Silversong (The Fable Series, Book 3)

Chapter 1

Am I dreaming?

Iron, salt, bone, blood, tears.

Ocean.

I'm in the darkness again.

Floating in a black void, a million miles under the sea.

Where was I before?

Whispered words trickle around me like a meandering brook, a slow stream of names murmured like a prayer, a rippling chant.

Felix Alastaire Ben Lyall Elliot Kitty Zee Jamie Grace Jade Bea Mia Evan Ashling Ondine.

Ondine?

I look down. I'm naked, my hands are bleeding.

Trickles of red wind down my fingers; deep cuts across my wrists burn cold.

I try to piece together how I got here, where I was before.

I was on the bus. Mia was next to me. Evan was looking out the window. We were listening to Déjà Vu. Then... we went over the side of the cliff.

There was lots of screaming.

Lots of blood.

Everyone died, except me.

No, no. That was a long time ago.

Think harder. Try to remember.

Fable. I met Fable. Boys I'd worshipped so long that they were practically gods to me. I got to meet them... I got to know them. He wanted my music... he wanted me... we were recording an album together, in a cabin in the forest and then... and then...

They went away.

But there's more.

Something more, buried, hidden, waiting to burst to the surface. A seed buried in the gravesoil long ago, frozen, waiting, ready to bloom.

The lost memory.

A loud wailing cuts through the dark, the metal screeching of the bus's skeleton twisting through the water far above me.

I face upwards, towards the sound, honing in on the distant tinkling of shattered glass and the ghosts of screams.

Something far above me is falling down, a speck of silver light at first, glittering in the black.

Like a falling star, heading down to slumber at the bottom of the ocean.

It falls, falls, falls, and I know that no matter what, I must catch it.

I kick wildly through the darkness, scrambling up, through the icy water, and reaching, I grasp the shard of light with cold fingers.

A fragment of broken mirror glass, as large as my outstretched hand, smeared with crimson.

It shines silver, illuminated from within.

I hold it up, and gasp at the reflection.

It's me, but not me.

Hair as white as moonlit seafoam tumbles down bare shoulders, a cascading waterfall of flowing ivory fire.

Eyes of swirling molten silver widen in surprise, seeing me as I see her.

A crown of seashells and pearls, blood stained lips, skin white as death.

Ondine.

I murmur her name, her eyes flash with terror, she cries out, the mirror shatters into a cloud of sparkling dust.

Her cry echoes on the current, replaced by a slow hiss that rises out of the darkness all around me, the sound of something vast and endless slithering in my direction.

Ancient and fathomless, the creature slaves and struggles against time and distance to reach me, driven by hunger and hatred, scales scraping over glass, sand, coral, centuries.

I'm blind in the inky gloom, numb with cold, helpless as it draws nearer, then wraps around me, tighter and tighter, crushing the life out of me.

It squeezes the air from my lungs, and as the last of my spirit escapes in a flurry of bubbles, I feel icy lips pressed against my ear.

A whisper - my own voice.

"Sleep now, beloved."

*****

Note to readers:

Welcome back to the Fable Series :) Chapter 1 - Autumn Daze - will take me a few more days - in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed the cover reveal and this prologue/teaser. Thanks so much for your ongoing support - for anyone who wants print copies of the first two books, please check out  bit.ly/fablebook - they come with beautiful covers and it's a great way to support my writing, so I can carry on devoting time to the Fable series, while you get something super pretty for your bookshelf :) xox