Page 6 of In Rising Tides

Drystan reached out as if he would wrap a curl around his finger before he spoke. “I can’t wait for us to return home, my love.”

Lyra scanned their surroundings to avoid the longing in his gaze.

The water was oppressive. It pressed upon her, crushing the fight in her chest under a boulder of dread.

Her body recognized this place long before her mind put the pieces together.

It wasn’t the forced return to her form or the enemies surrounding her that had anxiety coiling around her like a snake.

No—it wasthisplace.

They were in Ithicais—Drystan’s territory.

She had been here once before. Her memory of it was foggy and twisted with terror.

Ithicais was the westernmost territory of Atlantis, bordering the coast of the Emerald Isle. It was also home to the sea witch, Estria.

It was her cave Lyra had been brought to, and the truth of her magic had been carved from her like an offering.

Lyra dove deep into the recesses of her mind, pulling out every bit of viable information she had tucked away of their realm, specifically that of the map of their kingdom she had studied with the fervor of a caged creature yearning for escape.

Drystan had snatched her from the coast of the Mannereds, which lay almost too far south for Ithicais’s reach, if her memory was correct, which meant they must be somewhere near Baiae.

Its territory to the south of Ithicais and was ruled by no other than Prince Hadrian, her sister Cora’s husband.

“Let us proceed,” Drystan ordered with a snap of his fingers. “Assist her.”

Cold metal yanked her out of her misery as the guards wormed their gauntlet-covered hands beneath her arms and hauled her between them.

They were massive in this form. Their tails nearly doubled the size of hers.

The one on her right had scales of pure silver, like that of a great white shark, while the one on her left bore a tail of olive-brown like the kelp that grew in Atlantis.

She shivered against the iciness of their golden armor, but they did not notice her displeasure.

They tugged her roughly east, passing shipwrecks torn apart like carcasses—bows split wide like fractured ribcages. The water here was sickly green, more swamp than sea, with rot heavy in the lazy current.

It appeared haunted, as if the ghosts of drowned mortals lingered behind the blades of kelp forests.

Ithicais was known for its sudden shallow waters, and therefore, an abundance of ships met their demise here.

Rotting wood and the bright-green algae that had devoured the wreckage over centuries lay heavy on her tongue.

Lyra cringed at the awful taste and smell.

This place was worse than any story she had ever been told. And King Auris had told her stories of the monstrous creatures that roamed these waters, drawn in by the magnitude of fresh food.

Sobeks, as he’d called them, were massive reptilian beasts with elongated snouts, crushing tails, and teeth meant to tear through stone.

As a child, she often had nightmares of those beasts, fearing that they lurked in the shadows of her room or beneath her bed.

But as she grew, she suspected his stories were embellished to keep her from venturing outside the allowed territory.

Either way, it was successful. She’d never ventured farther than her favorite reef, and any time she glimpsed the murky water of the west, she scurried back to clearer water.

He should have just told her about the assault on the senses she would suffer, and that would have been enough to keep her well away.

The eerie quality of Ithicais and the shipwrecks brought to life those old stories and had Lyra studying every shadow for movement and listening for anything unusual.