Page 3

Chapter three

T here wasn’t enough gunpowder to fight off Circe’s magical hordes! The acrid smell of smoke mixed with sea salt as another cannon boomed uselessly against their otherworldly ships.

All around Raggon, his men were dying, and it was all his fault. The soldiers from the Land Witch’s ships were formed of some substance that was more than man—part brute, part animal. The hulking beasts were more numerous than ants with the joints of grasshoppers, their guttural roars drowning out the creak of the straining rigging. They’d flown from their ships in great leaps, growling and tearing apart any flesh they could find with their bare hands.

Raggon stabbed one attacker through, his blade meeting resistance like piercing leather, only for another to come at him with a bone-chilling shriek. The deck boards groaned beneath their massive weight.

“Beware! Beware!”

Hearing the cry of the parrot’s shrill warning cutting through the chaos, he turned to see his brother cornered by three of these lumbering monsters against the ship’s scarred mainmast. The parrot danced from foot to foot in a show of distress.

“Stand together!” someone bellowed from the quarterdeck. “For the love of Poseidon, stand together!”

Shouting out, Raggon cut through his attacker and dissolved into a spray of seafoam—that peculiar sensation of becoming nothing but water and air coursing through him. He materialized at the mast in a swirl of mist, his blade already singing through the air as he dispatched another of his brother’s attackers, followed by another.

The creatures fell with inhuman howls that made his skin crawl. They carried nets in their clawed fingers, the hemp ropes gleaming with an unnatural sheen. The cursed creatures reached for Tobias and stumbled over their feet when the lad disappeared and materialized behind them, leaving nothing but the scent of salt water in his wake.

Why were they trying to catch his brother?

Could it be that Circe had another plan for the princes instead of killing them? Raggon wasn’t about to discover the truth the hard way. His brother might be protected by using his inherited gifts from the royal curse of Undine, but there were only so many places Tobias could go.

The sea trapped them aboard the ship. Number one rule—never shift in water! The seafoam they’d become there would instantly disperse, losing them forever in the vast depths. To make things worse, the upper and lower decks were crawling with the enemy. The ship itself seemed to groan in protest at their presence, its timbers creaking like it was trying to shake off parasites.

That meant Raggon had to exterminate every last one of them!

He ran through the invaders, disappearing in and out of the air in a spray of mist that left droplets glittering in the chaos. Each time he materialized, his blade found another mark. He hardly cared that he wasn’t fighting fair—he meant to save as many of his men as he could. Through the haze of battle, he noticed the Duke was at the helm, shouting orders that the men no longer heeded over the cacophony of steel on steel and inhuman screams.

A shout alerted Raggon from behind. “Ho! Mangy mudskippers! Fall back!” This one sounded more human. “You’ll never catch the royals that way! Get the manacles. Bring water!”

Twisting on his heel, Raggon groaned at seeing that Captain Maddox had boarded their ship, his boots leaving wet prints on the blood-slicked deck. A slight breeze moved his greasy black beard, carrying with it the stench of unwashed leather and gunpowder.

A large man in his own right—though nothing compared to these strange beasts—he moved with a smoother gait, jingling with weapons as he walked. Three flintlock pistols were thrust through his sash, and two cutlasses hung at his hips, one already drawn and dripping red.

His eyes were fixed on Raggon, a sneer curling against his thick lips. “Ready to pay for what you did to my ship, you highborn brat? By the darkest trench, I’ll have satisfaction!”

Seeing his brother had gone to the rigging, Raggon turned his attention to his newest foe. A beast came between them, its shadow cutting across the deck. Before he could dispatch it, a smoking hole was blown through its chest with a thunderous crack. The beast dropped with a wet thud, revealing Maddox behind it, pistol still smoking.

“Who knew the dread Shadow of the Tide was nothing but a craven prince hiding behind magic?” Maddox shouted. “I’d drown you like the rats you are if I had the freedom.”

Raggon stepped back, salt spray stinging his eyes as he readied for the fight. “You don’t have the guts to finish this?”

