“I have a map,” I tell Lira.
“A map,” she repeats.
“There’s a secret route up the mountains that will shave weeks off our journey. There are even rest sites with technology to build quickfires to stop the cold. It shouldn’t be a problem.”
Lira nods, slow and calculating, as though she’s trying to piece together a puzzle I haven’t given her. “How did you get the map?” she asks.
“My charm.”
“No, really.”
“I’m really very charming,” I say. “I even roped this lot into sacrificing their lives for me.”
“Didn’t do it for you.” Madrid doesn’t look up from her deck. “Did it for the target practice.”
“I did it for the hijinks of near-death experiences,” Kye says.
“I did it for more fish suppers.” Torik stretches his arms out in a yawn. “God knows we don’t have enough fish every other day of the year.”
I turn to Lira. “See?”
“Okay, Prince Charming,” she says. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll come around to bite you later on. I’d rather enjoy that then than hear it now.”
“Ever the cynic.”
“Ever the pirate,” she retorts.
“You say that like it’s an insult.”
“You should assume,” she says,“that everything I say to you is an insult. One day the world is going to run out of luck to give to you.”
She folds her arms over her chest and I paint on my most arrogant smile, like I’m daring the world, and fate along with it, to catch up with me. Even though I know it will someday, I can’t let anyone else see that. Either things fall into place, or they fall apart, but either way, I have to keep up pretenses.
22
Lira
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.