Chapter 31 Lyx
THIRTY-ONE
Lyx
Lyx still feels like she’s floating in that pool.
Her body is more buoyant than it has been in years, splayed on her back and drifting.
She’s carried through thoughts of Cav, but she’s no longer stuck on the memories of before.
Now she remembers his warmth when she pinned him beneath her, his shiver under her tentacles, his mouth forming certainly around the words.
I’m in love with you.
Her skin tingles. She turns the word over in her mind again and again, as if she can sand down its meaning, strip it of its power, reduce it to nothing but ash.
Love.
Love.
Love.
No matter how much she handles it, the meaning remains.
It lingers when she wakes in her cabin to light creeping across the sky.
Upstairs, the Indulgence rustles to life.
She lies on her back and listens to the creak of the ship, the sleepy mumbles of the crew, the gentle jostling of the tankards.
If she weren’t so used to the agitation of Tidus, the mellow chaos here might almost be… nice.
Her nose wrinkles. She pulls herself out of bed and ascends the stairs to Cav’s hammock, but it’s already flat and empty. She scans the faces on deck, but Cav is not among them.
Lace sidles up beside her with a piece of hardtack.
“Looking for Cavalier?” He points past the railing, and Lyx follows his finger to one of the shops where Cav hoists a basket of fruit onto his shoulder.
Lace dunks the bread into his coffee. “Why don’t you two share a room?
Or is the distance part of the foreplay?
” His eyes sparkle. “Pretending you’re strangers.
That you couldn’t possibly spend the night together. ”
“Don’t give them ideas,” Briar grumbles, nursing a steaming mug. “Cav doesn’t need more reason to hoard her away.”
Their banter is familiar, a mischief that would fit right in among the sirens. The comparison surprises Lyx. How long has it been since she thought fondly of her siblings? Of anyone? It’s a strange, homesick feeling that hits her in the center of her chest.
Briar misreads her. “Don’t worry. You won’t be cooped up on the ship for much longer. We’re almost at the end of our route.”
“A week off. Unsupervised.” Lace nudges his hip against Lyx’s. “You know what that means…”
She lifts her brow, but a blue fluttering catches in the corner of her eye, and the flag of Tidus’s ship waves like a set of gnarled fingers.
Her heart seizes. He’s never gotten so close to the Indulgence, but today, he’s tied only a few spots away. Has he grown tired of waiting on her? Has he struck out on his own? Has he done something to Cav?
She leans over the railing until it digs into her abdomen, but she strains further. There’s no sign of Tidus, but when she looks back at Cav, he’s vanished.
Lyx breaks away from the railing, pushing through the disgruntled crew until she reaches the bottom of the gangplank.
It’s like swimming upstream, shoving her way through bodies toward Tidus’s ship.
Standing on her toes, she can’t make out anything.
There’s no sign of movement on his ship, but she needs to get closer.
When she lowers to elbow through the throng of people, someone knocks her into the shops.
Her feet skid on something sticky. A pulp of berries clings to her sandals.
When she steps back to inspect it, she nearly trips on an apple.
There are more abandoned fruits along the side of the building.
Lyx follows the trail, passing trampled bananas and scuffed oranges until she finds the basket discarded.
It sits half-empty beside the mouth of the alley, obscured by an overhang of vines that swings gently, like someone has just passed through them.
She ducks into the alley to find a maze of paths, worn trails that wind through stone and flora and jut off in different directions. Lyx turns right, but she stops short and doubles back. She has no clue where to go until she spots the purple smear of berries sloping down the hill.
She dives after them. The clamor of the dock fades away. The trail grows more faint, but she pins her hopes to it until the berries fade completely.
Her chest heaves. She spins in the intersection, searching desperately for a sign. Down one of the forks, sunlight glints off something silver. She sprints after it, ducking under archways and scraping the walls until she reaches the courtyard hidden in the trees.
A blue hand clamps around Cav’s throat and pins him to the wall. He doesn’t look at Lyx. He’s focused on the woman before him, his eyes covered in a film that Lyx hasn’t seen in so long.
She flings herself forward and knocks the woman to the ground.
They are a mass of scraping nails, gnashing teeth, and swinging fists.
Lyx rolls herself on top, but the woman squirms out from under her.
