KAHLIA’S FACE IS HAUNTING me. I picture her on the edge of Reoma Putoder, head bowed as she tried to hide her wounds. Ashamed that I’d see the pain my mother inflicted on her in my absence. I can taste it like a sickness in my mouth. Kahlia’s anguish lingers at the back of my throat the same way it did on the day I held Crestell’s heart in my hand.
I prowl the deck, watching the crew settle into their routines. They laugh as they scout the water and play cards as they load their guns. All of them seem so at peace, no hidden aches for home behind their eyes. It’s as if they don’t mind being ripped from their kingdoms over and over, while I miss mine more each day. How can they claim a nomad home so easily?
“You’re thinking too much,” Madrid says, settling beside me.
“I’m making up for the people on this ship who don’t think at all.”
Madrid hooks her arm around a cobweb of rope and swings herself onto the ledge of the ship. Her feet dangle off the edge as the Saad glides forward. “If you’re talking about Kye,” she says, “then we can agree on that.”
“You don’t like him?” I press my palms flat on the edge of the ship. “Aren’t you mates?”
“Mates?” Madrid gapes. “What are we, horses? We’re partners,” she says. “There’s a big difference, you know.”
The truth is, I don’t. When it comes to relationships, I don’t know much at all. In my kingdom, there’s no time to get to know someone or form a bond. Humans speak of making love, but sirens are nothing if not regimented. We make love the same way we make war.
In the ocean, there are only mermen. Most serve as guards to my mother, protecting the sea kingdom of Keto. They are the strongest warriors of us all. Vicious and deadly creatures, more vile than their mermaid counterparts. More brutal than me.
Unlike sirens, mermen have no connection to humanity. Sirens look like humans, and so there’s part of us that’s connected to them. Or perhaps, they look like us. We’re born half of sea and half of them, and sometimes I wonder if that’s where our hatred really comes from.
Mermen don’t have this problem. They’re crafted more from the ocean than any of us, made from the most deadly mixes of fish, with tails of sharks and sea monsters. They have no desire to interact with land, even for the purpose of war. They exist, always, under the sea, where they are either solitary and disciplined soldiers of the guard, or rampant creatures who live wild on the outskirts of the ocean.
Under order of the Sea Queen, these are the creatures we mate with. Before I was thrown into this curse, I was promised to the Flesh-Eater. Mermen have no time for names and other nonsenses and so we call them as they are: Phantom, Skinner, Flesh-Eater. While mermaids are fish through and through, laying eggs to be fertilized outside of their bodies, sirens are not as lucky. We must mate. And it’s the brutality and savagery of the mermen that make them a worthy combination to create more of our murderous race. At least, that’s what my mother says.
“I’m glad the captain agreed to let you stay,” Madrid says.
I shake the thoughts of home and look at her questioningly. “Why would you be glad?”
“We need to start outnumbering them.”
“Who?”
“The men,” she says. “Ever since we pulled down to skeleton crew, there’s been too much testosterone aboard.”
“It seems safer to have a full crew for this mission.”
She shrugs. “The captain didn’t want to risk them.”
“Or he couldn’t trust them.”
Madrid heaves herself back onto the ship’s deck, her fairy-like boots stomping against the wood grain. “He trusts us all.”
There is something defensive in her voice, and her eyes narrow ever so slightly.
“Are you upset?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. Humans are so sensitive.
“No,” Madrid says. “You just shouldn’t say things like that. Someone might hear.”
“Like who?”
“Kye.”
“Because he and Elian are good friends?”
“We’re all good friends.” Madrid throws her hands in the air. “Quit doing that.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re trying to meddle.”
It seems like such a silly thing to be accused of in the grand scheme of things. I’m plotting to steal back my birthright, betray my mother, and then rip out Elian’s heart so no human can be a worthy threat to us. Yet somehow Madrid thinks my comments on her friendships are troublesome. Will they have a word for what I’ll be when I turn on them?
“What are you talking about?” Kye asks, stepping out from the cabin belowdecks.
He looks at me with a mix of mistrust and curiosity. It’s a drastic change from the carefree rapport he shares with everyone else aboard the Saad. If there’s anyone on this ship I’ve failed to convince of my usefulness, then it’s Elian’s pseudo-bodyguard. I could leak every bit of information I have on the Sea Queen – I could even tell him where the Diávolos Sea is – and Kye still wouldn’t think I’m worth keeping around. His earlier threats in Eidýllio play in my mind. He looks at me like he’s just waiting for me to slip up and reveal any number of things he could use to sway Elian further into the notion that I can’t be trusted. Whether it’s on this ship or in my mother’s ocean, there never seems to be a time when I don’t have to prove myself, or worry that anything I do could lead to my downfall.
“Apparently, I’m a meddler,” I tell Kye.
Madrid snorts. “At least she’s open to criticism.”
“Good,” Kye says. “I have a lot of that to go around.”
“Speaking of things to go around.” Madrid looks at my dress with a grimace. “Don’t you want to change your clothes sometime soon? You can’t honestly want to be stuck in that thing for the rest of the trip.”
“It isn’t a trip,” Kye says. “It’s a sacred quest to save the world and destroy the Sea Queen and we shouldn’t be bringing along stragglers.”
Madrid nods. “Sure,” she says. “But we also shouldn’t be making Lira wear my cleaning rag.”
