Siren's Reach - Fallen Lands Book 3

Chapter thirty-nine

The Depthly Hallows

Evelyn

We signaled for the gondola to stop several feet above the deck of the man-o-war we'd aimed for. Its broad form had looked like our best option from high above, though the closer we got, the more we could see how sloped it was below us. The ship had to be slowly taking on water, and I imagined its cargo had shifted more than a little. It wasn't so far gone as to be difficult or dangerous for us to jump down to, but it was more intimidating.

I was the first one to go down, and Sibylla joined me a moment later, stepping into Amélie's shadow then out of my own. Tentatively, Lilith moved to do the same. I suspected she worried it wouldn't work now that she was back in a humanoid form, but she shouldn't have. Just as easily as Sibylla, she was standing next to me a moment later. We waited a moment, sure that we'd not made any noise yet, and certainly not shifted the boat, but it was best to be safe.

Then, when we were sure all was clear, Alice came next. Lilith and I half caught her to ensure a gentle landing and help absorb the impact. The moment I looked back up, Amélie foxed and jumped directly into my arms. I suspected that was just for fun more than anything else.

Under the quickly darkening night sky, we took in the ship around us. Its deck groaned faintly with every shift of the tide, the planks warped from salt and rain. The boards were slick in spots, not just from the mist clinging to everything, but from older, darker stains the storms hadn't yet washed away. Absent sea birds had long since made the mast their roost, leaving white droppings streaking the rigging, and a few bones, human and otherwise, were tangled in the lines where the wind hadn't claimed them.

The smell hit harder than the sight. Salt and rot, iron and mildew, layered so thick it almost coated the tongue. Somewhere below, the stench of death lingered heavier, the kind that didn't drift away no matter how hard the wind blew. The hold would be worse, no doubt, with whatever was left of the crew and their prisoners still trapped in rusting cages.

The deck itself told its own story. Patches of dried blood streaked across the wood where someone had dragged themselves or been dragged. A shattered lantern still clung to one railing, and what looked like claw marks… or desperate fingernail gouge, marred the steps leading to the forecastle. Whatever chaos had followed the ship's impact, the ocean hadn't erased it. Only softened the edges.

"I'm starting to rethink that swimming in from a few miles out idea," Sibylla quietly observed.

Alice held back a nervous chuckle and said, "Yeah, no kiddin'. From the air, didn't look half as much a horror show."

I glanced up at the retreating gondola and ascending Dawn's Light. "It's too late to turn back. The best we can do is find a good way to get into the water and away from here quickly."

Amélie pointed, "That ropey ladder thing over there?"

I followed her gaze to where ratlines had collapsed away from the shattered rigging and hung down into the dark water below, then nodded, "That's probably the best thing we're going to find. Let's go check it out."

The ratlines dangled like the bones of the ship's old rigging, a tangled web of rope and splintered wood swaying gently against the hull. Up close, they were rough and stiff with salt, some of the thinner ropes frayed to the point where a hard pull would probably snap them. To be safe, I grabbed one and gave it a testing yank. It held, but every movement made the whole mess creak and groan like something alive. The sound carried in the still water around us, sharp and hollow, and I caught Lilith glancing at the sea with her grip turning white knuckled around her spear.

"They'll work," I said, more to convince myself than anyone else. "They're not the most subtle, but…"

I watched as the ladder shifted with the next swell, bumping against the hull with a dull thunk that felt loud enough to draw every creature in the Reliquary to our position. Of course, they were doing that with every swell, and compared to the constant, deep moaning of the ship island as it rocked on the waves, our adding a little more movement was going to be barely a whisper. The entire graveyard creaked and groaned like a living thing. Warped timbers flexed, hulls ground together, and rigging sighed with every push of the current. I was being overly cautious, and I knew it.

"If we move slowly and don't kick the lines around, the ocean will drown most of the sound," I added, gripping the slick rungs and carefully swinging myself over the rail to climb down. "But the second someone slips, everyone in a mile's gonna know where we are."

Sibylla gave a lazy shrug and moved to follow. "Guess we better not slip, then. See if it's safe? I'm going to help Lilith with her mermaid boots. We'll shadowstep down when you let us know it's clear."

