Chapter 1

One

Something about the voice of a siren. It slipped into my ears like a living thing and invaded my mind, the echo of it the only thing I could think of for a little while.

Or maybe it was that word she said—that name . Hansil , and she was looking at Grey.

Still looking at Grey.

Still smiling at Grey, my Grey.

A feeling worse than any I'd ever had before settled under my skin, taking the shape of me. Molding with me as if it was there to stay. As if it didn't plan to leave me anytime soon.

Then Sedelis laughed.

Such a shock to hear a sound other than the voice of Syra echoing in my head. Such a shock to realize the three of us weren't alone in this cave, but the people who'd awakened her were here with us, too.

Genevieve, Grey's own mother, who had been plotting her revenge for her stolen life for decades.

Sedelis, the siren sister who'd been walking on the water of that glowing pool as she chanted for Syra's awakening.

The Great White, the enormous dragon with white scales and turquoise eyes, frozen in place with his jaws wide open and his claws spread as he was about to squash Sedelis. He looked more like a statue than real. I'd summoned him myself from his sleep in hopes of stopping Sedelis in time, but I'd been too late. Too fucking late.

And Valentine.

He was there still, terrified as he looked at Syra, who was distracted by the laughter of her sister, too, and was now looking at her instead. Not Grey. Not my Grey, who was by my side, never even blinking his eyes for fear he'd miss something.

I wrapped my shaking hand around his arm. He turned to me, and…I saw it.

My God, I saw the resemblance, just as I had the first time. He looked so much like Hansil Knight, especially with the longer hair that I hadn't wanted to cut off.

Now, I wished I'd carved him a new face somehow because that awful— awful feeling inside me made it so hard to breathe.

Grey nodded his head back, to our left, toward the nearest exit of the cave, and I understood. We needed to get the hell out of here. We needed to leave the Eighth Isle right now.

So we started to retreat slowly…

"I've waited for this moment for hundreds of years, sister dearest," Sedelis said, and Syra flinched at the sight of her smile on that ugly, distorted face. Actually flinched.

"What happened to you?" she whispered and looked down at herself, like she was suddenly surprised that she had a voice to speak with, a body of her own. She curiously looked at her hands, then touched her face to make sure that she didn't look like Sedelis, too—and she didn't. Far from it.

She might be the most beautiful thing to have ever existed in the world.

Sedelis's laughter turned bitter. " You happened to me, Syra," she spit, stepping onto the water's surface again, and just like before. She didn't sink—she just walked on water like it was concrete. "Do you see me? Do you see what I've been reduced to? This is what I look like now." And she waved her hand at her face.

Syra rose on her knees atop that rock, shaking her head, her eyes moving to Grey again and again, and she ignored me completely. She ignored everyone else, but at least she wasn't smiling anymore.

No—with every passing second, she looked more and more…afraid.

"You…y-y-you…" But she couldn't even finish speaking.

"You ruined everything," Sedelis said, her voice filled with so much hatred it coated the air like magic. "You ruined us! "

My God, the look on Syra's face as she shook her head. She slowly raised her hands up, took her hair in her fists and pulled. Hard.

"No, no, no, no…"

I could almost see the memories coming back to her, the story, just like I'd seen in the Storyteller at the Faerie Bazaar, making sense to her little by little.

"Yes, you did. You ruined everything, Syra. You ruined Ennaris and its people," Sedelis continued, going closer and closer.

" No! " Syra shouted, and the sound of her voice alone was powerful enough to make the mountain groan.

Grey stepped in front of me, half shielding me from her view as we continued to move toward the exit slowly, but it was no use. He knew it was no use, and so did I—yet I still somehow clung to the hope that we would actually make it out of this cave in one piece.

I shouldn't have.

"Yes, you did—and you were right to do so."

All eyes turned to Genevieve, who'd gone closer to the pool's edge and was looking up at Syra while tears streamed down her bloody cheeks.

Syra stopped shaking her head to look at her, too.