“Circe wants you alive.”

Raggon would die first, and he’d take Maddox with him! “You turned against my family,” he said, voice raw with rage. “You destroyed your own people.”

“You betrayed us first!” Maddox shouted, spittle spraying from his lips. The ship lurched beneath them as another cannon found its mark somewhere below the waterline.

Enough talk! Raggon moved for him, dissolving into a vaporous cloud. He couldn’t physically strike until he reappeared, but when he did, he’d be close enough to slit the man’s throat.

He materialized three paces closer, his form condensing from mist to flesh just as Maddox stepped back, anticipating the attack. The pirate’s sword met his with a ring of steel. Switching directions, Raggon swung again, feeling the bite of the man’s blade scoring his stomach.

The man’s hot, fetid breath washed over him with a laugh. “The Land Witch said nothing about bringing you to her in one piece.”

Raggon stumbled back, crimson spreading across his shirt as he also drew his dagger. He’d finish this festering bilge rat. Watching one of Circe’s cursed soldiers tottering behind Maddox, he disappeared again, this time materializing to face the beast. It let out a roar that shook the rigging. Raggon drove his blade deep, then brought his boot down hard against its massive knee. The beast fell like a heavy oak, right into Maddox, ending the pirate’s curses with a grunt.

Raggon lunged for the kill, his body already dissolving into seafoam. He was halfway through his transformation, his essence scattered in droplets through the air, when the first note of a song pierced the chaos of battle—like the sun piercing through the clouds, in a sound that was alluring and terrifying all at once. The melody resonated through the rigging and seemed to emanate from the sea itself. Each note carried the weight of ancient depths.

As Raggon moved, he noticed that men and beast alike stood frozen in place, swords and fists raised mid-strike, faces twisted in expressions of rage and fear. The world hadn’t completely stopped—the masts still swayed dangerously, and smoke curled from burning wood and powder. The ship groaned beneath them like a dying thing.

Behind them, near the splintered gunwale, came that soul-shattering music—from what could only be a woman whose beauty was as terrible as a storm at sea. Her copper hair writhed around her shoulders like living flame, and her eyes held the darkness of the deepest trenches. A siren, without a doubt—she’d sing them all to death.

For surely, none of them could survive this!

Raggon snapped back to existence, no longer able to keep from shifting back to his human form. As he became whole, he felt his limbs grow rigid, each joint locking into place like a statue being carved from living flesh.

Was this how they meant to capture the prince of Sylphoria? With the voice of a siren? Only Maddox was also caught in the same snare, his frozen glare directed near the spot where Raggon had first disappeared.

Raggon’s breath came in ragged gasps as he stared at the otherworldly female. Her eyes met his, and the intensity in those fathomless depths jolted through him like fire. Some distant part of him recognized the danger, but he couldn’t look away—didn’t want to look away.

Ironic that such beauty would kill him.

And what was he thinking? Fury coursed through him. Was she controlling his thoughts, making him desire her? Even now, he longed to touch the rosiness of her skin, see if it was as soft as he thought. And no, this wasn’t real. The velvety depth of her song was to blame.

Above them, timber cracked with a sound like breaking bones. The yardarm plummeted toward the deck, trailing ropes and burning canvas. The impact jarred the deck beneath his boots, sending a violent jolt through him as it split the weathered planks with a thunderous crash. Seawater rushed through the breach, curling around his legs.

His tongue worked uselessly against his mouth. He was unable to cry out, to defend himself as the deck tilted beneath him. Raggon’s stomach lurched, and he fell backwards. The ship disappeared in a blur of color and the tropical warmth of the sea rushed up to catch him.

He toppled into its depths, the siren’s song following him down into darkness as the roar of water closed over him. The rest of the deck followed him, and something rough landed onto his arm, then punched into his stomach. Unable to twist from this new danger, his head rammed against a splintered piece of wreckage.

The fading notes of the otherworldly melody were swallowed in the deadly arms of the sea.