I rolled my eyes and started down, feeling the whole ladder sway beneath me. It was stable enough, but every creak and groan made the skin on my neck crawl. It wasn't loud compared to the constant chorus of the ship island's own noises, but it was different, the only deliberate motion in a place where everything else was just drifting and dying…

I really was letting this whole thing get to me. I took a steadying breath and kept going. Just above the surface, I leaned out, peering into the dark water beneath the ship. The ropes stretched down at least twenty feet before tangling around splintered spars and snapped rigging, all of it drifting just enough to make me imagine a net waiting to catch us if we panicked.

"Not great," I muttered. "But it's what we've got."

The last few rungs took me into the waves. The warm, heavy water dragged at my boots and clothes, pulling the ropes against the hull with a low, hollow groan that made my skin crawl all over again. Nearly up to my neck, I hooked my elbow around a thicker line and drew a long breath. My humanoid lungs weren't going to cut it for what we were about to do.

With a thought, I wove an illusion like a sheath of darkness around myself and let the shift ripple through me. The flash of magic was buried inside the illusion, but the moment it passed, my legs were gone, replaced by a dense, muscular tail that pulled me lower. Its sheer weight tugged at the ratlines more than I expected, making the entire ladder sway and complain with a fresh chorus of creaks.

Amélie froze above me, clinging to the lines where she'd just moved to follow as the vibrations rolled up to her. She waited for me to settle before moving again. I braced my hands, gave my tail a careful sweep to steady myself, and held to the rope so I wouldn't drift. The dark water below stretched endlessly, a still, unbroken curtain.

"Alright," I said, more for myself than anyone. "Still… safe. We just need to dive before every creature down there knows we're here."

"What was that?" Amélie whispered from above, her voice just audible over the water.

"Nothing," I said, glancing up. "Just keeping an eye out. The illusion hides the flash of the shift, not us. Let's not linger."

Amélie entered the water much as I had, but having learned from my mistake, she was more prepared when she shifted. Alice was right behind her, somehow not even making a ripple as she entered the water. She only shrugged at our envious glances.

"Don't give me that look. What're y'all jealous of? You just turned yourselves into dang mermaids."

Amélie grinned, "Fair enough."

"And not the time," Lilith said as she floated out of our shadows, followed by Sibylla.

Each of them took hold of the lines to stay with us, though Lilith was struggling a little as she adjusted to the new swimming fins. She was already wearing her new necklace and crown, so she'd be perfectly fine if she sank directly to the bottom, but a moment to learn how to move was doing her some good. I could tell when she leveled up whatever swimming skill she was using with them when she suddenly smoothed out her motions to something more natural. Not great, but no longer the motion of an injured baby seal and likely to draw attention to us.

Sibylla, however, was just hanging there, looking at the water like it had personally insulted her. But with no interest in dragging things out, she wove shadows around her form and released the rope as she shifted. The shadows stretched and folded in on themselves until something far less familiar hovered just below the surface beside us.

My jaw dropped open. "Sibylla? What in the name…"

Where Amélie and I looked like sleek, predatory mermaids, Sibylla… didn't. I didn't know what she looked like at first, and it took several long seconds to wrap my mind around what I was seeing before it clicked. Her new form was some kind of cuttlefish, though calling it that felt ridiculously wrong when she was the size of a grown woman. The smooth, oval body alone was nearly five feet long, with a wide, rippling fin running the edges like a living skirt. Below the eight arms dangling from her face, two much longer, coiled feeding tentacles twitched, flexing idly like she was already imagining grabbing someone by the ankle.

Her skin pulsed with faint patterns, shadows flowing over her in slow waves before fading to a mottled gray that almost blended into the surrounding gloom. Even her eyes looked different, glossy black orbs ringed with thin, shifting lines of green, following our every movement with eerie calm.

And then there was the hat. Her perfectly dry, perfectly unbothered witch hat perched right on top, some magic keeping it from floating away like the absurd cherry on top of the world's creepiest sundae.

"Of course," I muttered. "Because why wouldn't you turn into a nightmare squid with a hat?"

Sibylla's pupil rings shifted to crescents, almost like she was smirking. Her skin flashed once, a quick ripple of bright red and white before fading again, as her voice brushed faintly against our minds. "Exactly."

Amélie whisper-shouted, "What was that?! How are you talking underwater?"

