THERE’S GLITTER AND TREASURE on every speck of every street. Houses with roofs thatched by gold thread and fanciful lanterns with casings brighter than their light. Even the surface of the water has turned milky yellow, and the air is balmy with the afternoon sun.
It is all too much. Too bright. Too hot. Too opulent.
I clutch the seashell around my neck to steady myself. It reminds me of home. My kind aren’t afraid of their murderous prince; they just can’t bear the light. The heat that cuts through the ocean’s chill and makes everything warmer.
This is not a place for sirens. It’s a place for mermaids.
I wait beside the prince’s ship. I wasn’t certain it would be here – killing took the prince to as many kingdoms as it did me – and if it was, I wasn’t certain I would know it. I only have the frightful echoes of stories to go from. Things I’ve heard in passing from the rare few who have seen the prince’s ship and managed to escape. But as soon as I saw it in the Midasan docks, I knew.
It’s not quite like the stories, but it has the same dark ambiance that each of the tales had. The other ships on the dock are like spheres instead of boats, but this one is headed by a long stabbing point and is larger by far than any other, with a body like the night sky and a deck as dark as my soul. It’s a vessel worthy of murder.
I’m still admiring it from the depths of the water when a shadow appears. The man steps onto the ledge of the ship and looks out at the sea. I should have been able to hear his footsteps, even from deep beneath the water. Yet he’s suddenly here, one hand clutching the ropes for support, breathing slow and deep. I squint, but under the sheen of gold it’s hard to see much. I know it’s dangerous to come out from the water when the sun is still so high, but I have to get a closer look. Slowly, I rise to the surface and rest my back against the damp body of the ship.
I spot the shine of the Midasan royal insignia on his thumb and lick my lips.
The Prince of Midas wears the clothes of royalty in a way that seems neglectful. His shirtsleeves are rolled up to the elbows and the buttons of his collar are undone so the wind can reach his heart. He doesn’t look much older than I do, yet his eyes are hard and weathered. They’re eyes of lost innocence, greener than seaweed and constantly searching. Even the empty ocean is prey to him, and he regards it with a mix of suspicion and wonder.
“I’ve missed you,” he says to his ship. “I bet you missed me too. We’ll find it together, won’t we? And when we do, we’ll kill every damn monster in this ocean.”
I scrape my fangs across my lips. What does he think could possibly have the power to destroy me? It’s a fanciful notion of slaughter, and I find myself smiling. How wicked this one is, stripped of the innocence I’ve seen in all the others. This is not a prince of inexperience and anxious potential, but one of war and savagery. His heart will be a wonder to behold. I lick my lips and part them to give way to my song, but I barely have the chance to suck in a breath before I’m wrenched beneath the water.
A mermaid hovers in front of me. She is a splash of color, pinks and greens and yellows, like paint splatters on her skin. Her fin snakes and curls, the bony armor of seahorse scales protruding from her stomach and arms.
“Mine!” she says in Psáriin.
Her jaw stretches out like a snout, and when she snarls, it bends at a painful angle. She points to the prince above the water and thumps her chest.
“You have no claim here,” I tell her.
The mermaid shakes her head. She has no hair, but the skin on her scalp is a kaleidoscope, and when she moves, the colors ripple from her like light. “Treasure,” she says.
If I ever had patience, it just dissipated. “What are you talking about?”
“Midas is ours,” the mermaid screeches. “We watch and collect and take treasure when it falls, and he is treasure and gold and not yours.”
“What’s mine,” I say, “is for me to decide.”
The mermaid shakes her head. “Not yours!” she screams, and dives toward me.
She snatches my hair and pulls, bearing her nails into my shoulders and shaking me. She screams and bites. Sinks her teeth into my arm and tries to tear away chunks of flesh.
Unimpressed by the attack, I clasp the mermaid’s head and smash it against my own. She falls back, her lidless eyes wide. She floats for a moment, dazed, and then lets out a high shriek and comes for me again.
As we collide, I use the force to pull the mermaid to the surface. She gasps for breath, air a toxic poison for her gills. I laugh when the mermaid clutches at her throat with one hand and tries to claw at me with the other. It’s a pitiful attempt.
“It’s you.”
My eyes shoot upward. The Prince of Midas stares down at us, horrified and awestricken. His lips tilt a little to the left.
“Look at you,” he whispers. “My monster, come to find me.”