It’s instinctual how their hands tangle in the other’s hair, jerking back to root each other in place while they catch their breath.
Only now does Lyx recognize her sister. So rarely has she seen Sinoe on land, her features tempting but sharp. She moves fluidly, adapted to this environment like any other. There’s the barest widening of her barracuda pupils before she wipes away the shock and shoves out of Lyx’s grip.
They both rise to their feet. Cav rushes toward Lyx, no longer trapped under Sinoe’s spell. He handles her gently. Sinoe’s gaze flicks over them until Lyx speaks. “Sinoe.”
Sinoe’s lips curl into a smirk. “I see we’re all lining up to kill this one.”
A typhoon of emotions courses through Lyx, but she knows better than to take her eyes off Sinoe. Lyx eases Cav behind her, but it doesn’t go unnoticed. Subtly, Sinoe maneuvers two steps to the left, eyes sparking when Lyx mirrors her.
Lyx has to turn Sinoe’s attention elsewhere. She settles onto the balls of her feet, toeing the line between bracing herself and inciting this further. “How did you find me?”
“I didn’t.” Sinoe jerks her chin toward Cav, who rubs the mark on his throat. “I was looking for him. Something was pulling me here.” Her focus hones on Lyx. “I guess that was you.”
Lyx swallows around emptiness. It couldn’t have been her.
She doesn’t have her song, the only thing that connects her to other sirens.
She’s been cut off from it for years, but…
could it do this on its own? Could it be reaching for people that Lyx isn’t aware of, crying out for things outside of Lyx’s control?
She can’t give anything away. Encountering another siren isn’t simple. It’s a deadly game, and Lyx is at a disadvantage. Her body tunes to Sinoe’s. The tide of Sinoe’s being laps at her ankles, and Lyx wants to step deeper into it.
Sinoe senses it. She keeps her eyes on Lyx when she speaks to Cav. “You’re the pirate who ran your mouth, aren’t you? The one who sent the hunters our way. Couldn’t stop bragging about the siren you found, huh?”
“I wasn’t bragging.”
Sinoe’s gaze scrapes to his like a fork across a plate. “Then how did your friends know exactly where to find us?”
“They weren’t –” He exhales, eyes slipping shut under an invisible weight.
“I made a map. It took days figuring out where I’d been, looking through all the books we had on board.
I kept the map on me, because I didn’t want anyone else to find it, but in the end…
” He swallows. “I wasn’t careful enough.
I didn’t realize it was missing until I’d spent a full day in port making trades.
It must have slipped out of my pocket, or —”
“A map?” Sinoe seethes. “Why the fuck would you do that?” She edges viciously toward him. “You wanted the hive all to yourself, is that it? You thought you’d make a killing?”
“Of course not!”
“What, then?”
His gaze is soft and warm on the back of Lyx’s neck.
Her skin prickles with goosebumps. Deep down, she always knew.
She always hoped, even when she knew she shouldn’t.
No matter how foolish, she wanted Cav to return to her.
For her. That was her wish when she saw the ship sailing toward her grotto.
That was her dream when she was trapped with Tidus and had nothing else to hold onto.
But it doesn’t matter. Even if Cav had been trying to get back to her, nothing has changed. Lyx was still captured. The sirens were still scattered. She still lost her song.
Sinoe’s cruel laugh cuts through the air. “Oh, you poor thing; you’re not the first to be left unrequited.”
She pouts at Cav, but an unchecked emotion crosses Lyx’s face. Sinoe latches onto it, and Lyx tries to reel it back, but it’s too late.
“He is spoken for.” Sinoe’s head tilts in disbelief. Her finned ears twitch. “Not just a plaything?”
Lyx’s mouth clamps shut. She can’t look at Cav. She wants to lock him away in some tower out of Sinoe’s grasp, but Sinoe’s scales brighten when she taps this new vein of chaos.
Lyx tries to deflect. “Where are the others?”
Sinoe’s teeth snap around the turbulence, like a snake about to unhinge its jaw. “Who cares?”
Lyx clenches. She can’t leave Sinoe’s attention on Cav. Who knows what she’ll find. What she’ll do to him. What Lyx will have to face? She grapples for something else, anything else. “What about Mollo?”
