Page 49 of Broken Hearted
Unbidden, images of Adrien being shredded to pieces rose in my mind. The water turning red with his blood. His life, slipping from him as he was pulled to the depths in the jaws of a shark.
I thought I’d felt true fear a moment before, but the terror that ran through me now was nothing compared to anything that I’d ever felt before.
I struggled to follow him, my movements stilted and jerky. Adrien was already halfway to his men when a pair of gray scale-covered arms shot out of the water and grabbed Mathis from behind. The young sailor didn’t even have time to scream before he was hauled under the waves.
What the stars was that?
A few of Adrien’s men pulled the short swords that had been strapped at their hips and slashed out wildly at the water.
“Sirens!” one of the sailors screamed and then one by one, scaly arms and webbed fingers jutted from the choppy water and pulled Adrien’s men under.
Sirens?
Shock ripped through me. I didn’t know much about the fabled sea creatures except that they were bloodthirsty and cunning. They were said to use their voices to lure sailors into the waters where they dragged them under to feast on their flesh. But in this case, we were all already in the water, so they didn’t need to use their deadly song to get us in the sea. We had swum right into their trap and were completely powerless.
Adrien stopped suddenly and turned toward me. “Swim, Isolde. Swim away!” he yelled, dread shining in his eyes.
He started to frantically paddle back toward me, his strokes fast and desperate.
I didn’t know what to do. Swim toward Adrien and the swarm of sirens, or away? And if away, what was I swimming toward? This was their domain. There was nowhere for me to hide, so I stayed where I was, frozen by indecision.
Adrien was only two strokes away when his eyes suddenly went wide and from one blink to the next, he was yanked under the water.
Chapter Sixteen
“Adrien,” I screamed, twisting in the water to try to see him, but clouds had rolled in, blotting out the sun, darkening the waves so I couldn’t see more than a few feet down.
I was just about to dive to look for him when a hand wrapped around my ankle. I managed one final gulp of air before I was dragged down too.
Sharp claws dug into my flesh as I was yanked through the water. I couldn’t make sense of up or down and my vision was a blurry mess of bubbles. On instinct I reached for my power, preparing to freeze whatever creature had hold of me, but of course nothing happened.
I wanted to scream in frustration, but held back. The air in my lungs was all I had left.
I kicked out, thrashing in the water like a madwoman, but my foot only connected with water and more water, and the grip on my ankle never loosened.
How much time did I have left before I passed out? A minute? Thirty seconds?
Already my lungs were starting to burn, and my energy was waning. The pressure on my ears was so intense that it felt like my head would explode at any moment.
Something flashed blue in my peripheral vision and I realized that by some miracle, I still held my faestone dagger in my fist. The chunk of kyanite embedded in the handle caught some errant ray of light that pierced the watery depths and flashed blue.
With what felt like my last bit of strength, I folded my body, tucking my knees to my chest, and blindly struck at the siren towing me through the sea. My first strike was fruitless, but the second one connected.
I had no idea where I’d stabbed the creature, but my blade sunk into it almost to the hilt. The clawed hand immediately released my ankle and then a shriek like I’d never heard before pierced my eardrums. I wanted to slap my hands over my ears to block out the noise, but I refused to give up my dagger to do so.
I pulled my dagger free and struck out again, feeling it scrape against something, and the scream intensified. The pain in my ears reached unfathomable levels, and then it felt like something popped in my head and the pain subsided. I knew I’d ruptured an eardrum, maybe both, but it was the least of my worries right now because I was well and truly out of air.
I could tell the surface was above me because of the hazy light overhead, but my limbs weren’t obeying me. I tried to kick, but spasms made my muscles twitch.
How far down was I? Twenty feet? Thirty? More? Would the buoyancy in my body help me float to the surface?
My lungs screamed at me to breathe, but I kept my mouth shut,knowing that if I inhaled seawater, it would truly be over. But as the seconds ticked by, my vision started to wink in and out.
Suddenly, a face appeared in front of me and even in my weakened state, I jerked back. Even though my vision was blurry and distorted underwater, the creature was close enough that I could tell the face had some fish-like features. It had two large, all-black eyes and a flattened nose with two slits that looked more like gills than nose holes. Its flesh looked scaly and a mass of black hair grew from its head and floated in the water around us.
There was a jagged cut on the side of its face, that ran from its forehead, just narrowly missing its eye, down to its chin. It was clearly furious.
The creature opened its mouth to reveal three rows of serrated teeth and then the worse sound imaginable emerged. I quickly discovered I could only hear out of one ear—which I was thankful for in that moment—but even so, the noise scraped against the inside of my skull like someone was trying to scoop out my brain with a dull spoon.
