“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.
11
Elian
MY DREAMS ARE THICK with blood that is not mine. It’s never mine, because I’m as immortal in my dreams as I seem to be in real life. I’m made of scars and memories, neither of which have any real bearing.