“How did you achieve this disguise?” she asks. “How is it possible?”
I grind my teeth, hating the way she looks at me, like a fish on a hook. As though I’m something to be examined and studied, rather than feared. She walks toward me, circling until she is on the other side of the frozen steeple.
I cast her a withering look. “The Sea Queen seemed to think it was more of a punishment than a disguise,” I say.
“And stealing the crystal is your redemption?” she asks. Still so curious, still so unafraid. “I wonder what crime you committed to inflict such a thing.”
“Being born was the start,” I tell her. “The Sea Queen has never been one for competition.”
Just like that, the smirk leaves Yukiko’s lips, and something new paints itself in place. Awe, replaced by shock. Wonder, by uncertainty. Curiosity, by fear.
“You’re her,” Yukiko says. “The Princes’ Bane.”
Her expression stays faltered for a moment longer and then, just as quickly, the hesitation leaves her face. She smiles, cunning and shrewd.
“You of all people didn’t know?” she asks.
It takes me a moment too long to realize that she’s not talking to me anymore.
I whip my head around to the entrance of the dome, where Elian stands. His face is slack and expressionless, eyes lingering on the eye in my hand. I blanch and my heart goes still in my chest. Suddenly nothing feels solid except for the air that lodges itself in my throat.
I believe in you.
For a moment I entertain the pitiful notion that maybe he didn’t hear. But when his eyes hit mine, I know he knows. I know he has pieced together the puzzle I tried so hard to shatter. And when he reaches for his sword, I know this night will end in blood.
36
Elian
THE PRINCES’ BANE.
There’s nothing past those three words. The world stills and I search my memories for something – a clue, a sign, a trace. Instead of coming away empty, I come away with the idea that I’m a fool.
We rescued Lira from the middle of the ocean, with no other ship in sight. When she first gained consciousness, there was something inexplicably enthralling about her, broken only in the moment when she tried to attack me. She spoke Psáriin on the deck of my ship. And – gods – that siren. What had she said? Parakaló. She begged for her life and I hadn’t thought to question it, even though no siren had ever done such a thing. Of course she would beg. Not to me, but to one of her own. To her princess.
“You of all people didn’t know?” Yukiko asks.
I don’t reply.
I knew Lira was hiding something, but I never imagined this.
My hand flies to my chest, pressing against the scars that lie under the fabric of my shirt. Scars so similar to the ones I saw on Rycroft after Lira was through with him. That day in Midas, the Princes’ Bane found me when I couldn’t find her. She let a mermaid drown my strength and then scraped her claws across my heart as she readied to rip it from my chest. If the royal guards hadn’t come, then she would have killed me.
Lira would have killed me.
I draw my sword the moment Lira’s eyes dash to mine. At first I’m not sure what I plan to do past gripping the blade so tightly, it crushes my bones. But when Lira doesn’t move, even as I advance closer and closer, it only ignites the anger inside me. The betrayal. She doesn’t even have the decency to flinch.
“Elian.”
She says my name in a breath and I lose all sense.
“I’m going to kill you,” I say.
Even as a human, Lira is quick. Faster than most novice fighters I’ve encountered and far more fluid. She’s sloppy, but there’s something primal in it. I cut my blade toward her and she rolls her shoulder back in one swift movement. She looks shocked but recovers enough to launch a punch in my direction. I grab her wrist inches from my face and twist. Teeth bared, she kicks with brutal force. I whirl out of the way, but her foot clips my thigh and pain shoots up my leg.
I nod at her belt. “Your sword,” I say.
“You care if I’m unarmed?” she asks.
“Don’t mistake honor for caring,” I seethe. “If I have to, I’ll run you through defenseless.”
I swing toward her again and she twists awkwardly out of my path. The second she’s not within reach, I hear the sound of metal being drawn.
Lira lifts the sword in a perfect arc, just as I taught her, and snarls.
I see the animal in her then.
Our swords scream together. Steel on steel.