"You were right to do so. Ennaris shouldn't exist at all! That is why you're awake today—to finish what you started. To end it for good," she continued. "I've waited so, so long…"

Even now, I couldn't believe the words coming out of this woman's mouth.

But Syra didn't say a single word to Genevieve. Instead, she turned to Sedelis again—who was almost at the edge of the rock where she was kneeling now.

"What have you done?" she whispered, and she could have been crying, too.

"What have I done?" Sedelis shrieked. "It doesn't matter now, does it? You're awake, and I've been looking forward to this for so many years." The smile on her face suffocated me even before she said, "I've been looking forward to the day I kill you once and for all."

It was like the entire world stopped for a second. Just paused.

Nobody breathed. No heart beat. Nothing moved at all.

And then the thoughts in my head started to race at the same time.

Kill? What the hell did she mean, kill ?

Kill who—Syra?!

If we ran, could Grey and I make it to the exit before a fight broke out between the two of them?

Could we actually leave this place alive? Was Storm outside, waiting for us, ready to take us away as soon as we walked out of the mountain?

We found out soon enough.

"Sedelis, what—" Genevieve started, but that's as far as she could get.

Valentine was suddenly there, his hand around my wrist, shouting, "Move! " as he pulled me to the side.

Grey's wings spread in front of me like a shield, but not before I saw.

Sedelis with her hands raised toward the top of the rock where Syra was still trying to pull her own hair out. She chanted furiously, words that scratched my ears and brain as she spit them, and magic came out of her in a large, powerful wave.

It crashed right onto Syra.

If I hadn't seen this with my own eyes, I'd have never believed it. The magic hit Syra in the chest and sent her back, threw her off the rock and slammed her against the wall of the cave. She rolled and rolled on the rocky ground at least five times before she stopped, eyes closed, body limp. Sedelis laughed again, but we were too shocked to move. Impossible to accept what was happening in front of us.

"Sedelis, stop!" Genevieve said, and Valentine was trying to pull me away toward the exit, but I held onto Grey's arm until he turned to me again.

"Go," he told me, spreading his wings wider so that Sedelis and Syra couldn't see me at all.

I jerked free from Valentine's grip and went back to Grey's side. "I'm not going anywhere without you." If he thought I would leave him in here and walk out by myself, he was in for the surprise of his life.

"Fall," he said, and it was a warning. I still didn't care.

"I am where you are."

"Now is not the time to be stubborn, Sunshine. We have to—" Valentine started.

" Don't," I cut him off, not even turning to look at him. " You did this . Don't fucking lecture me now."

"Together then," Grey said, because he knew I wouldn't budge. That, I had no problem with, so I nodded.

Together we started to back away toward the exit, faster now, because the others were busy. They were busy with each other, and once Grey's wings folded on his back, I saw them again.

Syra, on the floor, blood trickling from her nose and the corner of her lips.

Sedelis approaching her slowly as Genevieve ran after her.

"Sedelis, what are you doing?! What are you?—"

But Sedelis turned to her and waved a hand—simply waved it, and another burst of power hit Genevieve, taking her in the air and slamming her against the ground again. Half her body ended up inside the water of the pool.

"You've served me well, Genny, but your time is up now. Everyone's time is up," Sedelis said, as she turned to Syra again. "I've been biding my time to get here, and finally, I did."

We were almost at the exit now, but if we started to run, Sedelis would hear it. If she attacked us with her magic, we'd end up on the ground, too—and who was to say we wouldn't pass out? Genevieve had. She wasn't moving, her eyes were closed, and I couldn't even tell if she was breathing as she lay on her stomach at the edge of the pool, her legs floating in the water.

"Steady," Grey whispered, as if he could read my mind. Sedelis was focused on Syra right now, and we needed to keep it that way—no sudden movement.

"All these years we've wasted all of our magic just to keep you under. We've wasted ourselves, our land, our people," Sedelis was saying. "Well, I'm tired of it, sister dearest. Now, I want the power all to myself. All that delicious power that runs through your veins— I want it, and I'm going to have it."

