Page 37 of The Deep End of Death (Twilight Lake #4)

I cradled the stone in trembling hands, like a baby bird I couldn’t let go of.

All those weeks ago, I had chosen to end it all—rearing back and smashing my head against the High Throne until the Kraken’s eye had freed itself.

I had bled for the stone.

It was mine.

I had earned it.

I needed it.

The stone pulsed, echoing my pain back to me. It seemed to stick to the skin on my palms, clinging as if reluctant to be set free.

The Kraken shifted his monstrous body, and the walls of the trench moved—made up of monstrous purple tentacles with suckers as large as large as my body.

A loud clicking sound filled the water, vibrating against my skin. Something stirred in the shadows of the chasm below. A beak emerged from the darkness, opening and shutting, searching for food—the Kraken’s mouth.

“Drop the stone in its mouth,” Rainn suggested, speaking through the corner of his lips.

“What if it chokes?” Shay’s brow furrowed.

“So what if it does?” Cormac growled. “All the better for us.”

I didn’t want to let go of the stone.

“It’s mine.” My voice came out as a strange growl.

Cormac, closest to me, startled and turned towards me. Eying me as if I had gone mad. His crimson tail flicked with irritation. “Maeve...” His eyes flashed in warning.

I pressed the stone to my chest.

“I can’t.” My teeth were locked together. Every muscle was rigid. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t pry apart my fingers. You won’t defeat Balor without me the stone growled, using my mouth to speak. I was a puppet, unable to move even an inch.

“Grab her!” Shay’s eyes widened, sensing the maliciousness of the stone through our bond. “Get the stone!”

My voice mingled with the stones. “ Mine !”

The Kraken clicked its beak in frustration. “ I need my eye!” he shouted, sounding like crashing rocks in my skull. “ I cannot become whole again without my eye! ”

The nearest tentacle pried itself from the wall and swept towards me. I pointed my toes and stepped off the ledge, sinking down in the water and further into the gloom. Avoiding another tentacle by a hair as it tried to send me into the chasm wall—a hit I might not have survived.

Overhead, a flash of silver signaled that Rainn had changed forms. Selkies were faster in seal form, and Rainn easily avoided the Kraken’s wrath.

Shay’s teeth mashed together. “Get Maeve!”

Cormac dove from the ledge and followed me into the gloom.

It was my stone.

They couldn’t have it.

The deeper into the darkness, my vision wavered until I wasn’t entirely sure of my reality. I kept to the side, avoiding the snapping beak.

I swam for my life, consumed by the stone. My body was weak, but the roaring voice in my skull urged me forward.

“ You made a bargain, Maeve Cruinn !” the Kraken roared. “ Give me my eye !”

“Maeve...” Cormac’s voice wavered as he swam on my heels. “I’d do what the creature wants. Before it eats us!”

It wasn’t my body anymore. Maeve was gone, pushed into a small corner of my brain, battering fists against an invisible barrier. Watching my body as if I were a passenger, not a captain.

The Kraken lashed out with one of his tentacles, and while Shay managed to escape the limb, it recoiled back and scooped him up, wrapping around his body and squeezing. His face flushed red, and his teeth bared as he thrashed to escape.

Rainn continued to duck and weave through the Kraken’s limbs, but even I could see he was getting tired.

A hand wrapped around my ankle, pulling me down. Cormac had caught me when my attention had been elsewhere. His teeth flashed, and his golden hair had come loose from his braid as he grinned at me.

“Got ya, you fecking bitch.”

I kicked out, my heel making contact with his nose as I scrambled away. He cupped his face, cursing. Blood formed a cloud in the water, obscuring his vision enough for me to swim away.

“Maeve Cruinn. That eye is mine!” The Kraken roared, and his beak clicked once more before a plume of dark ink rose, stealing my vision and turning the water black as night.

I was the water.

The water was me.

I didn’t need my eyes to see.

A voice curled around me, belonging to everyone and no one. Not even the Kraken.

It was a screaming female.

“HOW DARE YOU CHOOSE HER AND NOT ME!”

I recognized the voice, but I couldn’t place it.

“I’LL TAKE YOUR EYES, OLL-ATHAIR!”

My head splintered in pain. The words belonged to a memory that wasn’t mine.

Cormac used that moment to wrap himself around my body.

His tail mimicked the Kraken’s tentacle as he gripped my hand, forming a bracelet with his fingers.

He wrenched my hand to my chest, and with both his arms around my body, he tried to wrestle the stone from me.

Prying each finger from the stone, one by one.

There was another part of me, something different from the greedy, petty darkness that formed my grip on the Kraken’s eye. “You can’t touch it,” I whispered, my voice like a fresh stream amongst muck. “Cormac, you can’t touch the stone.”

“Return that fecking thing to the beast.” His teeth were bared with strain as he wrestled with my closed fist. “Let it go, Maeve. We’ll give the beast that stone, and it’ll be over.

We’ll go back to the Siren Queen. We’ll find a way home.

Maeve… Maeve…” Cormac’s voice shook. He said my name as a plea.

“ Oll-Athair ,” I whispered the name I had heard.

The Kraken stopped moving. The band of tentacles around Shay loosened above us.

Cormac flinched. “What did you say?”

“ Oll-Athair ,” I repeated. “That’s your name, isn’t it? Kraken?”

The tentacles seemed to all but disappear. Retracting back to the cavern walls.

“ Drop the stone, and you may leave with your lives .” The Kraken’s previous anger had been replaced with calm resolve.

Cormac, realizing that the only thing that stood between death and freedom was that stone, renewed his effort to peel my fingers away.

He was stronger than me. No matter how I could wield the water or pull blood from a body with sheer will, I had never held a sword. I was no Troid Sídhe. I was Maeve.

Just Maeve.

Cormac used my distraction to make the final push. My fist uncurled, and the stone fell through my fingers. I felt the sea pulse, rippling through every drop.

I couldn’t move.

It was gone. The darkness, the screaming, it had dissolved.

I hadn’t realized how heavy the burden had been until it had left my shoulders.

I hated the High Throne. Just thinking about the horrid stone chair back in Cruinn made me sick to my stomach—why had I held onto the fecking thing for so long?

Cormac reached out, acting on impulse. He caught the stone as it dropped into the water, his body folding in on itself, his scream locked behind his teeth.

Blood pooled in the water, and his eyes turned white as he thrashed. Cormac’s crimson tail knocked into me. The Kraken unleashed a shrill scream as his eye changed hands.

I slammed back into my body. I reached for Cormac as blood ran down his face from his eyes. Horror played out over his features as he was locked in some kind of nightmare. I clawed at his body, screaming his name.

The world narrowed to a point.

His tail began to dissolve, the fin disappearing into the water. His hand was locked around the stone, drowning in its magic. Locked in the grip of the Kraken’s eye.

Cormac Illfinn was turning to foam.

He was dying.

I threw myself at his body as it slipped through my fingers.

I grabbed the water with my magic, but he kept slipping away.

I screamed, clawing at the water. My teeth gritted as I pulled more magic.

His hands dissolved, and the stone dropped to the sea floor so slowly it could have been a feather.

Cormac was gone.

I wasn’t going to let him die.

I threw myself into the water where he had been a moment before, becoming the water and mixing myself with the foam.

I wasn’t going to let him die.