I try not to take offense at the question – right now I wouldn’t believe I was a warrior either – but I don’t argue my case. I don’t like the way Elian glances down at the compass, as though he’s relying on it to discern something. With every lie that crosses my thoughts, I can almost feel the object reaching out to crawl into the watery depths of my mind. Pluck out the lies like seaweed roots. It seems impossible, but I know how much humans like their trickery.
“My family are hunters,” I say carefully. “Just like you. The Sea Queen wanted revenge because she felt she was wronged.”
The space between us cloys with the compass’s phantom magic, and I conjure an image of Maeve’s face to prove to the strange object that this is not technically a lie.
“I tortured one of her sirens to get what I needed,” I say.
“What happened to the siren?”
“Dead,” I tell him.
Elian glances down at the compass and then frowns. “Did you kill it?”
“Do you think I’m not capable?”
He sighs at my evasive answer, but it’s difficult to miss the intrigue in his eyes as he toys with the possibility of believing me. “The siren,” he says. “Did she tell you about the crystal?”
“She told me a lot of things. Make me an offer worth my while, and perhaps I’ll tell you, too.”
“What kind of offer?”
“A place on your ship and this hunt.”
“You’re in no position to bargain,” Elian says.
“My family has studied sirens for generations. I guarantee that I know more about them than you ever could hope to. And you’ve already seen that I can speak their tongue,” I say. “This isn’t a bargain, it’s a deal.”
“I’m not in the business of striking deals with girls in cages.”
I twist my lips into a cruel smile. “Then by all means, let me out.”
Elian laughs, pulls a pistol out, and shakes his head once again.
“You know,” he says, approaching the cell, “I think I might like you. Thing is” – he taps his gun against my prison – “there’s a difference between liking someone and trusting them.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never done either.”
“When we get to Eidyllio,” Elian says, “we can drink to that.”
The thought is enough to make me wince. Eidyllio is a land devoted to romance. They celebrate love as though it’s power, even though it has killed far more humans than I ever have. I would rather be surrounded by the blinding gold of Midas than be in a kingdom where emotion is currency.
“You trust me enough to buy me a drink?”
Elian pockets his pistol and heads back to the switch. “Who said I’d be the one buying?”
“You promised that you would set me free!” I shout to his retreating figure.
“I promised you more comfortable living arrangements.” Elian’s hand flickers over the switch. “I’ll get Kye to bring you a pillow.”
I catch one last look at his angled smirk before the lantern dims and the last speck of light is pulled from the room.
19
Lira
WHEN THE LIGHT BREAKS across the shore of Eidyllio, there’s a flash of pink that shatters the sky. The sun gleams against the horizon, encircled by a miraculous hue of diminished red, like melted coral. I’m pulled from the depths of my cage and into the light, where there’s an explosion of warmth and color, like nothing I have ever witnessed. There’s light in every corner of the earth, but in Eidyllio it seems closer to magic. The kind that’s crafted into Elian’s blade and my mother’s ashen trident. Dreams shaped into something more powerful than reality.
Across the docks, the grass is the color of neon gobies. A meadow floating on the water. Stems of juniper sprout like fireworks, rain beads clinging to their tips in indestructible droplets. They are orbs of light guiding the way back to land.
I realize that I’m warm. It’s a new sensation, far from the tickle of ice I loved as a siren and the sharp frost I felt in my human toes aboard the Saad. I’ve shed Elian’s damp shirt, which clung and dried against me like a second skin. Now I have a ragged white dress, pinched at the waist by a belt as thick as either of my legs, and large black boots that threaten to swallow my new feet whole.
Madrid takes a step beside me. “Freedom’s in your grasp,” she says.
I throw her a disparaging look. “Freedom?”
“The cap planned to cut you loose once we arrived here, didn’t he?
No burn, no breach.”
I recognize the saying. It is a Kléftesis phrase from the kingdom of thieves – no harm, no problem – used by pirates who pillage passing ships and any land they dock on. If nobody is killed, the Kléftesis don’t believe a crime has been committed. Their pirates are true to their nature and pay no mind to noble missions and declarations of peace. They sail for gold and pleasure and the pain they cause when taking it. If Madrid is from Kléftes, then Elian chose his crew well. The worst of the worst to be his best.
“How trusting you are of your prince,” I say.
“He’s not my prince,” Madrid says. “He’s not any sort of prince on this ship.”
“That I can believe,” I tell her. “He wasn’t even civil when I offered help.”
“Let’s be straight,” Madrid says. “You’re only looking to help yourself.”
“Is there anyone alive who isn’t?”
“The captain.” Her voice holds a spark of admiration. “He wants to help the world.”
I laugh. The prince wants to help a doomed world. As long as my mother’s alive, war is all we will ever know. The best thing Elian can do for his safety is kill me and anyone else he can’t afford to trust. Instead he kept me prisoner. Suspicious enough to lock me away, but not brutal enough to take my life. He showed mercy, and whether it’s weakness or strength, it’s jarring all the same.
I watch Elian descending the ship, paying no mind to the shipwrecked girl he could easily abandon. He takes off in a run and jumps the last of the way, so that when his feet touch the tufts of grass, small droplets explode into the air like rainfall. He pulls his hat off and takes a sweeping bow at the land. Then he reaches up a tanned hand, ruffles the wisps of his raven hair, and slips the hat back onto his head in a flourish. He takes a moment, surveying the canvas, his hands hitched on his hips.
I can hear the exhale of his breath even from high on the deck of the Saad. His joy is like a gust of unfamiliar wind sweeping up to us. The crew smiles as they watch him stare into an ocean of grass and juniper and, in the distance, a wall made of light. A castle peeks out from the city lines like a mirage.
“He always does this,” Kolton Torik says.
His presence casts a shadow beside me, but for all the foreboding Elian’s first mate could bring, he’s nothing of the dire pirate he could be. His face is gentle and relaxed, hands shoved into the pockets of frayed shorts. When he speaks, his voice is deep but soft, like the echo after an explosion.
“Eidyllio is one of his favorites,” Torik explains.
I find it hard to believe the prince is a romantic. He seems as though he might find the notion as ridiculous as I do. I would know in an instant that Midas isn’t his favorite kingdom; men don’t make homes if they have them already. But my guess would have been ágrios, a nation of fearlessness. Or the warrior kingdom of Polemistés that I chose for my origin. Lands for soldiers on the precipice of war. Fighters and killers who see no use in pretending to be anything else.