Page 3 of The Deep End of Death (Twilight Lake #4)

“… They betrayed you … You should peel their flesh from their bones…Feed the lake with their blood… ”

The sour scent of fear filled the air. My filthy clothes stuck to my skin, wet with my blood and sweat. My heartbeat roared in my ears, muffling all other sounds.

I lay utterly still, listening to the rhythmic sounds of the others sleeping. I shifted my body so as not to make a sound as I reached into my pocket, brushing my hand against my stolen piece of the High Throne—a pitted stone no bigger than a clenched fist.

Pain blossomed like the spines of an urchin embedded in my skin. It stung, but I couldn’t let go of the stone.

Power beyond comprehension. Give yourself to me

The door clicked open, and I didn’t need to sit up to know that it was Tormalugh, one of my Shíorghrá.

Lowered voices revealed Rainn and Shay had not been asleep as I thought. I didn’t sit up. I wasn’t sure I had the energy to.

“Have the wounds on her back healed yet?” Tor’s voice was a low rumble.

“She won’t let me tend to the cuts,” Shay said pointedly.

Tormalugh sighed. The bed squeaked, signaling that he had sat down. “The Siren Queen has chartered a boat. We leave tomorrow.”

Silence.

Rainn spluttered. “But… Maeve !”

“The Siren Queen believes that Balor will target Belisama’s cradle and that we should be far from here when that happens.” Tormalugh continued.

His low voice dissolved into a rumble, like the dull roar of water crashing against the beach.

I let go of the stone and pulled my hand from my pocket. My palm was wet. I brought it up to my face. My skin was coated in a hundred pinpricks. Slick with blood.

The men went silent.

I felt their attention like a burning iron brand against my skin. I would have shied away from it, but couldn’t bring myself to feel much of anything.

There was something inside of me, something new. Darkness lurked under my skin, forming a barrier between my body and emotions. It was as if I were a skin filled with the Deep. The endless void I had seen in the holes of Balor’s face.

A ship lost at sea.

I sat up. Every wound on my back burned and pulled. I hadn’t healed as I would have liked. Perhaps it had something to do with the High Throne’s magic. How long had it been since I’d been forced down on the High Throne’s teeth? The days blurred into one.

“Maeve?” Rainn’s tentative voice, filled with concern, should have broken something in me.

I clenched my bloody hand into a fist and dug my knuckles into my thigh. “We leave in the morning, then?”

“First light.” Tormalugh’s lips pinched together. “Cormac delivered the news.”

A wave of dizziness washed over me. Rainn rushed forward, his arms extended as if he meant to catch me. I was already in bed and didn’t have far to fall. I waved the Selkie away, unable to deal with whatever guilt he needed to assuage.

“You need your rest,” Rainn told me. “Your cuts—”

I rolled my eyes. “The High Throne gave me these wounds. They will take longer to heal. They always do.”

Shay stood. “If you allowed me to touch you—"

I bared my teeth and snapped my reply. “They’ll heal in time.”

Shay pulled his lips between his teeth, sucking in whatever retort gathered on his tongue. His eyes flashed a myriad of colors before finally settling on the pale ice blue Shay favored when emotions ran high.

All of the Princelings remained silent.

“Whatever it is, you can say it.” I snapped. “I’m not made of glass.”

“We don’t think—” Rainn interrupted himself, sinking down onto the end of my bed. He rubbed his hand over his mouth, gathering his thoughts. “The Siren Queen is sending us across the Night Court on a fool’s mission.”

“Because of Balor,” I added dryly. “She wants us far from the Siren stronghold in case Balor decides to come for me.”

“Balor needs you to sit on the High Throne.” Tormalugh’s dark eyes flashed.

“Yes.” I said, “She told me as much.”

There were so many secrets, desperate to escape my teeth.

Belisama is my mother.

Balor killed my mother.

I couldn’t bring myself to tell them.

Rainn and Tor knew about the woman at Shay’s wedding ceremony. Belisama had granted the Nymphs an audience and gifted Shay a mating mark on his chest—the same mark I wore under my linen shift.

I couldn’t let Shay heal me.

I couldn’t let him see the mark.

Belisama was my mother, but my mother was dead.

I wanted to scream.

And I couldn’t say a single word.

The three males in my room felt like strangers to me.

They had enjoyed themselves at the royal harem while I had been strapped down to the High Throne and bled like prey.

Their guilt was plain. Every look, every covert glance, stank of it.