Sibylla's tentacles fluttered in amusement. "I'm a telepathic squid witch. Basically a Mind Flayer, but cute." She pulsed a pattern of pink-green when no one reacted, then fluttered her arms in a squidy-sigh. "Fine. It's an illusion. Targeted, of course, so only you guys can hear me. No real sound. Squid monsters are stealthy and tactical, remember?"

I resisted the urge to facepalm, but only because of the claws. "Why didn't we think of that before?" After a moment, I shook my head. "Never mind. We need to move. The longer we sit here, the more chance something decides we look edible. Let's mark this spot with that magic compass so we can find our way out, and then get going."

"Already done," Sibylla's illusion answered.

I glanced into the silent dark below, that chill creeping back along my spine. "Alright. Slow and steady. We don't want to stand out. If our shapes don't sell it, maybe staying boring will."

Amélie looked at Lilith and then back to the group. "One of us should tow Lilith. This isn't a great time for her to be learning the fins. It will probably be better inside where we have cover."

Alice moved closer to Lilith, "I'll do it. If anythin' goes wrong, she won't slow me down."

I nodded, curled my tail to steady myself, and glanced at the others. "Then let's go. Quietly."

We drifted a little closer to the tangled wreckage, keeping the creaking timbers between us and the open sea. The ship island's endless groans and rattles covered some of our movement, but it still felt like we were the only living things in a graveyard. Every stroke of a tail or ripple of Sibylla's fins sounded louder than it should have, like the water itself was holding its breath.

Stolen novel; please report.

I gave one last glance upward. The wreck above us was already a dark silhouette, Dawn's Light a distant glimmer far higher still. This was it. No turning back.

I nervously tapped my claws against the rope, steeled myself, and nodded. Then, we all took one last breath together. My chest expanded in a way that felt strange and instinctive, my new lungs pulling in air like a bellows. It didn't make me invincible, but it would last longer than any human could dream. Then I tipped forward, letting my tail pull me down.

The world shifted instantly as we dove. Above, the wrecked ships became a silhouette framed against the sky, and then even that faded. Only the stars didn't. They followed me, like they always did. Even three hundred feet below the surface, they burned as bright as if we were still on deck. Pinpricks of silver scattered across the dark, unbothered by the ocean pressing down above us, painting the water in a soft, endless twilight.

Somehow, it didn't feel like they belonged here. It wasn't like being under the mountain or looking at them through a storm. This time, it almost felt like I'd dragged the sky down with us, a little pocket of night trailing wherever I went. It was enough to see by, enough to keep the abyss from swallowing us completely, but it didn't make the descent feel any safer. If anything, it made the water feel stranger, as if there were no surface at all, no difference between the void above and the void below. Maybe it was just my nerves.

We stayed close, no one speaking, even though we had Sibylla's trick with illusions. Gestures felt clumsy, slowed by the weight of the water, and it was easier just to watch each other's eyes, to trust the little motions and tilts of a head. And that came easier to me than it sounded; a nervous feeling had me constantly checking on the others. Alice kept Lilith tucked just behind her, moving in slow, deliberate strokes. Amélie glided on my other side, her tail a little stiff but steady. Sibylla… drifted. Her fin skirt rippled almost lazily, her body turning with every subtle current, ironically like she belonged down here more than any of us.

The pressure built as we sank. My ears ached a little, though my mermaid body adjusted more quickly than anything I'd ever experienced before. The Starlight helped, too, keeping my vision wide and clear when it should have been nothing but murk. And maybe that was the problem. I could see the empty dark. See that there was nothing moving but us and that nothing felt wrong.

The water pressed heavier with every sweep of my tail. I could feel the others adjusting behind me, their movements slow and careful. The stars kept shining above, no dimmer than they had on the surface, but it only made the black below feel deeper, like we were sinking between two skies. Then, the quiet broke.

A distant crash echoed through the water. A deep, resonant sound, like an entire hull shifting and slamming against another in the wreck above us. The sound rolled through the ocean like a living thing, vibrating in my chest. For a heartbeat, I almost felt relieved. The movement and noise brought something normal back to this dead stretch of sea.

