“They’ll be too busy fighting each other to take your place to pay attention to me. They won’t give your body a second glance. Your name will be forgotten. It will fade from memory, and any scrap of glory you’ve attained will be forgotten. No one will remember you. I certainly won’t.”
He doubles his efforts. He slices my already injured arm, bruises my ribs, swings my legs out from under me. I roll and roll and roll away from him. I don’t stop until my back hits the railing at the starboard side. I come up on my feet, feebly hold my sword out in front of me.
I’m losing too much blood now that there are two openings.
He advances slowly. He knows I’m beaten. My crew is completely subdued. A third of them paint the deck red and lie at unnatural angles, unmoving. The rest are cowed into a corner.
And Riden—he’s nearly upon me when three of my father’s men tackle him to the deck and wrest his sword from him.
I look around for something—anything—to help me beat Kalligan. I’m useless. There’s nothing Riden can do. There’s nothing my crew can do. My mother is helpless back in my father’s rooms. And the sirens—
What of the sirens?
They’ve already been beaten, have lost the fight in them now that their queen has been captured once again. They’ve probably already abandoned the area.
But what if they haven’t? What if they are stirring below, just waiting for their queen to come to them?
I am not her, but I am the queen’s daughter. They looked on me as an outsider, but could I call to them? Would they even listen?
Because it is the only option left to me, I sing. The song is a cloud of desperation and pleading. A cry for help, wrestling the wind, dropping into the water, searching its depths for anyone who can hear.
I can feel them, now that I’m calling to them. Hundreds and hundreds of them. They cry beneath the waves. Fearing for their queen, weeping for their fallen, trembling for their lives. It’s so …
Human of them.
Some quiet at my own song, listening. I can feel their attention shift to me. I am part of the royal line. It flows through my veins, rides on my song. They don’t have listen to me, but if I can just say the right words …
I am Alosa-lina, daughter of Ava-lee. My mother is alive, but a prisoner on this ship. Will you not help? Will you fight against the pirates who have dared to breach your waters and steal what is yours?
They murmur among themselves. I feel it in their songs, in the way the water trembles around them.
The reply is faint, but one answers me. Are you not one of the pirate scum? Did you not refuse the queen’s call when she bid you home? Even now you stay on solid ground, refusing to join your sisters below.
My father stares at me all the while, halting in front of me. “You’re calling on the sirens? They fled, shrieking into the deep. You are a stranger to them. I made sure of that.”
You outnumber the pirates, I explain. My loyalty is not with them. I will help you beat them.
Doubt sings to me from below. Emotions are songs of their own, pouring out of them without any effort, as if their voices cannot keep quiet.
No one will talk with me now. The sirens resume their wailing grief until my voice leaves me, and I can no longer hear them.
“Drop your sword,” Kalligan says. His tone is clipped, final. He will not ask me again. His next strike will take a life.
“Alosa.” This voice is quiet. It is from Riden. He stands so close by, all his limbs subdued.
I drop my sword as my father bids and turn toward Riden. With just a few well-aimed jabs from me, his captors release him.
I grab him, and the two of us leap from the ship.
Chapter 23
WATER ENVELOPS ME, cradles me, welcomes me home. My body shifts, stretches, relishes the new surroundings. My muscles feel refreshed, ready to get back in the fight.
Riden watches me, ascertains that I am myself, before giving me an encouraging nod and swimming for the surface.
My father’s laugh reaches me, even down here. “Your captain has left you! She’d rather live her life as a senseless beast than go down with her ship and crew. I hadn’t realized I’d raised a coward.”
I feel nothing at the words. My crew knows how I’ve grown. They won’t believe them. They must know I am here to save them, not to save myself.
For now, I swim far, far below, arcing down into the deep. It’s clear as day to me where no human could see or bear the pressure.
I find them easily. The sisters I would have grown up with had I lived my life as a siren. They swim in circles or rest on the ocean’s bottom, arms thrown over their faces in defeat. Limbs twisting and shifting uneasily, helpless, yet enraged.
I am here, I sing to them. Now you can speak directly to my face. Tell me why you have abandoned your queen yet again.
A group of older sirens looks away. Their hair obscures their faces as they shift uneasily. They were there when their queen was ripped from them the first time. They are ashamed—so much so they can’t bear to look into my face.
The siren children are ethereal. Perfect pearls in this sea. They hang back behind their mothers—those that still have them. A girl with hair the color of sparkling sand huddles near a woman with night-black locks. The child, who can’t be more than five, sings of her mother’s death. She saw it with perfect clarity, the way the harpoon hit her mother, how her eyes rolled back, how she sank down to the ocean’s bottom.
We need to make them pay for what they’ve done, I say.
How? the siren clutching the orphan asks. The men cannot hear us. Their leader is immune.
How is that possible?
He has lain with a siren and lived. Now the magic of our song does not affect him.
All this time I thought I couldn’t control him because we shared blood, but it is because of his relationship with my mother, not me, that he is immune.
And even if he weren’t immune, she continues, it would do us little good. Our voices do not work when we’re completely out of the water as yours does.
They don’t need to. Do you not have arms and legs?
We are weak out of water. We will have no more strength than human women.
I smile at all of them. I’ve been training human women to fight for years. A woman is not helpless when she knows what to do. And even a man is helpless when outnumbered ten to one.
It’s not a question of if you’ll win, I continue. The only question is whether you will choose to fight. Will you fight for your queen? Will you fight for your waters and treasure? Will you fight for your little ones?
My song carries through the water, firm and unmistakable. A call to arms. A demand from their princess.
I am not your queen. You do not have to obey me as you do my mother. This is a choice you must make. A choice to avenge your lost ones, to save your queen, to protect your children. I am an outsider. The life I could have had with all of you was taken from me, but I am here now by choice. Will you not choose to rally with me now? I braved the ocean for you. Will you brave land for your queen?
All of their singing stops. The piercing chords of grief cease. The harsh thrums of anger relent.