“Maeve?” Tor’s heavy brow furrowed. “Do you need me to fetch a healer? A female, perhaps?” He did not look at Shay when he spoke.

I shook my head, fighting the urge to pull the stone from my pocket. To cradle it between my hands and feel the magic through my skin, giving me strength.

Balor had cut away my connection to the Twilight Lake when we had been in Cruinn. It had been a week, and I didn’t feel quite right. It was as if my old self had been stolen and drip-fed back into my body like raindrops from a leaf.

“I’m fine,” I assured them. I was able to say it, so it must have been true.

The last time I’d swam in the Dark Sea, I’d made a bargain with the Kraken—and the bastard had haunted my dreams ever since.

It was challenging to comprehend the sheer size of the Dark Sea compared to my home, the Twilight Lake.

The water extended as far as the eye could see, and though the magic of the Night Court ensured the sun would not rise, its presence was still felt as the moon’s reflection bathed the water in starlight.

Each wave-tip glinted as it reared up before disappearing back into the gloom.

The Twilight Lake, my home, had felt like a playful friend. Eager to help. The Dark Sea was much more. Ancient and foreboding. It didn’t help that the dark and endless water was also home to the Kraken, a beast so large that it could scale the entirety of the sea in an hour if it chose to.

We’d walked from Belisama’s cradle, down the cliff steps, to the forgotten beach, a stone’s throw from Siren’s Cove. We’d left before the thin line of sunlight graced the horizon, piercing the darkness of the Night Court. My body ached from walking on land. Every step felt like walking on needles.

Rainn looked around the beach, nudging a piece of driftwood with his foot. His nose wrinkled. “The Sirens have a perfectly beautiful beach right here. There are caves on the cliffs, and I can see them from here. Why don’t they make their homes here?”

“They used to.” I breathed in the scent of salt water. I was more willing to speak as long as I didn’t have to talk about myself and how I felt. “The pirates drove the Sirens away from the Dark Sea. They hunt Sirens for their wings.”

“The golden feathers?” Rainn’s brow arched. “I always wondered why the Siren Queen had black wings when the rest of the Sirens favored precious metals. I suppose it’s because Nuada is the god of darkness, wind, and war.”

“Hmm.” I turned to face the sea.

“Maeve…” Rainn pressed his hand to my bicep.

His skin was warm, and his fingertips callused.

He opened his mouth and closed it again.

“I don’t know what I can say, what words I can put in the right order to tell you how sorry I am that I couldn’t keep my promise.

That I wasn’t there when it mattered. That I fell under that bitch’s enchantment—”

Before I could ask what he meant, Cormac, pacing the shore a short distance from us, cursed as he eyed the empty horizon.

The journey to the Dark Sea had been arduous for me, but it had been torturous for Cormac. He was unused to being without his tail for much longer than a day at most. The Mer hadn’t stopped moaning since we’d fled the lake and sought asylum with the Sirens.

But even Cormac’s griping was better than the concern .

“Maeve, are you—” Rainn began to ask.

“Stop.” I interrupted.

If one more person asked if I was okay, I would cut out their tongue, tie it into a fetching bow, and wear it atop my head for all to see as a message that I was done with their fecking questions.

Tormalugh approached us both, his hands in his pockets. “No sign of the boat?”

Rainn shook his head.

I tucked my hands under my armpits to ward off the chill.

I had little faith in our ability to cross the water unscathed.

We weren’t that lucky.

Cormac paced the water's edge, glaring at each wave as if it had wronged him. Skipping out of the way as if frightened of his feet getting wet.

Rainn and Tormalugh waited at my shoulders, my own personal guards.

As if they could protect me.

Shay was nowhere to be seen. Which was just as well. The Nymph had been an instant hit the moment he’d come to Belisama’s cradle. Though he hadn’t taken any of the Sirens to his bed, I had no illusions that it was because Shay Mac Eoin cared even a mite about my feelings.

I could count on one hand how many words I had spoken to each of the Princelings since we had left the Twilight Lake.

Words felt too heavy, weighing down my tongue. I couldn’t articulate exactly what was broken inside of me, but something had cracked under my skin, leaking an oily darkness into my blood.

Cormac’s jaw was stiff as he glared at the sea. “We’re too far into the Night Court. There’s no sunlight at all. How do those feckers tell the time?”

Rainn and Tormalugh exchanged a glance.

I rolled my eyes but did not answer.

Cormac huffed and stepped away from the shore. His footsteps crunched against the pebbles on the beach. “Where’s this fecking boat?”