Page 22

Chapter twenty-two

R aggon scrambled up the slick rock leading to the heart arches, just like he’d done as a kid with his brother at the Devil’s Head Cliffs back home. Every movement sent fresh pain lancing through the gashes on his back where the boar’s tusks had scored him. Shifting through the misty air and hoping to find a perfect perch when he reappeared was nearly impossible.

He glanced down at Thessa—poor mermaid was just learning to use her legs, and now he was asking her to scramble up a towering cliff’s edge with a twisted ankle? “Wait there,” he called.

“No! You can’t touch the Undine Blade!” she cried out. “The cursed hair from the mermaids will wither your flesh to bones if you accidentally brush against it.”

Good point. The heat and pain made noodles of his brain, but so was the thought of putting Thessa in danger. At the same time, becoming nothing but a fancy pile of bones wasn’t appealing when so many depended on him to survive this. The shadow of his brother swept over them. Back and forth he flew like a bird of prey—their protector or circling his next juicy meal? There was no way to know!

A flash of prismatic feathers darted beneath the dragon’s massive wingspan. Sterling perched on a nearby branch, cocking his head at them. “Dead men tell no tales!” the bird squawked, followed by, “Help her, you bilge rat!”

Raggon blinked, recognizing his brother’s favored insult in the parrot’s mimicry. More of Tobias remained than they’d feared. Either way, they were on borrowed time. Raggon began his descent to reach Thessa at the ledge. They’d be fools not to know that Circe was holding back, waiting for them to retrieve the blade before she moved in.

He’d cut Tobias free before she made her attack. As for resurrecting Poseidon? What did that mean? Releasing his mermaid to the sea? His heart hurt at the prospect.

Don’t think about that right now.

Survival first, keeping her came later. Raggon dropped back to the ledge where Thessa stood. He dug his foot into a crevice in the rocks. “Stand on my knee.”

He already knew she’d protest, but this time her usual rebellion was halfhearted, as she scrambled for some kind of handhold on the rocks. The twisted ankle made her movements hesitant, her face contorting with each shift of weight. Under his barked orders, she gained the next outcropping, stopping at a narrow shelf with nowhere visible to go.

He caught up to her, running his hand over her back. She was shaking like a sail in a squall. His mermaid was so far out of her element from her jaunty underworld that she had no choice but to accept his help.

The path upward narrowed treacherously, the limestone face slick with emerald moss and trailing vines. Each movement tore at the wounds on his back, sweat stinging the open cuts. His bruised shoulder protested as he hauled himself higher, then reached back to guide her.

“Place your foot exactly where mine was,” he instructed, voice tight with the effort of sounding calmer than he felt. “The moss is slippery, but the rock beneath is solid.”

Thessa followed, her face pale with concentration. Her robe drifted around her legs like an ominous cloud, the delicate fabric catching on every jagged edge.

They were almost to the heart-shaped arch when it happened. A chunk of limestone crumbled beneath her good foot. Her startled cry pierced the jungle calm as she slipped. Her hands flailed desperately. Her garish finery flying outward as she teetered on the edge.

Raggon lunged, ignoring the tearing sensation across his back. His fingers closed around her wrist, slick with steam and sweat. For one terrifying moment, her full weight hung from his grip, threatening to pull them both into the churning pool below.

Her dark eyes, wide with panic but burning with determination, locked onto his. Feeling that same wild fight for survival, he let out a primal roar that rivaled the crash of the waterfall, and bracing himself, dragged her up and over the final ledge, muscles straining against their limits.

They collapsed together against the rock face, his arms instinctively wrapping around her. He could feel her stomach move in and out with desperate gasps for air—breaths she wouldn’t be taking if he’d been a heartbeat slower.

They were safe… for now! “That was too close.” The words scraped his dry throat.

She didn’t answer, only buried her face into his chest with a ragged sigh, her fingers tightening around him. Her heart hammered against his, their rhythms matching in ferocity.

“Beware the witch! Beware the witch!” Sterling squawked, flapping frantically above them while Tobias let out a reptilian screech that echoed across the lagoon.

Now that they’d reached the ledge, they had only a moment to catch their breath before they could figure out where Undine hid her blade. “Where did our queen put it…?”

“… as far from her hand as possible,” he answered.

The stories said this blade had nearly killed her beloved. As his heart turned to Thessa, he understood—Undine would never be able to bear the reminder of how she almost lost everything.

Still holding firmly to Thessa with one arm, he steadied himself with the other, pressing his fingers behind him against the rock.

Thessa’s scream pierced his skull, making him flinch at the sound of desperation and fear.

He froze, just as she dove forward, blocking his hand from moving another hairsbreadth. Pressing into him, as if to keep him from moving, she reached around him. The cruel scrape of the blade left its hollow in the rock where it had been lodged more than a thousand years ago, where his hand had almost grazed the deadly siren strands that flicked through the air like the tongues of venomous snakes.

And then the hum from the blade as Thessa clutched it. Undine’s Blade craved blood. Blood! Was it his that it wanted? “Give me! Give me vengeance!”

