Page 15 of In Rising Tides

Drystan tightened his grip on her, and she glanced up into his calm face.

“Aren’t you going to do something?” Lyra whisper-shrieked from their hiding place.

Their only reprieve came from the beasts being unaware of two hidden meals behind the boulder.

Drystan continued watching the slaughter unfold before dragging his eyes to her.

“Me? Why don’t you do something?”

Lyra fumbled for the thread of magic around her heart and came up empty. It was still dull.

The magic, nothing but a wisp, after using it in its totality to save Wilder.

Wilder.

His name burned on her tongue as she thought of him. She had to survive so that she could see him again.

Her love for him soothed the jagged edges of her fear.

There had been a time on land when she had felt the same as she did now, and he had come for her—had saved her.

But there was no one to save her now.

No one had ever saved her when she lived in the water.

A sobek snarled, the sound loud and close, too close.

Lyra flinched, and her hair snagged in Drystan’s armor. Strands tore from her scalp, but she felt nothing as she stared into the reflective eyes that pierced her soul in the murky light.

Fear coiled tight around each of her muscles, and she pressed herself into the hard rock at her back.

“Find your voice,” Drystan ordered. “Use that magic you used to save the elf.”

Lyra clutched her throat, eyes pleading. “I c-can’t.”

If this was his plan for survival, then they were both as good as gone already.

“We’re going to die if you don’t.”

Her mind conjured up images of jaws biting through her arms and tail like serrated blades.

There were few remaining screams and guttural cries of pain coming from behind them.

The guards were already dead, and they were about to be next.

“I don’t have any magic left,” she cried, her tail twisting and twitching as she readied herself to make a break for it.

She didn’t have to be strong, just faster than him.

Drystan sighed, and it was so full of annoyance she pulled her eyes from their impending demise and gaped as he pushed off the boulder beside her with a roll of his eyes.

Despite herself, she reached for him as if she would pull him to safety.

Drystan raised the trident over his head, and everything stopped.

The sobek stalking them froze before retreating into the shadows.

Water cleared as the blood dissipated. The seabed swallowed the remnants of the corpses.