She was still five feet away from where Syra lay when she raised her hands and began to chant again. I couldn't see her face—her back was turned to us—but I would bet anything that her eyes were pure white, just like they had been when she'd chanted from the pool.

The horror in Grey's eyes matched my own as we both came to the same realization. Sedelis was trying to take Syra's power from her, that same power with which Syra had ruined Ennaris. That same power that had frozen the Great White—a dragon the size of a damn mountain—with a simple wave and basically no effort.

And we couldn't let that happen.

The truth fell like a sack of rocks in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to tell Grey that it wasn't any of our business, that we could get away, now while Sedelis was still chanting. He could fly us out of here in no time, and we'd be safe, except…

Something invisible slammed on the back of Sedelis and took her tumbling forward. Magic, raw and warm—I felt it moving past me at an incredible speed.

Valentine.

He'd stepped forward without us even realizing it, and he'd actually attacked Sedelis.

"This is not what we agreed on, Sedelis!" he called, his hand raised again, his skin so pale he resembled a damn ghost.

Other than that, he looked so normal that I almost forgot that I'd attacked him with my magic earlier. I almost forgot how I'd left him on the ground, his body twisted in awful angles.

"Valentine, step back," Grey said, calling my attention back to the sirens.

To Syra, whose eyes were now open, and Sedelis was pushing herself to her feet again, laughing.

She was still fucking laughing like a maniac.

I thought for sure she was going to turn to us, attack Valentine, kill him right there on the spot—except she saw that Syra was awake. That stopped her as if by the press of a button.

I never thought I'd see the day in which someone like Sedelis would be afraid of anything, but right now she looked terrified. Just like that, she forgot we even existed, raised her hands and started chanting again, twice as fast as before.

No idea why that gave me a little hope.

"We attack her together," I said in a whisper, preparing myself. "The three of us, at the same time."

"Knock her out, then I'll fly her out of here," Grey said with a nod.

"Syra will still be awake," Valentine said through gritted teeth, but he had his hands up anyway.

My magic was getting warmer and warmer in the pit of my stomach, spreading out to the rest of my body lightning fast.

"Because of you ," I reminded him, even though there really was no point in arguing. It was already done. Sedelis was really going to try to take Syra's power, and then…

What the hell would happen to us then?!

"Regardless. We need to stop?—"

A loud scream cut Valentine off and made us turn to the siren sisters again. The exit was so, so close, and a voice in my head kept whispering, too late, too late, too late.

It was too late for everything.

Syra was crying. Big tears slid down her cheeks, washing away the blood around her nose and mouth. Her hand was raised, and she'd picked up Sedelis with her magic and was holding her a few feet off the ground.

Sedelis's scream was still stuck in my head, and she was no longer chanting because she couldn't. Her arms were stuck to her sides and her body from the neck down seemed to be completely frozen.

"You dare threaten me?" Syra said, slowly rising to her feet. "After what you did to me—you dare threaten me?!"

"Let me go," Sedelis spit, and she was trying so hard to break free, but she couldn't—Syra's magic was too strong.

Grey turned to me again, but I shook my head. We weren't leaving until we saw what the hell happened with the sirens.

"No," Syra whispered, shaking her head as she approached Sedelis. "Not until you pay for everything."

"We already did!" Sedelis shouted. "We paid a thousand times over. You've been asleep for five hundred years, sister dearest. We've paid a great deal— all of us!"

That was a shock to Syra. " Five hundred years?" she whispered.

"Yes—five hundred years is what your stupidity has cost us. Your foolishness. You ruined Ennaris, Syra. And we had to live off scraps for. Five. Centuries!"

Again, she shook her head. "No, that…that can't be. The people?—"

"The people hate you just as much as we do," said Sedelis, and she spit. She fucking spit at Syra, but it didn't reach even close to her feet.

Syra couldn't have cared less. "Hate me ? The people hate me ?!"

"Yes, they do," Sedelis said, groaning as she tried to free herself from the magic but couldn't.

