a halo, glowing with the same brilliant light as her runes.

The seafloor beneath it heaved upward, and the massive coral-covered cliffs anchoring the kingdom crumbled away as Maerinys broke free of the ocean’s hold.

Whirlpools swirled against its edges, and her heart pounded as her kingdom rose from the depths. The sunlight grew brighter, piercing through the water as they neared the surface at a horrifying speed.

The kingdom’s emergence from the water was marked by a deafening roar of the dome as its remnants shattered the moment it reached the sun’s heat.

Waves crashed, parted, and swirled, sending plumes of salty spray high into the air, as the light of the sun bathed the kingdom for the first time in centuries.

Maerinys shimmered in the sunlight as the last of the water drained from the kingdom’s floor.

Esmyra’s form continued to hover in the air directly before the palace, holding her family’s trident.

As fear subsided, the cheering of the masses commenced, and her body began to shift .

Her gown dissolved like ash in the wind, her legs merging into her long, glittering tail.

Every scale on her body, from the tops of her breasts to the edge of her fins, glittered in the light.

Esmyra Aeress-Blackwood—the goddess of the sea, Kaelypso—hovered in the sky above her kingdom in her siren form, her power pulsating in rhythm with the waves crashing around the city’s edges.

Her gaze dropped to the kingdom below, to the sparkling towers and the disbelieving faces of their people. Directly below her, Syrena watched, jaw agape, as Esmyra achieved the impossible all on her own.

And then her stare turned to the horizon stretching endlessly before her, eyes narrowing as they fixed on the distant line where the sea met the sky—toward Lephyrin.

Esmyra’s jaw clenched, her grip on the trident flexing, sending jolts of power through it. Her internal storm had calmed, but the fury remained, simmering beneath the surface like a volcano ready to erupt.

Wildfire , Draevyn’s voice sounded in her mind.

Esmyra’s lips curled into a cold smile, a chilling promise of retribution pulsating through her.

“I’ll be seeing you, Drae .”