Yvain jolted awake with a violent gasp, as though dragged from the bottom of the sea. His chest seized, and he doubled over just in time to vomit thick, brackish water splashing onto the inn's wooden floorboards, mingled with knots of hair, black and glistening like oil-slicked weeds.
He choked, gagged, then spewed again.
The taste was foul, the texture wrong. He coughed until his ribs screamed and bile burned his throat, his vision swimming in the half-light of the room.
Then, it passed.
He slumped against the wall, body trembling, sweat soaking his shirt. His head buzzed violently, as if a swarm of flies were trapped behind his eyes, wings fluttering, legs skittering across the surface of his mind. For several minutes, all he could do was breathe, rasping draws of air like a man returned from near-death.
It felt like retribution. As if every whispered pact, every blood-marked page, every dark invocation he'd ever uttered had come due in a single violent toll. The Void had a long memory, and now, perhaps, it had turned its gaze fully on him.
But even that wasn't the worst of it.
The dream still clung to him like wet skin. A memory, but not his, or not entirely. The words echoed faintly, the voice strange yet intimate, like someone he should have known but couldn't name.
"Scion of Mordred. King of the World. No man can equal your power…"
What did it mean?
Who had spoken to him? Lissom Qen? The Scream? Or something older still, something buried beneath even his lineage?
He pressed a hand to his chest. His heart still beat, but it felt... distant.
"What in the bloody hell is happening to me?" he whispered aloud, though no one answered.
Yvain leaned back against the wall, head tilted to the ceiling as the cold floor pressed against his legs. He let his thoughts drift, and unbidden, they returned to the man whose shadow had birthed him.
The Slain King. Mordred.
It was always strange to think of him. Not because he loved the man, but because he barely knew him. Yvain's memories were secondhand, filtered through history books and stiff museum portraits, always larger than life and just as distant. A bronze statue in a crumbling gallery. He remembered Vaelha's lectures, of the great reign, of the treachery at Ona Serin. Vaelha never stopped speaking of him. She treated his name like scripture.
Yet to Yvain, Mordred had never been a father. Only a story.
Worse still was the memory of his mother, Yasmine, who was also Mordred's sister. A beautiful woman, regal in every photograph, distant in every dream. The bloodline had curled in upon itself like a serpent devouring its tail.
A sudden rasping cough snapped him from his reverie.
He was on his feet in an instant.
Adeline writhed under the covers, eyes barely open, throat working as she choked on her breath. She turned to him, pale and sweat-slicked, her lips dry and cracked.
"Water," she croaked.
He moved to the bedside, grabbing a half-filled glass from the table. But when he offered it to her, she recoiled with an expression of confusion. Her head tilted slightly, and her pupils shimmered faintly, like the ocean catching the light at dusk.
"Inside water…" she muttered.
Yvain froze, glass still in hand. "What do you mean?"
"Throw me in," she rasped, her voice a breath more than sound. Then her head lolled to the side, and she slipped back into that murky veil between sleep and something else.
Yvain stared at her for a moment, uncertain if he'd heard correctly.
He shook the thought off, gently drawing the sheet over her bare body, shielding her fragile modesty from the cold air and from his own conscience. Her skin was still warm, feverish, but no longer burning. The color was returning to her cheeks. She looked less like a corpse now and more like a drowning girl mid-rescue.
Sliding one arm beneath her knees and the other around her back, he lifted her from the bed. She weighed so little it disturbed him. As he descended the stairs with her in his arms, he could feel her breathing against his chest.
The inn's common room was dim and still. Lamps sputtered in wall sconces, casting tired shadows against the walls. Behind the front desk, the sour-faced innkeeper remained precisely where he'd been before, unmoved, almost unchanged, like part of the furniture.
The man looked up as Yvain approached, his expression fixed in that same rehearsed scowl. "How are you enjoying your stay?" he asked in that dry, mechanical voice.
Yvain shifted Adeline in his arms, adjusting for the strain building in his shoulders. "Do you have a bathhouse? Or a pool?" His voice was low, weary.
The innkeeper blinked, almost surprised by the question. "There's a cistern in the basement. Heated. Unattended, of course. Not many guests make use of it. Most don't linger long."
