The song outside did not weaken.
It pressed.
Layer upon layered harmony circled the wreck in tightening spirals, a net woven from sound instead of rope. Even with the ear plugs forced deep into his canals, Adam felt it. Not as music. Not as melody.
As vibration.
It crawled through the steel beneath his bare feet. Through the torn ribs of the hull. Through the soles of his feet and into the marrow of his bones. A low tremor that settled behind his sternum and would not leave.
He stood in the middle of the fractured deck, breathing too fast.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Too shallow.
His chest rose and fell in sharp bursts, each breath scraping his throat as if he had been running for miles instead of standing still. He pressed his palms harder against his ears, though the plugs were already in place, as if he could physically squeeze the sound out of existence.
Think.
On the floor to his left, Morris lay propped against a rusted bulkhead. Blood had dried in a thin line beneath his nose. One hand clutched his temple as if holding his skull together. His brows were drawn tight in pain, eyes half closed, the dull aftershock of sonic assault lingering in his nervous system.
Adam swallowed.
He had never felt this… drained.
His muscles still held strength. He knew they did. But strength required clarity. Direction. And right now his thoughts were fogged with exhaustion, adrenaline crashing in slow waves that left him hollow.
Sirena stood several feet away.
He could not bring himself to look at her.
Five.
The number surfaced in his memory like something half buried that refused to stay hidden.
Five.
She had told him.
Not in the rush of panic at the end, but earlier. In the interrogation construct. After she admitted they hated her, after she explained they had tied her, she had added one more detail before releasing him from the illusion.
There are five outside tonight.
The conversation had shifted too quickly. The reality of Morris in danger had overridden everything else. The number had slipped into the back of his mind.
Now it roared forward.
Five sirens circling a wreck in open water.
Adam's jaw tightened.
Was he strong enough?
His mind flashed to the earlier dive. The ripping of flesh. The shriek underwater. He had moved without thinking then. Pure reaction. Pure violence.
Now he felt tired.
So tired.
His heartbeat grew louder in his ears. Or maybe that was his imagination compensating for muffled sound. The rhythm thudded against his skull, heavy and insistent.
Adam.
The name slipped into his mind.
Soft.
He ignored it.
Adam.
Again.
Louder.
Adam.
The repetition intensified until it felt like someone knocking from inside his own head. He jerked slightly, breath hitching, eyes unfocused.
Then hands gripped his shoulders.
Physical.
Real.
Sirena stood in front of him, shaking him lightly.
He blinked.
Her green eyes looked dimmer than before. Not glowing. Not predatory. Just… sad.
Her expression had softened into something almost fragile.
You don't have to worry about me.
The words did not travel through air. They settled into him directly, wrapped in sensation.
I will go to them.
His stomach dropped.
I will offer myself.
He felt her resolve.
And beneath it, something colder.
Fear.
You and your friend can escape.
Her face remained composed, but what she transmitted into him told the truth. Her pulse racing. Her dread. The knowledge of what they intended to do to her if she returned bound or weak.
It's okay if I die.
The sentence fractured as it reached him. Not because she doubted it. But because she was trying to convince herself.
I won't die without a fight.
Behind the statement lay images she did not mean to show him. Teeth. Claws. Blood clouding water.
And terror.
Not just fear of pain.
Fear of betrayal.
Fear of being dragged down by her own kind.
Adam felt it as if it were his own anxiety spiking. His throat tightened. His lungs constricted.
"No," he muttered, shaking his head before he realized he had spoken aloud.
Sirena stilled.
"No," he repeated more firmly, forcing steadiness into his posture. "We're not sacrificing anyone."
She studied him.
Skepticism flickered across her features.
He forced himself to look at her fully now.
"We're all getting out of this," he said. "I just need to think."
The words sounded thin even to him.
But he meant them.
Sirena's gaze searched his face, measuring whether his resolve matched his claim.
He turned away before doubt could grow.
"I'm going to scout the perimeter again," he said. "Maybe there's something I missed."
She nodded once.
Morris shifted faintly behind them, dazed but conscious, ear plugs still in place.
