"Finn, where are you?" Melody shouted in the dark. She was getting desperately worried now, her voice high pitched, and the more silence she encountered, the more panicked she grew. Finn had the stone - Lysidus wasn't far away - and who knew where Zafrina and Bay were? What if Finn had run into the nightlings? Or what if he never forgave her, for what happened to Zafrina and Bay? Did he blame her?
It occurred to her that maybe she shouldn't be yelling so loudly. She was alone, in the dark. Sharks, seawolves, Lysidus, with nothing but a staff - more like a stick - to defend herself...
There was the sound of pebbles skidding down a slope, bouncing off rocks. She whirled back around, watching the pebble bounce down a slope of rock before sinking to the black sand. Something had made it move. Melody's heart increased it's pace, her blood starting to pulse faster through her veins.
"Who's there?" Melody breathed, looking into the dark. No response. Nothing, not a flash of movement, not a tremor. The silence dragged by as she scanned the water. The shadows cast by underwater mountains seemed larger, darker, swallowing her. There were no icebergs floating above, no patch of lightness to speak of. Everything was black and she could barely see...
Melody's grip tightened on her staff. For a moment, just a moment, she swore she heard a hiss of breath. A flash of movement in the corner of her vision, a shape, like a torso. Yet when she whirled round, it disappeared, darting behind a boulder. Her breath was trapped inside her lungs, her mind screaming, that something was wrong, that she had to swim away...
"Show yourself," Melody dared. An eerily bright pair of yellow eyes emerged in the black, from a sunken face with tangled white hair. There was a glint of metal on his hand, a metal claw that replaced a lost finger. She remembered immediately. "You..."
"Poor, lost child..." Lysidus sighed, coming toward her. Melody was paralyzed with fear. His tone was cold and mocking. "Where are your friends? Left you here, all alone? I certainly didn't see that coming..."
Melody stared at him for a moment. Lysidus watched her, waiting for her to figure it out. Finally, it dawned upon her; his voice, the same one she'd heard from the stone. "You did it. You diverted the blast from the stone. You're the reason Zafrina and Bay got hit..."
"Smart girl." Melody's skin started to crawl. He'd put a piece of himself inside the stone.
"Stay away from me..." Melody backed away, staff tight in hand. Lysidus followed, beginning to circle her like a vulture around a dying animal. Melody felt like one, running out of time, helpless. He towered over her, his arms alone were almost as thick as her tail. She kept seeing the glistening metal claw on his hand, which clicked continuously against his metal spear, putting her on edge.
"It was really quite easy to split you all up. The underlying feelings of bereavement, distrust, fear, but it was me, whispering ideas and uncertainties into your minds that ultimately did it..." Lysidus was looking at her almost with a look of pity. He noticed how hard the staff trembled in her grasp, the blue flames burning in her eyes as it fell into place. "Do you want to kill me?" Melody didn't have to say her answer aloud. Lysidus grinned. "I know you would..."
Melody tried to smother her rage. She would have happily launched herself at the nightling who had been listening in through the stone, listening to their tensions and whispering anxiety into all of them, making them doubt their friendships. He'd set out to drive them apart in the most brutal way. She couldn't fight him, she knew that. She remembered Triton's letter; could she reason with him?
"I know you lost a lot... I know what my grandfather and the merpeople did to you. It's unforgivable, being blamed and punished for the actions of that rogue group... you didn't have anything to do with the Delorea massacre, they never, ever should have tried to kill your entire race!" Lysidus' eyes flashed with the memory of pain and loss, surprised at how much she knew about him.
"But there was a misunderstanding. The merpeople hunted you out of grief and panic, they mistakenly thought you were in on the killings... you've become exactly what they feared. It was half a century ago! Times have changed. It's different, better, the world is better... we tolerate each other now. Your kind can live in harmony with mine..." Melody looked at him pleadingly. "All you have to do is give up this terrible plan. My grandfather regretted trying to kill you for the rest of his life, it tormented him in his final days. He created what he feared the most all because of a misunderstanding..."
Melody ran out of words but it didn't matter. "Did you honestly think I'd change my mind when it was made fifty years ago?" Lysidus murmured, and something inside Melody crashed. Her breath snagged in her throat and she began to shrink away. He wasn't alone.
Corva and Proximus, who had attacked Bay, emerged from the other side of the boulder. That wasn't all. Three other shapes melted out of the shadows, moving toward her in a loose semi circle. Melody couldn't breathe. Their ragged cloaks billowed with their movement, revealing the reptilian hands that gripped cruel weapons. Melody was surrounded by six nightlings. Eyes burned into her, ferocious, making her freeze.
"Give up the stone, Melody. You have no where to go..." Lysidus's voice was cool yet it screamed danger, madness. His eyes were wild with anticipation. But there was no stone this time - they wouldn't like that. Melody noticed the sword one of the nightlings held, the same one she'd seen Lysidus trying to destroy. Two other nightlings surrounded her, protective. A black metal, the blade studded with red jewels - it looked exactly like the drawing she'd found in Circe's lair. The dots connected yet there was nothing she could do. Melody turned, and fled for her life. Like a pack of wolves, four of the nightlings began to follow, while the other three remained, protecting the sword. Lysidus himself disappeared.
Meanwhile, blurs of purple randomly appeared for a brief second, in various places between Belixia and the end of Wundagore. Screams were heard as Zafrina and Bay were violently thrown about.
"Keep hold of me -"
"What's it doing - just hold on -"
It was as though Zafrina and Bay were blind, being thrown back and forth through space. Flashes of land appeared, some that looked like Wundagore, others that looked like - well, not Wundagore. They'd asked it to take them to Melody and Finn - so why was it flinging them across the ocean?
"Just hang on a minute, make it stop -" they were thrown to the sand. Zafrina immediately leapt back up, scooping up the necklace as Bay picked himself up. She looked around in panic; this was a place they'd passed weeks before. "It's not broken. What is with inconsistent magic lately?" Bay took the necklace and examined it.
"I don't see anything wrong with it. Unless they've separated? It might be unsure where to take us -" Zafrina gripped his wrist.
"Separated? No, they wouldn't - if that's true, one of them's on their own..." Zafrina pictured the area they'd left Melody and Finn at, instead. The purple dust cleared, and they found themselves back at the Black Ridge, in the exact place they'd left them. Zafrina almost laughed at herself for hoping they'd still be there. "Alright. Let's just think for a moment..."
As they tried to think, they were suddenly aware of a distant sound. "What's that?" The sound of screaming was what brought Zafrina and Bay rushing over the hill. Five shapes tore across the sand, Melody being one of them. "It's Melody! What do we -" Before Bay could even look at Zafrina, she shoved Ontari's necklace into his hands.
"Make it take you to Finn! Bring him back here! I'll get Melody, you get Finn and try to get the sword!"
"I can't leave you!" Bay refused to leave her with six nightlings. Zafrina grabbed his face, kissing him hard, before there was an explosion of purple smoke. Bay tried to protest but Zafrina had torn the glaive from his grasp. She grabbed the necklace back.
"He's here somewhere! Use the stone to find us!" Zafrina vanished once more, leaving Bay in shock. He was speechless at the speed of it all.
"Oh, why me?" Bay cursed before beginning to shout for Finn.