He’d felt the blade’s hunger before as its presence reached for him through the dark mirror when he’d been helplessly imprisoned by the witch’s tentacles and couldn’t run! The cliff’s edge also stopped him, though the danger was very real. He could feel its ancient power as the words screamed into his soul. His ears had nothing to do with hearing its wails—the warnings transcended language. “We are to be touched only by the heirs of the Divine Sea Sovereignty!”

Was that not what Thessa was? Of course, she was… except the blade did not seem convinced as its malice prickled through him . “All else with wither at our touch! Are you ours, girl? Declare your worthiness!” The dagger gleamed in Thessa’s hands, its hilt wrapped in iridescent strands of mermaid hair that could only belong to her aunts more than a thousand years ago—silken threads of azure, emerald, and pearl that pulsed with their own light. The blade itself captured the sunlight, glowing with an inner radiance that spoke of magic they’d never known in their lifetime.

“Daughter of Poseidon… how? How can you be… with legs?”

Panic shot through him. Would the blade accept her touch? Would she melt before its power? But he was the one who would die if he touched it… nothing had prepared him for this twist of fate!

“Thessa,” he breathed. If they were wrong… there was still time to rescue her from this. “Let it go! We’ll find another way to bring the blade to your father. Just release it!”

She didn’t… maybe couldn’t. Her dark eyes were far away as if seeing another world.

“Are you worthy, little pretty?” the blade’s hiss was sharp as its form. “How? You have conspired with the sons of men—with this… prince? You’ve given your heart to him!”

That was it! It would kill her! He didn’t care if he died wrestling this wicked, prattling blade from her hands. Digging his fingers into the cliff’s side, he repositioned himself where he could snatch this threat cleanly from her, even as its menacing voice grated through his every stretched nerve.

“You must turn this blade on the heart of the enemy… is that you, little damsel? After you’ve betrayed your people, your sisters, your father? Or do you have it in you to run me through the heart of another?”

She turned to Raggon. Her hands tightened on the hilt. Horror knotted through his gut as the blade’s triumphant shriek wormed its way through every instinct that told him to battle for his life, and he wouldn’t. He’d save her from this! He got ready to block her strike, if he could without hurting her.

Her lips firmed, her shoulders going taut, every part of her stiffening, even that cute little furrow between her delicate brows. Her breath turned ragged as she fought… for what—against an order to kill him or against the blade itself?

“The enemy of our people is near! The enemy! You will sss—” The blade was silenced with a “hiss.” Her hand lowered. Relief scorched into blotches of red standing out against her pale cheeks as she let out a sigh.

What had happened?

“Only the heirs of the Sea Sovereignty can tame it,” she whispered.

He realized how hard he was breathing at the near-fatal plummet to his death, and then… at the magnificence of Thessa holding the blade, her red hair flowing around her shoulders and looking every bit as vibrant as what colorful strands belonged to her ancestors.

And he was a sick, sick man. Why was he thinking of how pretty she was at a time like this? She’d almost run him through.

And she hadn’t. That told him everything he needed to know. Of course, that didn’t stop him from having to fill up his depleted lungs again with forgotten air. “What now?” he asked through shaky breaths. “How do you bring this… blade to your father?”

“We’ll cut off Tobias’s bonds first with it… and then I have until sunset to…” she stuttered to a stop, meeting his eyes.

Immediately, he knew she was keeping something back from him. Whatever this secret was had stood between them from the beginning and served as the last defense between him and her heart. “Why sunset?” he demanded. “What happens then?”

A faint smile trembled and failed on her lips. “We have until the sea drowns the sun. We’ll figure this out.”

That wasn’t enough! How did he get her to trust him? What good were a few stolen kisses when she kept her secrets locked away? He’d grappled with the tormenting question over and over again, and now he had to press her harder. “Thessa… you’ve got to tell me how to end this curse. You’ve touched the blade, and now you must answer its… its demands. It asked for blood!”

The shadow crossing her face confirmed what he suspected—ending the curse would demand something far more terrible than love.

Her voice sounded hollow. “Circe is coming for us. The blade’s purpose will come naturally.”

He was left to no doubt of her meaning. She was going to face Circe with this weapon. Cold dread slammed into him like a cannonball to the chest. How? He’d only barely taught her how to defend herself with a dagger. And now she was expected to take out the enemy of her people with it?

Just a few seconds earlier, he’d thought that enemy might be himself. It could be worse… but would Undine’s Blade just accept any nasty’s heart that threatened the people of the sea?

Her gaze lifted to the circling dragon. “Please! Let’s help Tobias while we can! He’ll stay this way forever if we don’t get to him before—before…”

Raggon nodded with grim resolution, his every thought consumed on why she’d refused to tell him of her dark fate in the first place, because Thessa wasn’t meant for facing Circe, that’s why! Her hand was crafted for healing, not bloodshed. And now somehow, they had to tempt the dumb creature that Tobias had become to their sides, cut off a collar that had partially become part of his tough, gleaming flesh, before they faced the most terrifying being in existence.

And they only had until the sea drowned the sun. What could possibly go wrong?