Abnormal. Defective. And in a blink of an eye, the child I was became the creature I am.
I forced myself to think only of which princes would please my mother most: the fearless ágriosy, who tried for decades to find Diávolos under the misguided notion they could end our kind, or a prince of Mellontikós. Prophets and fortune-tellers who chose to keep themselves apart from the war, rarely daring to let a ship touch the water. I toyed with the thought of bringing them to my mother as further proof that I belonged by her side.
Over time, I forgot what it was like to be weak. Now that I’m trapped here in a body that is not my own, I suddenly remember. I’ve gone from being my mother’s least favorite weapon to a creature who can’t even defend herself. A monster without fangs or claws.
I run a hand over my bruised legs, paler than a shark’s underbelly.
My feet arch inward as an awful cold snakes through me and small bumps begin to prickle over my new skin. I don’t understand what it means, and I don’t understand how I could have gone from darting through the ocean to stumbling among humans.
I heave a frustrated breath, turning my caress to the skin on my ribs. No gills. No matter how deep I breathe, the skin doesn’t part and the air continues to fog in and out of my lips. My skin is still damp and the water no longer runs off it, seeping instead into every pore and bringing with it an unbearable cold. The kind of cold that sends more bumps along the surface of my skin, crawling from my legs to my frail arms.
I can’t help but start to fear the water outside of this cage. If Elian were to throw me overboard, how long would it take for me to drown?
The lanterns glow, faint enough to give my human eyes the time to adjust. Elian presses a key into the crystal cage, and a section of wall slides open. I ignore the instinct to rush him, remembering how easily he pinned me to the wall when I tried to attack Maeve. He’s stronger than I am now and more agile than I gave him credit for. In this body, force is not the way.
Elian sets a plate down in front of me. It’s a thick broth the color of river water. Pale meat and sea grapes float curiously at the top, and the overwhelming smell of anise climbs through the air. My stomach aches in response.
“Kye and I caught sea turtles,” he explains. “It stinks to high heaven, but damn if it tastes good.”
“I’m being punished,” I say in a cold rendition of Midasan. “I want you to tell me why.”
“You’re not being punished,” he tells me. “You’re being watched.”
“Because I speak Psáriin?” I ask. “Is speaking a language a crime now?”
“It’s banned in most kingdoms.”
“We’re not in a kingdom.”
“Wrong.” Elian leans against the door arch. “We’re in mine. The Saad is my kingdom. The entire ocean is.”
I ignore the insult of a human trying to lay claim to what is mine and say, “I wasn’t given a list of laws when I boarded.”
“Well, now you know.” He twists the key around on his finger. “Of course, I could arrange for a more comfortable sleeping arrangement if you’d just stop being so evasive.”
“I’m not being evasive.”
“Then tell me how you can speak Psáriin.” The curiosity in his voice betrays his lax movements. “Tell me what you know about the Crystal of Keto.”
“You saved my life and now you’re trading comforts for information? It’s strange how fast kindness disappears.”
“I’m fickle,” Elian says. “And I have to protect the Saad. I can’t just go trusting anyone who climbs aboard. They need a good enough story first.”
I smirk at that.
If a story is all I need, then that’s easy enough. The Second Eye of Keto is a legend in our waters, too. The Sea Queen hunted it for years when she began her reign. Where previous queens dismissed it as a lost cause from the outset, my mother was always too hungry for power. She rehashed the stories of the ritual to free the eye, over and over, in a bid to find some clue to its location. Tales that generations had ignored, my mother made sure to memorize. And her obsession meant that I knew them, too. She once told me that the eye was the key to ending all humans, as much as it was the humans’ key to ending all of us. I think of her charcoal bone trident and the beloved ruby that sits in the center, the true source of the Sea Queen’s magic. The eye is said to be its twin, stolen from my kind and hidden where no siren can follow.
My mother knows everything about the eye, except for how to find it. And so, after many years, she gave up on the hunt. But her failure to succeed where her predecessors failed has always irked her.
I pause, an idea sparking inside me.
The eye is hidden where no siren can follow, but thanks to my mother, that no longer applies to me. If Elian can lead me there, then I can use the eye to make the Sea Queen’s greatest fear come true. If she truly thinks I’m unworthy of ruling, I’ll prove just the opposite by using the Second Eye of Keto to overthrow her. To destroy her, the way she tried to destroy me.
I lick my lips.
If Elian is truly hunting the eye, then he’s doing so on the faith of stories. And if a man can hunt them, then he can hear them. All I need is to convince the prince that I’m useful, and he might just let me above deck and away from the shackles of my cage. If I can get close enough, I won’t need my nails to rip out his heart. I’ll do it with his own knife. Just as soon as he secures my place as the ruler of the ocean.
“The Sea Queen stole my family,” I tell Elian, layering my voice in the same melancholy I’ve heard in the calls of sailors as they watched their rulers die. “We were on a fishing boat and I was the only one to survive. I’ve studied them ever since I was a child, learning everything possible from books and stories.” I bite down on my lip. “As for the language, I don’t pretend to be fluent, but I know enough. It was easy to pick up with one of them as my prisoner. My father managed to cripple it before he died, and that meant I was able to keep it captive.”
Elian sighs, unimpressed. “If you’re going to lie,” he says, “do it better.”
“It’s not a lie.” I pretend to be wounded by the accusation. “One of them was injured during the attack on my family. We’re from Polemistés.”
At the mention of the warrior land, Elian takes a step forward. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small circular object. The same compass he palmed when we spoke above deck. A thin gold chain hangs delicately from the hilt, and when he flips it open, the ends chime together.
“Do you really expect me to believe that you’re from Polemistés?” Elian asks.