Adam left them in the fractured chamber and moved back through the torn corridor of the wreck.
Every step carried the scent of oxidized metal and stale water. The lower deck groaned softly with each shift of current outside. Rust flaked beneath his fingertips when he steadied himself against a wall. The air tasted metallic, tinged with damp decay.
He climbed.
Up through the split hull.
Past the jagged seam where the vessel had been torn open.
Onto the upper deck.
Cold wind struck his face immediately. It carried lake spray and the distant scent of pine from the island. The night sky stretched wide above him, stars sharp and indifferent.
He stepped onto the funnel deck.
From here, he could see nearly the entire circumference of the wreck.
He scanned.
One.
A siren's head broke the surface briefly near the port side. Jade eyes luminous. Hair slicked back, water streaming down pale shoulders.
Two.
Another farther aft, circling lazily, only the faint glow of patterned skin visible beneath the surface.
Three.
A third near the starboard edge, drifting in slow arcs.
Four.
The one with the half healed hand. Even from this distance he could see the uneven regrowth where he had torn her limb away. The flesh was knitting back together, tendrils of luminous pattern weaving across new skin like bioluminescent veins.
Four?
Adam's brows furrowed.
Sirena had said five.
The song continued, layered and coordinated. But he could distinctly identify only four bodies breaking the water.
Where was the fifth?
A cold prickle ran up his spine.
That feeling again. He was being watched.
Not from the lake.
From behind him.
From the island.
He turned slowly.
The shoreline loomed dark against the water, jagged rocks and sparse trees etched in silver moonlight. Beyond that, rising against the night sky, stood the old castle structure that overlooked the island.
He narrowed his eyes.
At first he thought it was shadow.
Then it moved.
High along one of the upper parapets stood a figure.
Still.
Cloaked in black.
The hood obscured the face entirely. The fabric of the cloak hung heavy and unmoving despite the wind. In one hand, the figure held a long staff.
No.
Not a simple staff.
A bow staff.
Adam could not see facial features from this distance, yet he felt something radiating from the silhouette.
An aura.
Dense.
Focused.
It pressed against his senses more sharply than the sirens' song.
He felt seen.
Not observed casually.
Assessed.
The figure did not fidget. Did not shift weight. Did not hesitate.
They were watching him.
Not the wreck.
Not the sirens.
Him.
Adam's pulse quickened.
Why?
The song around the wreck continued its orbit, but it felt secondary now. Background noise to the presence emanating from the castle.
The cloaked figure lifted the bow staff slowly.
Deliberately.
They extended it forward.
Pointed directly at Adam.
He froze.
The wind seemed to pause.
The water stilled.
The staff remained fixed, aimed squarely at his chest across impossible distance.
The hooded figure did not hesitate.
The staff remained pointed at Adam for one suspended heartbeat, as if measuring distance, wind, trajectory, intent.
Then the tip tilted upward.
The aura around the figure tightened. It did not flare outward wildly. It converged. Drew inward like breath before a scream.
Green light gathered at the staff's tip.
Not a glow.
A compression.
The air itself seemed to fold toward that single point, warping slightly as energy condensed into something tangible and volatile. The night around the castle flickered, shadows bending inward toward the forming nucleus.
Then it released.
A blast erupted from the staff, not in a chaotic explosion but in a controlled surge. It shot skyward at an angle toward the wreck, a single concentrated lance of emerald light that resembled a firework launched in slow motion.
But this was no festive streak.
It climbed steadily, leaving behind a faint trail of ionized air that shimmered and crackled like a burning fuse. The projectile did not arc loosely. It ascended with intent, its glow intensifying as it gained altitude.
Adam instinctively took a step back.
The green flare rose higher.
Higher.
Larger.
It did not diminish with distance. It expanded, swelling as if feeding on the very atmosphere. What had begun as a focused beam now resembled a massive emerald rocket drifting upward through the dark sky, humming with restrained violence.
The sirens below slowed.
Their circling pattern faltered.
The song did not cease at once, but something changed. The harmonies wavered, losing cohesion as their attention shifted upward.
