WHEN I WAKE, I’M bound to a railing.
Golden rope is looped around one of my wrists, lassoing it to the wooden barrier that overlooks the ship’s deck. I taste bile that keeps on burning, and I’m cold, which is the most unnatural feeling in the world, because I’ve spent a lifetime marveling in ice. Now, the cold makes me numb and tinges my skin blue. I ache for warmth, and the faint glow of the sun on my face feels like ecstasy.
I bite my lip, feeling newly blunt teeth against my skin. With a shuddering breath, I look down and see legs. Sickly pale things that are crossed awkwardly beneath me, dotted by bruises. Some in big patches, others like tiny fingerprints. And feet, too, with toes pink from the cold.
My fins are gone. My mother has damned me. I want to die.
“Oh good, you’re awake.”
I drag my head from the railing to see a man staring down at me. A man who is also a prince, whose heart I once had within reach. He’s watching me with curious eyes, black hair still wet on the ends, dripping onto perfectly dry clothes.
Beside him is a man larger than any I’ve seen, with skin almost as black as the ship itself. He stands beside the prince, hand on the hilt of a long sword that hangs from a ribbon on his waistcoat. And two more: a brown-skinned girl with tattoos spread up her arms and on the sides of her cheeks, wearing large gold earrings and a suspicious glance. Standing defensively beside her is a sharp-jawed boy who taps his finger against a knife in his belt.
On the deck below, so many more glare up at me.
I saw their faces. Moments before the world went dark. Did the prince save me from drowning? The thought makes me furious. I open my mouth to tell him that he had no right to touch me, or that he should have let me drown in the ocean I call home just to spite my mother. Just because she deserved it. Let my death be a lesson to her.
Instead I say,“You’re a good swimmer,” in my best Midasan.
“You’re not,” he retorts.
He looks amused and not at all frightened by the deadly creature before him. Which means that he’s either an idiot or he doesn’t know who I am. Possibly both, though I don’t think the prince would waste time binding me to a railing if he planned to kill me. I wonder how different my mother’s spell has made me appear for him not to recognize me.
I look at the others. They watch the prince expectantly. Waiting for his orders and his verdict. They want to know what he plans to do with me, and I can sense how anxious they are as my identity remains a mystery. They like strangers even less than I do, and staring into each of their grimy faces, I know they’ll toss me overboard if their prince commands it.
I look to the prince and try to find the right words in Midasan. What little I’ve spoken of the language tastes odd on my tongue, its vowels twisting together all too slowly. It tastes as it sounds, like warmth and gold. My voice isn’t my own when I speak it. My accent is far too sharp to loop the words, and so my tongue hisses on the strange letters.
Carefully, I say, “Do you always tie women to your ship?”
“Only the pretty ones.”
The tattooed girl rolls her eyes. “Prince Charming,” she says.
The prince laughs, and the sound of it makes me lick my lips. My mother wants him dead, but she wants me to do it as a human to prove my worth as future ruler of the sea. If I can just get close enough.
“Untie me,” I command.
“You should thank me before barking orders,” says the prince. “After all, I saved you and clothed you.”
I look down and realize that it’s true. A large black shirt scratches my legs, the damp fabric sticking to my new body.
“Where did you come from?” the prince asks.
“Did someone throw you overboard while you were getting undressed?” asks the girl.
“Maybe they threw her overboard because she was getting undressed,” says the boy with the knife.
This is met with laughter from the rest of them.
“Forgive us,” says the prince. “But it’s not every day we find a naked girl drowning in the middle of the ocean. Especially with no other ships in sight. Especially one who slaps me after I save her.”
“You deserved it.”
“I was helping you.”
“Exactly.”
The prince considers this and then pulls a small circular contraption from his pocket. It looks like a compass of some sort, and when he speaks again, his eyes stay pinned to it, voice deceptively casual.
“I can’t quite place your accent,” he says. “Where is it that you’re from?”
An eerie sensation settles in my chest. I avert my eyes from the object, hating how it feels when I look at it. Like it’s staring straight back.
“Untie me,” I say.
“What’s your name?” the prince asks.
“Untie me.”
“I see you don’t know much Midasan.” He shakes his head. “Tell me your name first.”
He switches his gaze from the compass to me, assessing, as I try to think of a lie. But it’s hopeless because I don’t know any human names to lie with. I’ve never lingered enough to hear them, and unlike the mermaids who spy on humans whenever they can, I’ve never cared to learn more about my prey.
With a fierce spit, I say, “Lira.”
He glances down at the compass and smiles. “Lira,” he repeats, pocketing the small object. My name sounds melodic on his lips. Less like the weapon it had been when I said it. “I’m Elian,” he says, though I didn’t ask. A prince is a prince and his name is as inconsequential as his life.
I lean my free hand against the top of the railing and pull myself to my feet. My legs shake violently and then buckle beneath me. I slam onto the deck and let out a hiss of pain. Elian watches, and it’s only after a short pause that he holds out a wary hand. Unable to bear him standing over me, I take it. His grip is strong enough to lift me back onto my unsteady feet. When I nearly topple again, his hand shoots to my elbow and holds me firmly in place.
