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But they all stayed far from me, leaving me to grieve in my emptiness.

We had swum all night, the bonds in my chest pulling tauter until it felt as though they might suffocate me.

With the distance I had put between us, I could not tell if they were awake yet. If they were sitting with the heartbreak of my loss.

But knowing them, they would be tearing themselves to pieces to reach me in time.

“How much further?” I called out to Bryony, voice echoing through the water with a clarity that made most of the Siren’s eyes snap to me.

Bryony paused and I swished my tail downwards, flaring my fins to catch the water to stop myself from crashing into her.

“We are here,” she said in her thick accent, pointing towards a sandbank. “Ziola and I will accompany you to the throne, to bring your body back to the sea where it belongs.”

A Siren with a shiny dusting of rose-coloured scales bowed her head towards me, her hair a strawberry blonde that was braided close to her scalp.

I nodded back, a sort of relief threading through me that my body would return to the sea.

The Sirens behind us began to sing, their voices blending perfectly together as we swam towards the sandbank, and as I grew closer, I noticed veins of black rot cutting through the sand. They branched off in a thousand different directions before disappearing beneath the seabed.

My head broke through the water with a ragged gasp, the song of the Sirens still winding through the sea behind me as I dragged myself towards the shore, the waves tugging on me as if they were trying to drag me back to the depths.

My palms sank into sand softer than anything I had known in Stonebriar. No jagged pebbles. No sharp shells biting into my skin. Just pale, luscious grains that shimmered beneath the weak light as though someone had ground moonlight into the earth.

For one breath, I only stared, marvelling in the simplistic beauty before I noticed the darker currents eroding through destructively.

Pain struck without warning, white-hot and merciless, tearing through my hips and shooting down my tail as it split back into two.

A scream ripped from my throat. My spine arched, fingers clawing trenches through the glittering sand as bones shifted beneath my skin and cracked into the shape of legs.

Black blood oozed down my bare legs, but the lapping waves soon washed the evidence away as if it never existed.

I didn’t have time to lie there and surrender to the pain, so I forced myself upright on shaking legs, every newly-formed bone protesting as I found my balance.

“Here,” Bryony said beside me, holding out a drenched bundle of fabric.

I took it and hesitantly unravelled it, revealing a sheer blue dress that shimmered when it moved, almost as though the colour had been stolen from the sea itself. It clung coldly to my skin as I pulled it over my head, the gauzy sleeves spilling loosely to my elbows while the neckline plunged between my breasts.

Deep slits parted the skirt almost to my hips, and by the time I had smoothed the fabric into place, the last traces of seawater had already vanished from it.

Bryony and Ziola wore similar dresses, their pale material stirring around their legs despite the stillness of the air.

“We follow the veins of rot,” Bryony said in her thick accent, pointing towards the black tendrils streaking through the sand before disappearing beneath the lush greenery that crowded the edge of the beach. “They will lead us to the throne.”

Beyond the shoreline, the island rose in impossible shades of green and gold, leaves shimmering as though each one held its own fragment of sunlight while pale flowers spilled from twisting vines in thick, fragrant curtains.

But it was the structure far to the east, that held my attention.

A temple rose from the edge of the island where the land climbed above the sea, its ivory spires breaking through the canopy as though carved from bones.

Built into the cliffs to overlook the endless ocean, it caught the light in pale flashes between the trees, impossibly beautiful against the vast blue beyond. For a moment, I forgot to breathe.

It was the most beautiful place I had ever seen, except for the black rot pulsing through the earth.

“Is that the temple of Elysium?” Ziola asked in awe.

“Yes,” Bryony snapped. “We are wasting time. Come.” She waved her hand. “We must go into the tree line in case the ships follow.”

Elysium…