But it didn't stop.
Vaelin moved in a blur, his blade flashing as he leapt toward the thing's head. The steel met flesh, then bone, then nothing.
The blade went straight through, as if the creature wasn't entirely solid.
"Shit," Mira growled. She spun, grabbing one of the harpoons from the side of the ship, and hurled it with all her strength. It struck true, embedding deep into the beast's shoulder.
The creature barely flinched.
And then, it opened its mouth.
A deep, suffocating void stretched within, something darker than the sea, something that seemed to swallow the very air around them.
And then, it pulled.
Jude felt it immediately. A force, dragging at him. At all of them.
The void wasn't just pulling their bodies. It was pulling something deeper. Something inside them.