"Why—what have you told them? Do they know what you did?" Syra demanded. "Do the people know the real story?" She went closer and closer to Sedelis hovering in the air, no longer crying but getting angrier by the second. "Do they know what you did?!" she shouted, and again, the very ground shook with the power of her voice. Dust and small rocks fell from the ceiling, and my magic went nuts inside me.

"Grey, we need to do something," I whispered because this had already gotten out of hand. This had already become too much, and if we didn't put a stop to it…

"We're going to die," Valentine said from my side, just as Shadow landed on his naked shoulder and wrapped his tail around his neck. "She's going to kill her."

"She wouldn't kill her own s?—"

Sedelis's scream cut me off.

It was twice as powerful as the first one, and she was fucking bleeding from her mouth and nose and eyes and ears—a horror to behold. Syra's hair was floating around her with the raw energy of her magic as she fisted her hands, her bloodshot eyes on a screaming Sedelis.

"You took everything from me!" she shouted at the top of her voice, and she sounded different, like a beast, like a fucking monster. "My own sisters—you took everything from me!"

She cried it out over and over again— you took everything, you took everything, you took everything —while Sedelis screamed her heart out until she was spitting out so much blood she couldn't make another sound anymore.

"Run!" Valentine called, and Grey was already spreading his wings, his arms around my waist as he took us up in the air.

Valentine was running with Shadow on his shoulder, but my eyes were still stuck on the siren sisters, so I saw it all as if in slow motion before Grey took me off the ground. I saw the way Syra broke Sedelis's body in a thousand pieces, cut her off as if with a knife, and the pieces of her turned to ash within the second, piling up on the ground like she'd been burned from within by an invisible fire.

Syra fell to her knees with her shaking hands in front of her, looking at what remained of her sister—and then she turned her eyes toward us.

Too late, that voice in my head reminded me.

The exit was right there. Valentine and Shadow were behind us, and Grey was flying at his full speed toward that darkness, holding me tightly to his chest.

Too late, too late, too late…

"Hansil!"

Magic slammed on his back and pulled him to the side—again, like it was a gigantic invisible hand. Grey let go of me and I fell to the ground, and Valentine was on his stomach, too, Shadow still rolling a few feet to the side.

"Where are you going, my love?"

Syra's voice reached my ears and the fear alone gave me the strength to raise my head, to see where the hell she was.

And did she just call Grey my love ?

She absolutely did—and now Grey was being held in the air like Sedelis had been, his wings gone, his teeth gritted as he tried to free his arms from her magic but couldn't.

My own raged.

I knew who I was up against. I could guess the amount of power one would need to turn a siren into piles of ashes on the ground without breaking a sweat, so I was well aware that I was going to fail. But I stood up anyway, and all that magic that was rushing through my veins burst from my open hands, aimed at Syra. My only intent was for her to let go of Grey. Just let go of him so I could grab him and we could leave this fucking Isle behind for good.

God, I shouldn't have made Grey stay. I should have just listened to him and gone back home. I should have let him decide.

But I hadn't, and now here we were.

My magic hit Syra on the chest, and she stumbled back, disoriented, surprised to see me as if she hadn't noticed I was there at all until now.

"Watch out!" Valentine shouted, and he was in front of me in a second, but not before I saw Syra's hand. Not before I realized that she wasn't going to bend over and her limbs weren't going to twist and turn, and my magic wasn't going to hurt her at all.

But at least Grey was on the ground now.

Syra's magic slammed onto Valentine, and he fell back. I wasn't fast enough to move away, so now he was falling over me.

We were both falling.

My eyes were on Grey as he tried to make it to his feet, his dark eyes wide and full of terror because he knew he'd never get to me in time—there were at least ten feet between us. No, he couldn't get to me before I hit the ground.

Except…I didn't.

And Valentine didn't fall over me, either. Instead, the world around me went completely dark. Grey disappeared. The cave disappeared. The turquoise glow of the pool disappeared, and for a second that could have lasted an eternity, I was nowhere. I didn't exist—or if I did, I was lost in oblivion.

Then there was water.