That steals Sinoe’s attention, drawing her gaze back to Lyx. “She’s been missing since you left. I thought you might’ve killed her.”
It’s strange to hear. All this time, Lyx has imagined destroying Mollo, but what if she’s already gone? Lyx never considered that. Something unsettles in her chest, and she’s not sure if it’s grief or rage or relief.
Curiosity peaks on Sinoe’s face. “Why would you be looking for her?”
Dammit. Lyx has shown her hand. She worries the inside of her cheek, but she refuses to be cowed. There’s a way to give Sinoe something without revealing everything, a way to satisfy her appetite without giving her a feast. “She stole something from me.”
“Stole what?”
She’s brazen to hope Lyx would divulge so easily when every word between them is a snare, but Lyx moves deftly around them. “She sold it to the highest bidder. Now I’m going to take it back.”
Sinoe’s fingernails clack together. There’s no telling if she believes it. No doubt Sinoe wants more, but this is a dance they both learned the steps to long ago. Sinoe twists her mouth, mulling over Lyx’s words and trying to pick out the lie between her teeth.
Lyx doesn’t flinch.
Eventually, Sinoe’s eyes narrow. “Well. I certainly hope no one else gets there first.”
Is it a threat? A warning? Lyx can’t begin to guess which, because Sinoe steps forward. Lyx moves in front of Cav, but Sinoe doesn’t go for him. Instead, she reaches out to twirl a strand of Lyx’s hair around her finger.
“Ditch the pirate,” Sinoe purrs. “There’s more out there than ships and islands.
There’s an entire world you’ve never seen.
” She leans closer, whispering like when the two of them were children.
“Buildings as tall as the continental drop-off. A kingdom in the clouds. Everything you could want in the palm of your hand.”
Lyx can’t picture it. She’s lost in some strange feeling, a sandbar stretched between opposing currents. One side crashes and roils with waves, but the other is bright with memories. Both sides are Sinoe.
“None of them are prepared for what sirens can do. All that chaos ripe for the taking.” Sinoe presses their foreheads together, their eyes locked in a vicious embrace. Her voice lowers to an almost-desperate whisper. “Come with me.”
Lyx holds her breath to imagine it. The two of them swimming off together, hunting side by side, exploring a new world without any of the anchors that keep Lyx tethered here.
But it isn’t real. Who knows if the world Sinoe describes exists? Either way, Lyx is stuck here. She can’t escape the pull of her song, and she doesn’t want to escape the pull of something else.
Someone else.
The revelation startles her, tightening the muscles in her body.
Sinoe senses it. The corners of her mouth turn down, but she masks her disappointment the same way she does everything else.
“You have to hide it better, Lyxy.” Her finger winds tighter in Lyx’s hair.
“You know a siren’s favorite toy never lasts.
We get bored. Someone gets jealous.” She releases Lyx’s curl and lets it spring back into place.
“Or someone else wants to share it. To play with it. To tear it apart.” Sinoe lifts her hand toward Lyx’s cheek.
Lyx sucks in a breath, but the touch never lands.
It hangs in the air like the indiscernible look in Sinoe’s eyes.
“And it’s not just other sirens you have to worry about. ”
Dread sinks in Lyx’s stomach. No matter what games Sinoe’s playing, she’s right.
Any attachment Lyx has to Cav is a danger.
Another siren would come after him just for a taste.
If Tidus had any idea of her affection, he wouldn’t stop until he drained Cav of life.
Until he devoured every bit of joy and hope and spit it back out.
Things are worse than she imagined. Her song has become a beacon out of her control, and without it, she is helpless. She can’t protect Cav. Every moment they spend together draws a larger target on his back, and Sinoe is the first of many headed straight toward it.
Whatever emotion Sinoe shared is gone. When she reaches for Cav, only delighted spite remains.
“Word of advice, pirate,” she coos. “Give up your siren fantasies. Find someone nice and boring to settle down with. Someone who wouldn’t trade you in at the first offer. Who can share your fragile affection.”
Her fingers dance dangerously close to the mark she left on him. Cav doesn’t flinch, but Sinoe’s made her point. Her hips sway as she saunters down the alley.
“Otherwise…” She shoots Lyx one last, pointed look over her shoulder. “You’ll only get hurt. Isn’t that right, sister?”