I regard him with as much curiosity as he regards me. The way his black hair sweeps messily by his shadowed jaw, falling across his forehead as he leans to get a better look. The deep dimple in his left cheek and the look of wonder in his eyes. But in the moments I choose to tear my gaze from the mermaid, the creature seizes the opportunity and propels us both forward. We smash against the ship with such force that the entire vessel groans with our shared power. I have little time to register the attack before the prince stumbles and crashes into the water beside us.
The mermaid pulls me under again, but once she sees the prince in the water, she backs away in awe. He sinks like a stone to the bottom of the shallow sea and then makes to propel his body back toward the surface.
“My treasure,” says the mermaid. She reaches out and clutches the prince’s hand, holding him beneath the surface. “Is your heart gold? Treasure and treasure and gold.”
I hiss a monstrous laugh. “He can’t speak Psáriin, you fool.”
The mermaid spins her head to me, a full 180 degrees. She lets out an ungodly squeal and then finishes the circle to turn back to the prince. “I collect treasure,” she continues. “Treasure and hearts and I only eat one. Now I eat both and become what you are.”
The prince struggles as the mermaid keeps him trapped beneath the water. He kicks and thrashes, but she’s transfixed. She strokes his shirt, and her nails rip through the fabric, drawing his blood. Then her jaw loosens to an unimaginable size.
The prince’s movements go slack and his eyes begin to drift closed. He’s drowning, and the mermaid plans to take his heart for herself. Take it and eat it in hopes that it might turn her into what he is. Fins to legs. Fish to something more. She’ll steal the thing I need to win back my mother’s favor.
I’m so furious that I don’t even think before I reach out and sink my nails into the mermaid’s skull. In shock, the creature releases the prince and he floats back to the surface. I tighten my grip. The mermaid thrashes and scratches at my hands, but her strength is nothing compared to that of a siren’s. Especially mine. Especially when I have my sights on a kill.
My fingers press deeper into the mermaid’s skull and disappear inside her rainbow flesh. I can feel the sharp bone of her skeleton. The mermaid stills, but I don’t stop. I dig my fingers deeper and pull.
Her head falls to the ocean floor.
I think about bringing it to my mother as a trophy. Sticking it on a pike outside of the Keto palace as a warning to all mermaids who would dare challenge a siren. But the Sea Queen wouldn’t approve. Mermaids are her subjects, lesser beings or not. I take one last disdainful look at the creature and then swim to the surface in search of my prince.
I spot him quickly, on the edge of a small patch of sand by the docks. He’s coughing so violently that the act shakes his entire body. He spits out great gasps of water and then collapses onto his stomach. I swim as close to shore as I can and then pull myself the rest of the way, until only the tip of my fin is left in the shallows of the water.
I reach out and grab the prince’s ankle, dragging him down so his body is level with mine.
I nudge his shoulder and when he doesn’t move, I roll him onto his back. Sand sticks to the gold of his cheeks and his lips part ever so slightly, wet with ocean. He looks half-dead already.
His shirt clings to his skin, blood seeping through the slashes the mermaid tore. His chest barely moves with his breath and if I couldn’t hear the faint sound of his heart, then I would think for certain he was nothing more than a beautiful corpse.
I press a hand to his face and draw a fingernail from the corner of his eye to his cheek. A thin red line bubbles above his skin, but he doesn’t stir. His jaw is so sharp, it could cut through me.
Slowly, I reach under his shirt and press a hand against his chest. His heart thumps desperately beneath my palm. I lean my head against it and listen to the drumming with a smile. I can smell the ocean on him, an unmistakable salt, but mingled beneath it all is the faint aroma of aniseed. He smells like the black sweets of the anglers. The saccharine oil they use to lure their catch.
I find myself wishing him awake so I can catch a glimpse of those seaweed eyes before I take his heart and give it to my mother. I lift my head from his chest and hover my hand over his heart. My nails clutch his skin, and I prepare to plunge my fist deeper.
“Your Highness!”
I snap my head up. A legion of royal guards runs across the docks and toward us. I look back to the prince and his eyes begin to open. His head lolls in the sand and then his gaze focuses. On me. His eyes narrow as he takes in the color of my hair and the single eye that matches. He doesn’t look worried that my nails are dug into his chest, or scared by his impending death. Instead he looks resolute. And oddly satisfied.
I don’t have time to think about what that means. The guards are fast approaching, screaming for their prince, guns and swords at the ready. All of them pointed at me. I glance down at the prince’s chest once more, and the heart I came so close to winning. Then quicker than light, I dart back to the ocean and away from him.