I glanced around for the presence of one. For a house or cabin that I hadn’t seen when I’d crawled ashore. If it were there, I couldn’t see it.
Dripping water echoed.
Shadows slithered low in the corners of the rock, gathering behind my head. I tried to look, but I couldn’t move. My limbs had turned to marble. Cold gripped the sides of my arms, biting into my flesh. Something pulled me upright, the motion sending a frothy cough from my mouth. The hairs on my neck raised.
Clouds shifted across the sky, blotting stars one at a time like candles being snuffed out. Wet fingers brushed my hair across my shoulders, gathering it at my back. The final star died.
I tried to turn. Angling my gaze up, I tilted my chin toward the sky, letting my head rotate backwards until my eyes locked onto what sat behind me.
My stomach clenched as a shadow smiled upside-down into my face. “Hello, young Naiad,” it said, its voice a wisp of air. “Did you come to strike a bargain?”
Freezing fingertips grazed down my arm, slick moisture leaving a trail across my skin.
I tried to shake my head. To tell the shadow to leave. I couldn’t move, couldn’tspeak. It inched closer, mist then solid, human then velvet air, deep as the backdrop of the sky. “Tell me what you want, darling. I can free your ropes, I can loose your binds. I can break the chains of body, mind, and soul. You are tied by all three. You need only ask, and I will release you.”
Shadows snaked across my shoulder, folding into my lap. Cold weight pressed the backs of my legs into the rough rock. Dread twisted in my belly. The half-moon hid behind a shroud of muddy fog, its reflection reduced to a dim glow.
I felt the shadow’s legs on either side of my body as it straddled me.
The muscles in my neck ached, my leaden head impossible to raise and look at it. I’d let it fall too far backward. The shadow climbed up my chest. It grinned at me, reaching out its velvet arms to grasp either side of my face, righting my head. Everywhere it touched was ice against my body, melting as it met my skin.
“No,” I answered, though the word was little more than a breath of empty air.
Drip… Drip... Drip...
It drew my face to its own, breathing misty air across my mouth. I pushed away, suddenly falling backwards, my head cracking against craggy rock.
“If you ever change your mind…” The shadow chuckled and leaned low over me, a finger stroking my cheek. It angled my head sideways. Ice swept across my lips, freezing water dripping down my chin—
A wave crashed over me, joltingly cold. The undertow crept away, moonlight shining thinly through the cloud cover.
I glanced around, my mind whirling over what might be real. And what may be nothing more than a trick of the moonlight. But there was no answer.
12
Maren
Warmth stroked my skin.
Resin snapped in my ear, the sweet scent of burning wood inviting my eyes open.
A jacket lay across my shoulders, a leather bag under my cheek.
Sand and rock crunched under boots. Kye’s face dropped into view, blurred.
A crescent scar came into focus, soft fingers brushing hair from my forehead. “What happened?” His words echoed strangely in my head. I tried to answer him and found I couldn’t. My lips formed words that my voice couldn’t carry, soundless breath escaping my mouth.
My sides didn’t sting. My Naiad skin had already sewn together the gashes where thethinghad ripped into me. But my lungs burned as though I’d inhaled acid.
Kye tried to sit me up. My head rolled along his chest, neck devoid of any strength. He pulled me into his shoulder, brows knit as he looked me over. “Can you drink water?”
Cheek buried into the hollow under his collar bone, I blinked at him.
He rubbed his knuckles hard over his brow, then glanced around the meager campsite.
“Can you eat? Are you cold? Do you need to lie back down?”
Do you know what the greatest danger is to a Naiad in the sea?Selena asked in my memory.