"I need it," Yvain said, simply.
The man didn't move at first. Then, with a reluctant sigh, he retrieved a tarnished brass key from beneath the counter and handed it across. "Down the hall. Last door on your left. Mind your step, the stairs are older than I am."
Yvain took the key with a nod of thanks. Then he turned and disappeared down the narrow hallway, Adeline still limp in his arms.
The corridor stretched on like a throat, dimly lit and choked with mildew. Each footstep echoed against the stone walls, and the shadows grew darker as he descended the spiral staircase into the inn's bowels. The air turned damp, heavy with the scent of old water and older stone.
At the bottom, the space opened into a broad chamber cut into black granite. The pool lay still in the center, wide and sunken, its surface faintly steaming. Lanterns glimmered from the far corners, casting the water in a dull amber glow. Though far from pristine, it was cleaner than Yvain had feared, clear enough to see the mineral striations along the bottom, cloudy only in patches.
He stepped closer to the lip of the pool, bent his knees and let her slip from his arms into the water.
She sank instantly, her body dropping below the surface like a stone. Panic hit him like a slap. Had he misunderstood? Was this some sort of suicide he'd just abetted?
But then the water stirred. Currents formed where there had been none, spiraling outward from her sunken body. Bubbles rose like escaping ghosts. The lantern light flickered wildly, as though the pool had exhaled.
And then she emerge, breaching the surface like a blade from its sheath, hair plastered to her face, arms slicing water apart, and her lower half utterly transformed.
Gone were her legs. In their place stretched a long, sinewed tail, scaled in glistening black with hints of violet sheen, like pearls caught under oil. Fins shimmered behind her, translucent and deadly. She spun once, fluid and effortless, cutting through the pool.
Yvain crouched by the edge, eyes wide. She swam toward him and stopped just before the lip of the stone. Rising slightly from the water, she met his gaze, slick hair draped down her back, droplets tracing her bare shoulders and collarbone.
"You look…" he began, awestruck.
"Different," she said, completing the sentence with a small, knowing smile.
"Enchanting," he corrected.
She rolled her eyes and grinned, baring a hint of mischief. "It's a siren thing. How else would we lure men to their deaths?"
"Oh," he said, smirking. "So it's biological warfare."
"Exactly." She flipped backward, tail slapping the water, then popped up again, laughing. "You should count yourself lucky I like you."
"I'll keep that in mind." He sat down fully, letting his boots dangle over the edge, the warmth of the pool creeping up toward him. "Is seasickness also a siren thing, or are you just uniquely cursed?"
"It's not the sea that makes me sick," she said, her smile faltering slightly. "It's boats. Floating wooden coffins. There's nothing natural about them."
"Wait until you see airships," he murmured, half to himself.
She blinked. "What?"
"Never mind," he said quickly, waving it off with a flick of his fingers.
She drew closer to him, her body slicing clean through the water. Droplets clung to her pale skin like tiny beads of glass, catching the low lantern light. Her shoulders rose above the surface first, then her collarbones, and the swell of her chest, her nipples tinted a delicate rose, hardened by the cool air.
"Won't you come in?" she asked, voice low, musical.
Yvain tilted his head, studying her. "Hmm."
"I won't bite," she purred, her tone equal parts invitation and threat. Her arms slid around his neck, wet fingers trailing up the nape of his neck, leaving gooseflesh in their wake.
He hesitated, but only for a second. Then he let her pull him forward.
The warmth of the water closed over his legs as he stepped in, boots and coat abandoned by the poolside. She guided him deeper, until the pool reached his waist, her touch never leaving him. Then, with the effortless strength of something aquatic, she pulled him fully under.
Her tail wrapped around his legs like silk turned steel. He felt the shifting pressure of her body coiling around him, tightening as they sank. Her face was inches from his, her eyes dark and gleaming, unreadable beneath the water.
He didn't struggle. Not out of foolishness, but because he trusted that even if she wanted to hurt him, she would fail.
Down they went, into the quiet hush of the deep, where sound was muffled and light became little more than a whisper.