I blink.
It lingers in the pooling darkness, half-swallowed by water and gripping firmly on to the Saad. I squint, leaning farther over the edge to get a closer look.
From the darkness, a skeleton claw rises.
The shadow scrambles toward me, scurrying up the side of the Saad with nefarious speed. I jump back just in time for the creature to pounce onto the deck and shake the sails.
Ridges crisscross down its body like scars, patched by motes of gray that seep into its flesh. Each of its fins are set apart in razors, and its large torso is carved into endless folds, leading to arms that end in inky talons. Half-shark, half something far more demonic.
The Flesh-Eater.
I drop to my knees and my mother’s monster roars. He skitters toward me, reaching out with slick palms to drag a hand down my cheek.
“Pórni mou,” he gnarls.
I don’t react to the possessive claim, or the repulsive way he phrases it, his claws scraped against my skin in warning. I was wary of the Flesh-Eater even when I was a siren, but now that I’m human, he could easily tear through me. Perhaps that’s why my mother sent him. I wonder why Elian and his crew haven’t come running. Is it possible they didn’t feel the ship lurch? I focus again on that familiar lullaby gliding through the wind, making my eyes heavier with each verse.
A siren’s song. Making sure the crew stays in their slumber.
“Anthrópinos,” the Flesh-Eater barks.
Human.
The word croaks from deep within his throat, splintering through the cracks in his fangs. Disgusted. Curious. Perhaps amused, if it’s possible for mermen to feel something so closely related to joy. The Flesh-Eater takes ahold of my chin and jerks my face to his so I can smell the sour blood on his breath. When he slides his viscous lips against mine, I keep deadly still. My teeth grate together, but it’s only seconds before I feel flesh crawling along my tongue. I can taste the decay in him.
The Flesh-Eater rips away from me and spits. He swipes his shark tail in the air and bares his saliva-stringed fangs. He can taste the humanity in me just as I can taste the demon in him. At his outburst, a call of laughter spills from the ocean, ricocheting off the Saad and blowing through her sails. The music climbs and my heart clinches.
My mother’s long tentacles spill over the deck like oil, familiar tribal tattoos cutting across her skin. Her crown sits gloriously sharpened, crawling down the length of her back in a magnificent headdress. She grasps the trident and stares at me with eyes like pits.
“Don’t look so frightened, darling.” The Sea Queen bears her fangs to a smile. “Mother’s here.”
I pull myself up from my knees and stare hard at the floor, to give the appearance of bowing. The longer I glare at the wood grain, the more my skin heats, sweat pasting through my clothes as the anger boils beneath. I can hardly bear the thought of looking at her. After everything she’s done, for her to show up here – on Elian’s ship, of all places – is the worst kind of insult.
A terse silence gathers between us, and for a moment I wonder what the next sound will be. The Flesh-Eater’s roar; my mother’s laughter; the erratic pounding of my furious heart.
Instead I hear my song.
The deadly lullaby from before grows louder, and I snap my head up in sudden recognition, stumbling backward. It crawls across the deck, reaching out with delicate hands to sway the Saad. The melody is as opiate as ever, and even I’m barely able to keep my footing as it grows. Hearing it feels like being lost in a memory, or a dream that’s impossible to wake from. It feels like being born into a world imagined.
With the lie of my song, there’s no chance any of the crew will wake from their sleep.
My mother presses a long webbed finger to her chest, and her seashell flickers against my voice. When my eyes begin to fog, her mouth tugs up. “It’s only a keepsake,” she says. “I’ll return it if you succeed.”
I try desperately to blink the sorrow from my eyes. “Have you come to taunt me?” I ask.
“Not at all,” the Sea Queen says. “I’ve come to see how the Princes’ Bane is faring.” She arches her neck. “Do you have the prince’s heart hidden somewhere in those unsightly rags?”
It doesn’t surprise me that she’s come to check if I’m sticking to her plan. Being punished and pushed in the exact direction she’s plotted, like Elian’s ship following his course even while the captain sleeps. I am my mother’s vessel. Or so she thinks.
“It’s not that simple,” I say.
“Oh, Lira.” She swipes a string of seaweed from her trident. “Queens do not make excuses. I suppose this is just further proof of why you can’t become one.”
“I deserve to be queen,” I say. “I’m strong enough to lead our kind.”
“You’re weak,” she accuses. “You’ve always been weak. Look at you now, dressed in your human clothes, with your human emotions. Do you know what I see in your eyes, Lira? It’s not death or darkness or even anger. It’s tears.”
I swallow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about the look on your face,” she says. “Your human grief.”
I want to argue, but even I can’t deny the sadness pricking the backs of my eyes. I felt anger as a siren, but never sorrow. Not since I took Crestell’s heart with my mother’s hand steady on my shoulder. But hearing my song cleave through Elian’s ship, knowing that at this very moment my mother is still able to use me as a weapon without my consent, feels like being speared. And the way she looks at me, not at all concerned, so entirely contrasted by the worry I felt when I saw Kahlia’s wounds. Or that Kye had when Maeve attacked Elian. Or even the look on the prince’s face when he pulled me from the ocean my mother left me to drown in. How can the Sea Queen see it as a weakness when it’s the very thing that binds the humans together, ensuring their strength as a unit? A family.
The Flesh-Eater snarls and my mother reaches out to run a talon over his face. She slices a line across his cheek slowly, soothingly, and the Flesh-Eater growls in satisfaction.
“Your time is running out, Lira,” she says, bringing her finger to her lips. “And if you don’t bring me the prince’s heart soon, then I’m going to take yours.”
25
Lira
WHEN I LOOK IN the mirror, a stranger stares back. She takes in my newfound piracy and my newfound humanity – the face the Flesh-Eater still claimed for his own – and frowns in a way that marks her innocent features with a curious dent, deep in the center of her brows. Her lips thin and she roughly irons the wrinkle out with the palm of her hand.