“I thought I clawed it out of you,” the Sea Queen says. “Yet look how much survived. Like a plague, this humanity infected you long before I stole your fins.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I say. “You wanted me to learn a lesson through this punishment and I have. I know that the prince isn’t my enemy. In fact, he’s just a more honorable version of me.” I stare into her stone-glazed eyes. “And in another life, if I ever had a choice about who to be, maybe I would have been like him.”
“Enough!” she demands. “You will give me what’s mine before I kill you.”
“No,” I say. “I think first I’ll take what’s mine.”
A derisive sound punctures from her lips. “You want my crown?”
“It’s my crown, actually.”
The points of her fangs glisten in the daylight. “You think you can kill me, Lira?” she asks. “The very one who brought you into this world?”
No fear, just curiosity. Layered in as much amusement as disbelief.
“If we were in the ocean, you would have an army,” I say. “But this is the Cloud Mountain, and we’re the farthest we can possibly be from home. In this place, with Elian and his crew, you’re practically carrion.”
“Elian?” She says his name with bile in her mouth. “You and your filthy human prince think I need the ocean for my army? Wherever I go, my power follows and so do they. If you truly want to end this war, then I’ll oblige. As a mother, I must grant my daughter her wish.”
She lowers her trident deep into the water, watching my face tick. Black weeps from the trident’s spine like tears. It blots across the moat and then floats a few inches from the water, forming large, dark circles across the way. Portals to Diávolos.
A hand punctures through the first one, closest to my feet. Then another. An army’s worth follow, and the water groans with this dark magic, shaking as one by one sirens rip their way into the mountain. Claws and teeth and fins and cold, cold eyes.
And then, not too far from me, a sight far worse.
I feel the power of the eye before I see Elian step out from the palace with his crew like an army lining up behind him. He surveys the rising army with a look equal parts awe and horror. I let out a breath, and even from here I can smell his angler scent on the breeze. It chips away part of me that is already raw.
As though he can sense this, Elian’s eyes find mine. He looks tired but ready for war. Always prepared for what’s to come, even if that thing may be death. As he watches me, something strange crosses his thunderous eyes. Uncertainty. Relief. A thing so utterly conflicted that I can only frown in response. Whatever it is, it’s gone far too quickly for me to decipher.
I open my mouth to call out to him – warn him to run, or hide, though I know he’ll do neither – but then he blinks and his expression sharpens. I can tell by just that one look that the Sea Queen has clawed her way into his line of vision. The moment they set their sights on each other, my heart jerks against my ribs.
The sirens grow, preparing for attack, and I know that not one of them will use their song to let Elian and his crew die peacefully. This isn’t a hunt; this is war. And they will want a fair kill. A victory brutal enough to make their queen proud.
The Sea Queen curves downward, her tentacles brushing my hand, lips like broken glass on my ear. “Stupid girl,” she whispers, and then – as though it’s the worst thing she could utter – “stupid human girl.”
38
Elian
THE WATER IS BLACK with sirens and the world follows.
They soot the mountain with their near-demonic presence, and as the sun struggles to pull itself higher, it bruises the sky. There’s a string of hissing and infernal screams as the sirens claw their way to the top of the water, their smiles impious and seductive. I can’t help but be mesmerized. Such beautiful creatures. Such bewitching, deadly things. Even as they sharpen their fangs on their lips and run taloned hands through their liquid hair, I can’t look away.
Everything about them is awful, but nothing about them is hideous.
The moat stretches to half a mile in each direction, and the sirens seem to fill it all. There must be a couple hundred of them, outnumbering us two to one.
“Gods.” Kye’s voice is dazed. “They’re everywhere.”
“We noticed.” Madrid lines the sight of her crossbow. “What are we going to do, Cap?”
“Be on your best behavior,” I say.
She lowers her crossbow and frowns. “What?”
I nod to the center of the chaos. “We’re in the presence of royalty.”
The Sea Queen is a vision in front of us, with sweeping midnight tentacles and her daughter poised allegiant by her side. A formidable dyad. Regardless of Lira’s new cloak of humanity, when she stands beside her mother, they look like they can char through daylight.
The Sea Queen floats through the water, Lira following the unsteady path by her side. When she reaches me, I notice that her eyes are the same color as her lips.
“Siren killer,” the Sea Queen says, by way of greeting.
When she speaks, even just those few words, and even in my language, it’s like nothing I have ever heard. Foul and hateful, alluring and repulsive. The melody of it leaves me with a fiendish kind of melancholy. It’s like she speaks in funeral songs.
“Your Majesty.” I bow just low enough that my eyes never leave her.
“Lira.” Madrid shakes her head, betrayal soaking her voice. “It can’t be true, right? You’re one of us.”
The Sea Queen’s laughter bubbles like water. “You’ll soon learn that my daughter has no allegiance.” She twists her eyes to Lira’s. “She’s nothing but a traitor.”
“I knew it,” Kye says, though there’s no satisfaction in his voice. “I knew we shouldn’t trust you and I did anyway. You were playing us this whole time?”
It’s a question, like he can’t quite believe it. Like he won’t, despite all of his suspicions, until Lira confirms it for herself. But she doesn’t answer. Whether it’s because she doesn’t care enough to or because there’s just too much to say, I’m not sure. But she doesn’t look at him, at any of us, at me. Her eyes are fixated on her mother. Roaming over her. Whenever the Sea Queen moves, Lira’s shoulders twitch toward us.
“You have something of mine,” the Sea Queen says.
The crystal thrums in my pocket. “Don’t worry. I plan on returning it.”
The Sea Queen inclines her head downward, arms out in a goading gesture. “Then by all means,” she says, “let us begin.”
I surge forward.
The Sea Queen slides out of my line in one sleek movement, and once she’s out of the way, her horde ascends. Sirens spill from the water, leaping onto my crew and screaming as their nails and teeth dig into whatever flesh they can find.