Page 42 of Unseen Lord

I reach out and take her hand. "Arianna. I think you can still hear me. We need your sword so we can save you and your people from a great destruction. Can you tell us where it is?"

She squeezes my hand so tightly my bones grind together, but says nothing.

I'm about to leave her when a voice crashes into my mind.

"Ask the mermaids!"

Arianna is speaking to me again, mentally.

"What?" I ask. "What does that mean?"

"Ask the mermaids!" she says again, then she slumps over and whimpers into her fur bed. Her voice in my head is silenced.

I look at Elias and Arias with a small bit of hope. "She spoke to me," I say. "Like she did before."

Arias looks confused, and I realize he doesn't know about the communication. Ah well. He doesn't need all our secrets explained.

"What did she say?" asks Elias.

"She said, 'ask the mermaids.' Do either of you know what that means?"

Arias frowns. "Yes, I'm afraid I do."

Chapter 11

Iris

Arias confers brieflywith Kayla and Tavian, then gestures for us to follow. Theo and Duke try to join, but Arias shakes his head. "They can't come where we're going."

I give Theo some love. "Sorry buddy, not this time."

Elias pats Duke's head and asks, "Wherearewe going?"

It's clear from his tone he hasn't moved into the #TeamArias camp, and I don't totally blame him. I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that dude slit his throat and left him for dead. I'd be bitter too. And he hasn't seen his brother in the same light I have.

As we head to the entrance of the cave, where the sound of the storm is frightful, I moan. "Do wehaveto go out there again? I was just stating to feel my toes again."

"Yes, wehaveto go out there again," Arias says with a mocking tone I so do not appreciate. "But we won't be in the storm long."

"That's a relief," I say, cheered by that thought at least.

"We'll be underwater," he says, then steps outside.

"Wait, what now?"

I get a total of zero of my questions answered while we once again hike through sludge and wet puddles. He feigns not being able to hear me, but I think it's really just him blowing me off. Brat.

When we arrive at shore, it's clear the storm is escalating. Chunks of the cliffs overlooking the ocean have collapsed into the water. The waves are growing at alarming rates and the island looks like it's taken a severe beating. I'm not sure how they will restore this place, if we can ever stop the storm.

Arias tells us to stand by the water. "Be ready to jump in when I tell you. You won't be able to breathe out of water."

"Hold up now," Elias says, but it's too late. Arias waves his hands, works some Water Druid voodoo and whoosh! I can no longer breathe good 'ol H2O. Well, shit.

I jump in, submerging my head, but now what? I still can't breathe. Dude might have given a bit more instruction.

His sea serpent appears and Arias speaks under water, like it's totally normal. "Grab on to him. And breathe, you imbeciles."

A few more minutes and I won't have a choice, so I grab on to some scales and take a tiny tentative breath. I'm totally ready to cough up some serious sea water, but instead, I find I can breathe just fine. "What did you do?" I ask, amazed I can speak underwater.