“It’s shock.” He reaches for his knife and cuts the thread that binds me to the railing. “You’ll be steady again in no time. Just take a breath.”
“I’d be steadier if I weren’t on this ship.”
Elian raises an eyebrow. “You were a lot more charming when you were unconscious.”
I narrow my eyes and press a hand to his chest to balance myself. I can feel the slow drum of his heart beneath my hand, and in moments I’m taken back to Midas. When I had been so close to stealing it.
Elian stiffens and slowly prizes my hand from his chest, placing it back on the railing. He reaches into the pocket of his trousers and lifts out a small rope necklace. The string is a shimmer of blue, glistening like water under the sun. It’s liquid made into something other, too smooth to be ice and too solid to be ocean. It sparkles against the gold of Elian’s skin, and when he opens his hand, he reveals the pendant that hangs from the bottom. Sharply curved edges stained with crab red. My lips part and I touch a hand to my neck, where my seashell once hung. Nothing.
Furious, I leap toward Elian, my hands like claws. But my legs are too unsteady, and the attempt nearly sends me back to the floor.
“Steady on there, damsel.” Elian grabs my elbow to hold me upright.
I rip my arm from him and bare my teeth monstrously. “Give it to me,” I order.
He tilts his head. “Why would I do that?”
“Because it’s mine!”
“Is it?” He runs a thumb over the ridges of the seashell. “As far as I know, this is a necklace for monsters, and you certainly don’t look like one of those.”
I clench my fists. “I want you to give it to me.”
I feel maddened by the Midasan on my tongue. Its smooth sounds are too quaint to display my anger. I itch to spit the knives of my own language at him. Tear him down with the skewers of Psáriin, where each word can wound.
“What’s it worth?” asks Elian.
I glare. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing’s free in the ocean,” he explains. “What’s the necklace worth to you?”
“Your life.”
He laughs, and beside him the large man lets out a good-natured chuckle. I’m unsure what’s so funny, but before I can ask, Elian says, “I don’t imagine my life is worth much to you at all.”
He is so very wrong about that.
“Mine then,” I say.
And I mean it, because that necklace is the key to finding my way home. Or at the very least, calling for help. If it can’t lead me back to my kingdom as a human, then it can at least summon Kahlia. She can speak to the Sea Queen on my behalf and beg her to rescind the punishment so I won’t have to.
“Your life,” Elian repeats. He takes a few steps toward me. “Careful who you tell that to. A worse man might hold you to it.”
I push him away. “And you’re a better man?”
“I like to think so.”
He holds the seashell up to the sunlight. Blood against sky. I can see the curiosity in his eyes as he wonders what a castaway is doing with such a trinket. I ponder if he knows what it’s even for, or if it’s just something he has seen on the necks of his murdered sirens.
“Please,” I say, and Elian’s eyes dart back to me.
I’ve never used that word in any language, and even though Elian can’t possibly know that, he looks unsettled. There’s a crack in the bravado. After all, I’m a half-naked girl being held prisoner and he’s a human prince. Royal by birth and destined to lead an empire. Chivalry is in his veins, and all I need to do is remind him of it.
“Would you like me to beg you?” I ask, and Elian’s jaw tightens.
“If you just tell me why you have it, then I’ll give it back.”
He sounds sincere, but I know better. Pirates are liars by trade and royals are liars by blood. I know that firsthand.
“My mother gave it to me,” I say.
“A gift.” Elian ponders this. “Passed through your family from how far back? Do you know what it does or how it works?”
I grind my teeth. I should have known his questions wouldn’t end until he ripped the truth from me. I would give it to him gladly on any other day, but I’m defenseless on this ship without the music of my voice to sing him into submission. I can barely even stand on my own. The seashell is my last hope, and he’s keeping it from me.
I lunge for it once more. I’m quick, even as a human, and my fingers close around his fist in an instant. But Elian is faster somehow, and as soon as my hand locks on to his, Elian’s knife is on my neck.
“Really.” He presses his blade firmly against my throat, and I feel a small slash of pain. “That wasn’t so smart.”
I tighten my hand around his fist, unwilling to let go. The cut on my neck stings, but I have felt and caused far worse. His face is roguish when I sneer up at him, nothing like the sweet and gentle princes I’ve taken before. The ones whose hearts are buried beneath my bed. Elian is as much a soldier as I am.
“Captain!” A man emerges from the lower deck, his eyes wide. “The radars spotted one!”
Quickly, Elian looks to the knife-wielding boy. “Kye,” he says. Just a name, just a word, and yet the boy nods abruptly and jumps the length of the stairs to the decks below.
In an instant Elian tears his blade from my throat and sheathes it. “Get in position!” he yells. He loops my seashell around his neck and runs for the edge of the ship.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
Elian turns to me, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “It’s your lucky day, Lira,” he says. “You’re about to meet your first siren.”