But the sound kept going, stretching longer than it should have. The groan of strained timbers accompanied by the tearing scrape of something dragging against the wreck like claws over the hulls. My entire body stilled without me meaning to, and I saw the others hesitate, even Sibylla's rippling fins freezing for a moment.

Nothing followed. No more sound than the settling hulks. Just the endless black below and the stars above.

In silent agreement, we kept moving. Slower now, every motion of my tail deliberate, like we were afraid even the water would betray us. I counted heartbeats in the silence. Fifty, then a hundred, but it was impossible to tell how far we'd descended. The pressure was building, but gently, and the Reliquary was still just an imagined darker shadow in the deep. That was when the lights came.

Faint at first, like a scattering of distant stars drifting where there shouldn't be any. I thought for a moment I'd somehow gotten turned around, but there weren't enough of them to be the stars, and the colors were off. No, these were below, far below, swaying in the dark. For a moment, I thought it was just my Starlight bending wrong or reflecting. Only, they weren't steady like the stars. They moved.

One flickered. Then another. Then they all blinked out at once, leaving only the false sky above us and the emptiness below, and I was almost sad to see them go. They'd swayed and pulsed, not fixed like the stars, more like… fish. Schools of bioluminescent fish, maybe. It reminded me of a documentary I'd watched long ago, almost bringing a smile to my face.

But then it occurred to me that they didn't scatter, dart, or drift like fish. They moved together, slow and measured. I watched for them again, but it was some time before I saw another flicker. This time, in the corner of my eye, from behind. Like something circling just at the edge of our vision.

No one gestured or pointed, though I knew the others saw them, too. We just tightened formation and kept descending. I think the others agreed that whatever they were, we didn't want to do anything to provoke them or catch their attention.

I nearly went limp in the water with relief when the outline of the Reliquary finally took shape beneath us. A jagged, sprawling silhouette half-buried in the ocean floor, the remnants of what was once an island, stood out against the dark, and a broken temple at its center.

There was no guesswork on where the entrance was, even at this distance. That familiar hum of a dungeon's presence, pushing into the local mana, was becoming impossible to miss… but within seconds, I felt something about this one was wrong. The mana was somehow frayed and discordant. It rolled over my skin in pulses that felt counter to my heartbeat. It was as if the dungeon itself was bleeding into the sea.

I was so focused on that feeling that I almost didn't see the shadow in the distance, moving lazily through the gloom. A tail. Except no tail should stretch that far. It swayed once, displacing so much water that I felt the current push against my own fins even at this distance. I turned to warn the others, only to freeze.

Because something else was already staring back.

A single eye, the size of a ship's figurehead, glimmered pale green in the darkness not thirty feet away. I hadn't seen it move closer. None of us had. One moment, it was just the deep. The next, there it was, fixed on us. Watching.

Sibylla's illusory voice echoed in our minds, "It can't see us if we don't move."

The return growl of, "Not. The. Time." from Amélie followed quickly.

"No, really. We're just a funny-looking shadow to … whatever that is. Just be boring."

None of us moved. Not really. But staying still wasn't the same as staying invisible.

My tail sank under its own weight, inch by inch, until I made a gentle sweep to level it out. Amélie's tail did the same beside me, our every motion leaving little currents that shimmered against Sibylla's shadow-woven shroud. Sibylla herself was trying to hover, but the rippling skirt of her fins pulsed in slow waves, and her tentacles drifted like ghostly ribbons in the starlight. Even Alice, nearly frictionless as a naiad, couldn't keep Lilith from tugging on her in the current. Small and careful as every motion was, we were still the only thing moving in the barren sea.

The serpent tilted, the motion subtle but terrifying, its massive head nosing toward Sibylla's woven shadows. A wall of muscle slid beneath us, so vast I couldn't track where it began or ended. The water itself seemed to bow around its movement, a slow, rolling current brushing against my fins as its jaws began to part. A silent, yawning threat, like a snake readying to strike.

"I was wrong. Run!" Sibylla's voice hissed in our minds just as a flash of pale light rippled along its head, outlining the curve of teeth as long as swords.

We bolted, instincts taking over, scattering in every direction. Lights appeared everywhere around us, all along the infinite length of the thing. The serpent lunged, and the rush of displaced water slammed into us like a physical wall. Shadows shredded in the surge, leaving us fully exposed as the deep roared with the soundless violence of its passing.