I finger the hem of the white dress. It’s fraying toward the bottom, string peeling from the fabric like skin. The material isn’t so much white anymore as it is a muted gray, thick with the charcoal of smoke and grime that I don’t want to imagine the origin of.
“She can dress herself,” Kye mutters. His eyes cascade over the wrinkled dress, to the shabby ends of my red hair. “If you were planning something though,” he says,“start by giving her a shower.”
“A shower,” I repeat.
He sighs. “Warm water and soap. I’m assuming they have that where you’re from?”
Madrid tugs her shirtsleeves up to her elbows, revealing sundials and poetry painted onto every inch of her skin. The tattoos on her hands and face are simple enough, but there’s no mistaking the ones that circle her arms, past her elbows and probably winding over her shoulders, too. The mark of Kléftesis pirates. Killers by trade. Though I assumed she was from Kléftes, I never dreamed Elian would choose an assassin to be on his crew. For a man who denies being at war, he certainly picks his soldiers well.
Madrid nudges me and lowers her voice. “The water isn’t warm,” she says. “But Kye wasn’t lying about the soap.”
“It beats jumping in the ocean,” Kye argues. “Unless you want me to fashion a new plank?”
“No,” I say. “We’ll save that for the next time you threaten me.”
He scowls. “If the captain wasn’t watching, I really would pitch you overboard.”
I roll my eyes and look over to the upper deck, where Torik is currently steering the ship. Elian leans on the railings beside his first mate. The same railings I was tied to. His hat hangs low over the shadows of his eyes, stance loose and casual. His left foot is hooked behind his right and his arms crisscross over his chest, but even I can recognize the difference between appearing relaxed and actually being so. It’s the mark of a true killer, to never show the fire within.
He watches us with hawk eyes, glancing back to Torik every now and again to continue their conversation. Mostly, he talks with me in his sights. He makes no qualms about surveying me because he clearly wants me to know that my every move is being watched. I’m not trusted, and Elian doesn’t want me to forget that. It’s smart, if not a little annoying, but the more he watches me and sees that I’m not doing anything, the more complacent he’ll get. And eventually he’ll forget to look at all. Eventually he’ll trust me enough that he won’t think he needs to.
“He doesn’t care that I can see him,” I say.
“It’s his ship,” Kye says.
“Aren’t I a guest?”
“You’re not a prisoner.” I don’t miss the disappointment in his voice.
For some reason, this makes me laugh. “He’s going to get bored watching me all the time.”
Madrid frowns, lines creasing through her tattoos. “The captain doesn’t get bored,” she says. “It’s not in his bones.”
I take in a long, cold breath and look back at the water. “What’s our next destination?”
“Psémata,” Kye says.
“The land of untruth.”
“Something you’re familiar with?” he asks, and Madrid smacks him on the shoulder.
“Actually, my mother made me learn about most of the kingdoms,” I answer truthfully. “She thought it would be useful for me to know about my” – I stop short before the word prey leaves my lips – “about history.”
“What did you learn?” Kye asks.
I cast a quick glance over my shoulder to Elian, who reclines farther against the railings, pitching his elbows onto the wood. “Enough.”
“And how many languages do you speak?”
I eye Kye carefully, aware that this is starting to sound like an interrogation. “Not many.”
There was never a reason for me to learn more than Midasan and a few other lingering dialects common throughout the kingdoms. My own language, for all its jagged edges, more than sufficed. Really, I could have chosen not to speak Midasan at all. There are many sirens who don’t learn the language, even if it’s so widely used in the human world. Our songs steal hearts no matter what tongue they’re in.
Still, I feel lucky knowing such things now. If I hadn’t, the prince would have killed me as soon as I opened my mouth. A human who can only speak Psáriin is not exactly the best disguise.
“The captain speaks fifteen languages,” Madrid says admiringly.
“Don’t forget to wipe the drool off your shoulder.” Kye points to her arm. “Right there.”
Madrid slaps his hand away. “I meant that it’s impressive because I only know two.”
“Right,” he says. “Of course you did.”
“Why would anyone want to know fifteen languages when most of the world speaks Midasan?” I ask.
“Don’t let the cap hear you say that,” Madrid warns. “He’s all for preserving culture.” She says the last bit with a roll of her eyes, as though there’s nothing she would like more than to watch her own culture wither to flames. “He studied in Glóssa, but in the end he realized nobody can master every language, except one of their royals.”
“Lira doesn’t need a backstory of the captain’s life,” Kye says guardedly. “Not when she could be trying on something that doesn’t stink of weapon grease.”
Madrid smiles. “Right,” she says, and snaps her fingers at me. “How do you feel about something a little bolder?”
“Bolder?”
I hesitate, and the beginnings of a smile drift over Madrid’s warrior features.
“Don’t panic,” she says. “I just mean far less damsel and far more buccaneer.”
I nod slowly. I couldn’t care less what she dresses me in, so long as it warms my fragile bones, because right now the cold is pressing against them with the weight of a hundred sirens.
I dare another look at Elian. His hat shields his eyes from the midday sun, but I can still feel them on me, watching. Waiting. For me to slip up and reveal my true intentions or, just maybe, for me to do something to earn his loyalty. Let him watch. If Madrid has her way, the next time he sees me, I’ll be as much of a pirate as he is.