“You have something of mine,” the Sea Queen says.
The crystal thrums in my pocket. “Don’t worry. I plan on returning it.”
The Sea Queen inclines her head downward, arms out in a goading gesture. “Then by all means,” she says, “let us begin.”
I surge forward.
The Sea Queen slides out of my line in one sleek movement, and once she’s out of the way, her horde ascends. Sirens spill from the water, leaping onto my crew and screaming as their nails and teeth dig into whatever flesh they can find.
Lira dives to the side, and a tally of my crew rushes after her. I try to keep her in my focus, but there’re too many swords and bodies, and it’s only seconds before I lose sight of her.
I can see the queen, though. She hovers in the center of the moat on a line of frost that breaches the water like a small island. With the Crystal of Keto in my possession, she’ll let her sirens do the dirty work. Watch as they sacrifice themselves for her treasure, never once risking her own neck for it.
If I can just get close enough to her, then I can use the crystal to send her back to the hell she came from.
I dart in and out of leaping sirens, my crew hot on my tail. We slice our swords into them, careful to avoid the sprays of acid blood. Kye yells something, and I turn just in time to see him crash to the floor, a siren skewed on top of him. Madrid kicks her off before the blood has time to do damage, and hauls Kye back to his feet.
“Keep going!” Yukiko yells, gesturing to the queen with her sword. “We’ll hold them off.”
She is the epitome of a Págese princess in that moment, above the holds of jealousy and bids for power. A pure, raw warrior, like each of her brothers and the kings and queens before them. She swoops her sword over her head, circling it through the air with enough force to create a storm. She’s ready to kill.
“Come on!” Kye roars.
He thrusts me onward, Madrid shooting cover fire behind us. The sound of gunfire and screaming rattles the mountain. With every step we take, another member of my crew branches off to wage war on an attacking siren. They are everywhere, springing from the water and slithering along the ground like snakes. I run past so many bodies, my boots slick with ice and death, until a legion of devilish shrieks stops me dead.
A group of six sirens leap from the water, their nails shining like daggers. They land like cats, fins bent in the middle and hands arched to claws.
“Watch out!” Kye yells, and Madrid grunts from beside him.
“I know,” she says, peppering the deadly creatures with arrows. “I’m not blind.”
The sirens pounce out of the way, deceptively agile even on land. Their gills expand against their bare ribs, revealing the raw flesh beneath.
“You sure about that?” Kye asks, and Madrid elbows him in the side before thrusting the crossbow to the ground and unsheathing her sword.
We attack with more brutality than ever.
I go for the throat before any one of them can open their mouths to sing. Around us lullabies crash and echo alongside the cries for mercy, but there’s too much noise for it to have any effect past dizziness. Too much death for their songs to take shape. Still, I won’t risk it. One note and they could send us into a frenzy.
I lash out with my sword, slicing across a jugular. And then another. They come thick and fast and like the heads of the Hydra. Whenever I leave one siren severed on the floor, another leaps out in her place.
One of them stabs Kye, her nails sliding into his knee. Her finger goes so far through, I half-expect the rest of her hand to follow, but he presses a pistol to her temple and when she falls lifelessly to the ground, he pulls his leg out from her grip without so much as a wince.
“Go ahead!” Madrid yells, slinging Kye’s arm over her shoulder. She plunges her sword into the mouth of a siren. “Get the queen!”
I sprint, rolling to the floor in a duck as another siren leaps toward me. I can feel my skin sizzling underneath my shirtsleeve when I stab her. Siren blood, eating its way through. I rip the fabric away and heap snow onto the charred skin before continuing on.
Bullets cascade around me, shooting through the air like fireworks. The water is riddled with them, alongside the floating bodies of sirens. I hear the battle cries and death cries. My crew is dying, the sirens are dying, and I can’t seem to tell which screams belong to who.
I gasp a breath when I finally reach the fork of land in the water. My feet pound across it, but I barely have the chance to get close enough to the Sea Queen before something slams into me, lifting me off the ground. My cheek cracks on the ground.