Alice and Lilith were the only ones who stayed together, and that sealed their fate. The monster wheeled back with impossible speed, coiling its bulk in a spiraling loop to face them. It struck, moving like a living torpedo, but Alice twisted away, dragging Lilith in her wake. The serpent's passing tail and fanned frills sent a vortex spinning through the dark, yanking them both into a wild, tumbling spin.

Before they could recover, the serpent folded back on itself, an enormous knot of muscle and momentum, and came for them again. Alice didn't hesitate. With a surge of strength, she flung Lilith clear, sending her tumbling into the dark, just as the serpent's jaws snapped shut. Alice was already beyond the threshold, her silhouette vanishing behind a wall of teeth as the maw sealed around her.

"Alice, no!" The cry burst from my throat as a torrent of bubbles, the name warping into a guttural moan swallowed by the deep. My lungs burned instantly, every bubble a reminder of air lost.

Amélie's voice snapped into my mind, sharp and commanding. "Temple! Move!"

The force of it spurred me into action. I kicked hard, only to falter when I saw Lilith alone, floundering. Precious momentum bled away as I twisted toward her, but Amélie was already there, clutching both of Lilith's wrists and hauling her along with grim determination. I darted in, taking one of Lilith's arms to help, but the shadow of the serpent's bulk was already turning.

The water shifted before I heard it—an immense surge that prickled over my skin. I braced, ready to burn every skill I had in hopes that one of them might work underwater and drag us forward, when the deep itself split with a roar. It wasn't a sound so much as a crushing vibration, a low, bone-rattling shockwave that stopped me cold.

Through the haze, I saw the monster thrashing, blood clouding the water as a spinning torrent tore free of its gills. And riding that torrent, a familiar, furious Naiad.

Alice whipped her wand up, magic igniting in a whirl of bubbles. A serpent, smaller but still massive, coiled into being and shot straight into the wounded gill. The monster convulsed, writhing in pain, its thrashes throwing up currents so violent they felt like a storm tide.

But Alice's voice cut through, impossibly clear, as if the ocean itself carried her words. "Keep movin', y'all! That'll only hold 'im a minute!"

Then she surged past, snatching Lilith mid-stroke, and left a calmer wake in her path. We tucked in behind her, fighting the turbulence, racing the closing jaws of our borrowed reprieve.

The serpent was relentless. Even with Alice's summoned creature tearing at its gill, the thing just coiled tighter, thrashing like a storm given flesh. Every lash of its body sent devastating currents rolling through the dark, hurling the water past us hard enough that I knew if we fell out of Alice's wake, there was every chance we'd smash into the drifting wreckage above or the jagged rocks below.

I kicked harder, feeling Sibylla's shadows start to fray as she struggled to keep the veil around us. It didn't matter. The serpent's eye swept back and forth through the starlit dark, glinting pale green like it could see straight through every trick we had.

Alice kept surging ahead, Lilith clutched against her chest and holding on for all she was worth. The violent water was doing its best to tear apart her wake, the only calm water we could find to cut through. Behind us, the monster twisted on itself again, a knot of muscle the size of a fortress, trying to shake Alice's summoned serpent free. The smaller creature actually tore loose for half a second—then shot right back into another gill slit like a hunting spear, coiling and tearing with cold, deliberate violence.

The deep exploded around us. Water boiled with motion as the serpent lashed its frills and tail, the force of it spinning me end over end until I slammed my tail in a desperate sweep against the current and forced myself level again, barely still within the shrinking wake Alice was creating for us. My chest ached, and my lungs were screaming at me to rush to the surface, but if I did, I knew I'd die long before I made it.

The shadow of the sunken island loomed ahead. We all rushed to get back in line and close the distance. Through the gloom, I could just make out the broken marble arch of the temple, columns like ghostly teeth reaching up from the seabed. Hope flared. If we could just get inside…

The serpent surged again. Its jaws opened wide, cutting the water like a canyon about to swallow us whole. My instincts screamed to turn, to fight, but there was no fighting something like this. Not now, in these forms when we hadn't even had a chance to learn how.

