Chapter 664
Pearl vanished beneath the black water with a violent splash, and the entire sea shifted.
The waves stilled.
Then all of a sudden it trembled.
Before I could even process what she’d said
In your condition -which I instantly shoved out of my mind because everything was collapsing too fast-
Otto grabbed my wrist.
“Jasmine. Now. On the horse, let’s go!”
His voice cracked with urgency and a hint of terror.
I scrambled onto my horse, my bare feet slipping on the sand, and Otto practically threw himself onto his.
The night air bit through my skin like knives.
Before he could respond, he was interrupted.
The horn that had blown the first time that Pearl had reacted to, blew again
WOOOOOOOOM.
It was scarier than the first.
The kind of sound that vibrated in your bones.
The kind that felt like it could summon nightmares.
Otto’s face drained of color.
“Jasmine,” he rasped, “we have to get out of here faster!”
“You’re scaring me, Otto,” I said in fear as I chewed my bottom lip.
“If what I know about Sirens is true. The first horn signals a foreign presence. The second is that they are aware of the foreign presence, and they are ready to attack.”
My mind began to race in terror.
Pearl had said her people and ours were at war.
I knew that Pearl even speaking to us was forbidden.
Talk less of the fact that she had saved Otto with her powers.
He turned his horse sharply toward the forest.
My stomach sank.
We kicked our horses forward, hooves pounding sand as we broke into a full gallop.
But before we made it five feet, the sea erupted.
A surge of water exploded upward, and then I saw them.
Hundreds.
Hundreds of blue figures slicing through the water with violent speed.
Their glowing white hair streaming behind them like ghost fire.
Their tails cut the waves like blades.
They swam so fast the ocean churned into a spiral.
Otto swore under his breath, voice shaking.
“They’re coming.”
Cold panic slammed into me.
The sirens were closing in fast.
Too fast.
The horn blasted AGAIN, deeper this time
WOOOOOOOOM
And the sea split open where they moved.
“JASMINE, GO!” Otto roared.
I didn’t think.
I just kicked the horse with every ounce of fear inside me.
The beast surged forward, hooves tearing across the wet sand.
Otto stayed behind me by only a few inches.
The sirens were so close now that I could hear the
A high-pitched humming sound that vibrated like a swarm of bees.
Their bodies glimmered beneath the moonlight, a wave of scales and fury.
I risked one look back.
I shouldn’t have.
“OTTO!” I screamed.
They were racing, not swimming.
Racing.
A mass of blue bodies slicing the sea surface, closing the distance in seconds.
Otto shouted, “KEEP YOUR EYES AHEAD!”
But I couldn’t
Because the closer they came, the more the humming grew into something sharper, more dangerous.
Like a song that wanted to crawl into your skull and rip you apart.
My horse stumbled for a second, and I nearly fell.
“JASMINE!” Otto yelled, panic cracking his voice.
“DON’T LISTEN TO THEM, FOCUS!”
I forced myself to tear my gaze away from the sea.
The forest line wasn’t far.
Just a few more seconds.
A few more seconds.
But the sirens were almost parallel with us now, swimming so fast the waves slapped the shore hard enough to sting.
One leapt out of the water.
It was a man.
I saw his face.
Sharp jaw.
White eyes.
Blue-scaled skin.
His mouth opened as if preparing to scream, and he held his trident ready to attack.
Otto’s voice cracked beside me
“FASTER! FASTER, JASMINE!”
I didn’t know I could go faster.
But I did.
My horse lunged forward with a desperate burst of energy, and Otto’s followed beside me.
We hit the forest line just as the humming reached a pitch so sharp I thought my skull would split.
And then Silence.
Complete silence.
We crossed the boundary.
The humming halted abruptly.
No more water slamming.
No more horns.
No sirens breaching the waves.
We made it out.
I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath until my lungs screamed.
I pulled the horse to a stop and clutched its mane, shaking violently.
Otto stopped beside me, chest heaving.
His face was drenched with sweat.
“I thought
He breathed, voice thin, “We weren’t going to make it.”
I nodded slowly, unable to speak.
I finally found my voice. “Why did they stop?”
He looked back toward the sea.
“They won’t cross onto wolf land,” he said softly. “Their magic… it stops at the forest line. It’s the boundary that separates them from us. We’re no longer on the beach.”
I felt a tremble in my shoulders.
It had been a very terrifying experience.
How they could have mauled us to death.
And then I thought of Pearl.
I swallowed hard, throat tightening.
“Oh my God, Pearl.” I gasped in terror. “Do you think she’s okay?”
Otto didn’t smile.
“Let’s hope so.” He said weakly.
If they found out that Pearl had saved us, I wondered what would be done to her.
Especially for saving Otto.
Surely Pearl couldn’t have let us pass without her knowledge.
I started to feel like I might truly be bad luck.
Bringing down misfortune on everyone I had come across.
I looked down at my trembling hands.
Then at the bracelet.
Then I touched my new blonde hair.
Everything felt unreal.
The escape.
The betrayal.
The fear.
The chase.
My life was shattered entirely within hours.
It was all too much for me.
I shocked myself when I began to weep.
It was like I was releasing all the frustration that welled up in me.
My shoulders trembled as the tears spilled.
Otto turned to me, his voice gentler now, and then he handed me a hankie.
“Hankie?” He offered generously.
I quietly collected it and used it to wipe my tears.
Once I was done crying, he turned to me. “Do you feel better now?”
I nodded numbly.
“Yes, I do,” I responded.
He gave me a light smile. “Sometimes it’s good just to let it all out. You’ll feel better.”
I said nothing.
“Jasmine… we need to keep moving. We aren’t safe yet.”
I nodded.
And slowly… we started deeper into the forest.
Leaving the sea, the sirens, and everything I once knew behind.