Even from the funnel deck Adam could see their jade eyes tilt skyward.
The projectile reached its apex above the wreck.
And then it split.
The single mass of green fire fractured midair into four colossal tendrils, each one twisting outward like the arms of a luminous starfish. They hovered for a breathless instant, suspended against the night, writhing and coiling with contained force.
The lake reflected their glow in fractured emerald ripples.
Time thinned.
Then gravity reclaimed them.
The four tendrils bent downward.
Locked.
Homing.
They descended with accelerating force, thickening as they fell, transforming from ethereal light into dense, comet like pillars aimed directly at the four sirens below.
The air detonated.
Even with one ear plug still seated firmly and the other muffling only partially, Adam felt the shockwave slam into his chest before he heard anything. It punched the breath from his lungs and rattled his ribcage like a struck drum.
The water below erupted.
Each tendril struck its target with surgical precision.
The first impact detonated in a blinding column of green, the lake boiling instantly around the point of contact. Steam exploded upward in violent clouds, illuminated from within by emerald flame.
The second blast followed half a heartbeat later, sending a circular shockwave across the surface that crashed against the wreck's hull like a battering ram.
The third and fourth landed in rapid succession.
Four massive detonations encircled the ship.
It was not merely loud.
It was concussive.
The hull screamed.
Metal groaned under sudden stress as the force of the impacts churned the surrounding water into violent upheaval. Waves rose in chaotic spirals, slamming against the wreck's torn sides. Steam and spray shot upward in towering plumes.
The sirens' song cut off completely.
The vibration in Adam's bones vanished.
Silence rushed in, replaced by the roaring chaos of displaced water.
The deck lurched violently beneath him.
Adam's footing vanished.
The explosion nearest the port side sent a tidal surge crashing into the wreck with enough force to tilt the entire structure several degrees. Rusted railings bent under strain. Loose debris skidded across metal surfaces.
Adam was thrown sideways.
His body collided with the railing along the funnel deck. For a split second he was airborne, weightless, staring at the churning lake below as steam rolled upward in thick green tinted clouds.
He shot an arm out on instinct.
His fingers hooked the vertical support bars just as his lower body cleared the deck's edge. His shoulder wrenched painfully as his full weight swung over open water.
The world roared beneath him.
One of his ear plugs tore free and vanished into the chaos below.
The remaining plug muffled the sound, but he still felt the concussive thunder vibrate through his bones. The heat rising from the boiling water licked at his skin in sharp bursts.
He gritted his teeth and pulled.
His muscles responded despite exhaustion, cords in his forearms tightening as he hauled himself back over the railing. The metal was slick with condensation and spray, but his grip held.
He rolled onto the deck just as another delayed shockwave rippled outward from the blast zones.
The entire wreck shuddered again.
Adam lay flat for a brief second, chest heaving, eyes squeezed shut against the glare of lingering green light reflecting off steam clouds.
The lake around the wreck frothed violently.
Where the four sirens had been circling moments earlier, nothing remained but swirling turbulence and dissipating columns of vapor.
No jade eyes.
No pale arms.
No glowing patterns beneath the surface.
The water continued to churn, but the song was gone.
Gone.
The realization struck him with a strange, hollow clarity.
They were no more.
The four that had circled them were simply… erased.
Adam pushed himself onto his elbows, staring out across the chaos in disbelief. Steam drifted in thick curtains across the lake, illuminated faintly by the residual glow fading in the sky.
The cloaked figure on the castle parapet remained still.
Watching.
The staff lowered slightly, its aura dimming back into a quiet, contained presence.
The wreck groaned beneath him again.
Metal protested against stress fractures that had long existed but were now violently aggravated. The lower half of the hull, already split and partially submerged, shifted with an ominous grinding scrape.
Adam dragged himself upright, legs shaky.
He took one unsteady step forward.
Another.
The lake's surface began to settle gradually, steam thinning into wisps.
The silence felt unnatural after so much vibration.
He exhaled, tension draining from his shoulders in a rush.
They were alive.
For now.