We darted through the temple's archway, the starlight above glinting off shattered murals and half-buried statues. I spun, bracing for the monster to crash through after us—

And it didn't. The serpent slowed, circling the ruin once, twice, its pale eye never leaving us. Then, with no sound but the faint roll of displaced water, it turned. Frills undulated as it slipped into the abyss, its body stretching on and on until the last flick of a fin vanished beyond my starlight. Only in that last instant did I force my trembling hands to still and cast Insight.

[ Ophydros, Warden of the Sunken Vault – Sealed Dungeon Boss, Level 61 ]

I wanted to ask what a sealed boss even meant, but the thought drifted away like everything else. My chest burned, and my vision tunneled. Amélie's grip was the only thing pulling me deeper into the temple. My muddled brain was still functioning enough to know there was no way that the massive monsters had escaped the dungeon through this building. The halls were scaled for humans. It was a ruin, but it would have been completely destroyed by the passage of K'thralis, let alone Ophydros.

We were heading down toward where the distorted magic was ripping out in waves, but I felt like the closing darkness was going to crush me long before we made it into the dungeon. I felt oddly calm about the situation, and almost didn't notice when a large tentacle landed on my shoulder like a comforting hand. Slowly, I raised my lulling head from where it'd fallen on my chest without my knowing to look up into Sibylla's creepy, Alien eyes, and her voice rang out in my head.

"Evelyn. Psychic squid monsters can breathe underwater." She paused, a faint ripple of color running over her skin. "You know what you need to do."

I let the last of my air slip out in a weary sigh. She was right. Resisting wouldn't do me any good.

Soon after, Alice led us onward. The temple opened into a massive chamber, likely a place of worship once, judging by the faint carvings along its crumbling walls. At the far end stood two colossal doors, each big enough to drive a cart through. They'd been cracked out of their frames long ago; the only thing keeping them upright was their sheer weight pressing together.

Beyond them lay nothing but darkness. A tunnel, or so it seemed. But there was no mistaking it. This was the dungeon entrance. And somehow, it felt even stranger than the intact temple around us. Those doors couldn't open, not in their state. Only the narrow gap at their base offered us passage. If there was any answer to how leviathans like Ophydros or K'thralis ever left this place, it had to be inside.

Alice went first, then Amélie and Lilith, with Sibylla sliding after. I brought up the rear, still awkwardly bumping along as a… psychic squid monster.

And then, the world stopped making sense. One moment, I was sliding through the narrow opening. The next, I hit something that felt like a liquid wall, not unlike the weird watery ring from Stargate. The magic, or maybe physics itself, yanked me forward. I didn't even have time to resist.

Pressure and darkness vanished as I was hurled through a spinning tunnel of stars, like some demented carnival ride. My stomach flipped, my vision spun, and before I could even scream, I was spat out into open air, plummeting onto warm sand in a brightly lit cavern. If that sounds miserable, I promise, it was worse.

The sound a six-foot cuttlefish makes when belly-flopping onto dry land is something no one should ever have to hear… or feel. For a second, I just lay there, twitching. Four more bodies lay in a heap on warm sand with our scattered gear. Sibylla's witch hat had even come dislodged in the transition, and bounced at least twice before rolling to a stop upright, somehow leaving me feeling like it was smug about it.

I gathered up my tentacles, which had been splayed out in every direction, before the absurdity fully hit me. I hated that body. I peeled myself off the sand as best as I could and shifted. In the next heartbeat, I was climbing back up on two legs, covered in damp, sticky sand, but at least not a giant cuttlefish anymore.

Everyone else was groaning their way upright, equally unprepared for the landing. But soon enough, they were all following my lead, and we began working together to pick up our scattered gear. Sibylla, of course, ignored all of that and rushed to retrieve her hat, brush it off, and perch it back on her head like nothing happened.

Then we finally took in the cavern. It was big, easily large enough to hold the main hall of a temple, with vaulted stone arches and carved channels where water once flowed. But the water was gone, leaving only shallow, stagnant pools scattered across the floor. Sections of the ceiling had collapsed, spilling sand in dunes across cracked tiles, and long fronds of dead kelp hung like curtains from the arches.

And underneath it all was that wrong feeling. It wasn't anything so mundane that we could see or hear. Just… a weight in the air, like the world itself didn't want to hold together here. And under it all, some magic tugged at me, urging me forward, even as every instinct screamed that this place was empty for a reason.