59. Maren
59
Maren
“ Y ou knew my mother?” I asked, breathless. I’d wondered, that last day on Neris Island, if Nori and Olinne had known her. If they’d let her take the blame for missing sailors.
But I’d never considered the Queen of the Juile Sea had as well.
“I knew her, yes.” Sidra angled herself away, resuming her pace, unaware or unbothered by my disbelief. “The day I erupted from the sea within, three fishing boats escaped the volcano. They landed on Leihani, the island on which you were born, and so your people began. But we had been friends, the Naiads of Safiro and the people of Nahli. So as Theia had separated Thaan from myself, she separated the islanders from Naiads. She blessed the people there, or perhaps cursed them, with an unnatural distrust of any Naiad.
“We tried to visit in those first years. To rebuild what I had destroyed. It didn’t matter that we emerged in human form, our tails hidden under our skin. The islanders of Leihani instinctively knew what we were without knowing what we were. That we had the power to take their minds, to seduce the thoughts from their head. They drove us away without thought or reason. They threatened and attacked us if we stayed too long. So, we remained in the sea, watching from afar, waiting for a Child of the Moon.
“The females of the colony grew restless. They couldn’t corda with male Naiads, there were none left unless they wanted to swim to another colony, and even then, it is forbidden that they should mate with an enemy. The islanders wouldn’t allow them on the shore, and although we could have incanted them to us, the colony had little interest in betraying the island people a second time. We left them alone, but our Domus was slowly dying, which I imagine was what Theia intended. But we found a way to remain. The females cordaed with each other, and after their bonds were made, they surfaced to follow merchant ships, singing men into oblivion and stealing them under the water, killing them for their seed.”
She sighed, licking her lips and opening her mouth, pondering something for a few moments before continuing. “It was never my intention to rebuild our Domus in such a way. But you will find them—matriarchal colonies, ruled by a queen, female Naiads cordaed to one another. You don’t find that so much with the male Naiads. I’m sure that somewhere, such a colony exists, but I’ve never heard of one. Matriarchal colonies are usually found in lakes and rivers, smaller in size than ours.” She offered a small shrug. “When a Naiad is cordaed to one being but mates with another, a sort of…revulsion takes over. We needed the men, the sailors, but at the same time, their touch repulsed us. Our hate for men grew, perhaps more wild at times than our desperation to stay alive.”
“Did you as well? Steal sailors from your shores?” I asked, failing to keep the disgust from my tone.
“No. I refused,” Sidra said flatly. “And do not think me honorable for never doing so. I was desperate as any of my Naiads, and I might have, but my corda-cruor with Thaan was broken. As a Videre , it would have only served the colony for me to corda with another Prizivac Vode , and though I looked for one in those first few hundred years, no other Videre was willing to give their male offspring to me. I can’t blame them after the mess I had caused. After my failure with my former corda-cruor .”
“So Thaan was the last Naiad king of the Safiro Sea?”
Sidra drew herself to her full height. “There are no Naiad kings, child. There are Monarchs, there are Videres , there are Prizivac Vodes . And then there are queens, the highest station a Naiad can achieve. Be careful not to make that mistake again. Even with a male Videre , you might cause offense if he thought you were comparing his throne to that of a human’s.”
“Your colony is made of only females,” I said, unbothered by her admonishment, “who cordae each other to mate with human men, then drown them." In Naiad bodies, I assumed, so that their offspring would be Naiad-born within the colony.
Sidra smiled softly. Regretfully. “It is our duty to create life. Though I’ll not lie to you that we’ve also created death.”
“And your females kill their infant sons?” I asked, taking a step away from the queen and narrowing my eyes. I couldn’t help but remember the churning feeling of rot in my stomach when I’d realized the Naiads of the Juile Sea were responsible for the deaths of the sailors I’d been blamed for. It returned to me now, putrid and cloying, dredging deep inside me like a festering worm.
Queen Sidra’s beautiful face wavered. But her chest and chin remained high. “Have you never wondered why you were born female?” she asked. I stared icily at her, unwilling to validate her question with an answer. “Of course you wouldn’t. But there is a reason. It was our intention, hundreds of years ago, to build the male population of our colony through our attacks of human men. But no sons ever came. Only daughters. I assume part of Theia’s curse, to ensure our demise. There hasn’t been a Naiad male born in the Juile Sea for almost a thousand years.”
She gestured for me to follow her again. We must have been close to the top of the colony; the tunnel was increasingly narrow. Ahead, a door stood open. A slab of white stone like everything else. Sidra stopped just outside and inclined her head, inviting me once again to enter first.
“I felt your mother enter the waters, of course, and sent Nori and Olinne to watch her. Naiads do not often stray into other colonies, but I hoped to find the Child of the Moon, and could not afford to be hasty with punishments. Nori gave me her own memories after. As an Oculos , she can share with me what she has seen. I watched your father pull your mother from the water and waited for him to throw her back once he realized what she was. Waited for the curse to take hold, for his suspicion to sink in. But he didn’t. He bundled her up in his arms and rowed her to shore. And when he married her a few months later, I thought I had found her, for who else to deliver the Breath of Safiro but the woman who defied the curse of the moon?
“But your parents cordaed , and whatever spell she had over the island lifted overnight. She was outcast, except by your father. The Leihaniians never understood why they couldn’t trust her, why she felt evil—but to them, she was. And I never knew what she was running from, but she ran from something. Her own blood vows locked her tongue so tight she had only a few words, and when I approached her through Nori and Olinne, she was all but mute, and I knew her days were numbered.
“They say the world turns to crimson red when your blood finally kills you for abandoning a vow. I don’t know if it’s true. But I could feel it coming for her, her oaths left forsaken. If there is anything you can never run from, it is your own blood. She had asked me to watch over you, and Nori told her I would.
“And you were intelligent and eager, so easy to teach, so fast to learn. We watched you constantly, worried that the island might attack you. They didn’t know what you were, they only knew what their instincts told them—that you were different. Dangerous. If a sailor’s eyes strayed to watch you, we stole them in the night, for we couldn’t afford a man to take you for pleasure and cordae you for life.
“For years, we were vigilant. We were careful. We were protective. But we made a mistake. We forgot, as all sirens do, the rules of the bond. A young man came half-burned and almost dead to Neris Island. He fell into the water, and we thought to leave him there. To let him die, to hide his body away. And when you dove in, we couldn’t stop you from saving him without explaining why we didn’t want you to. By the time you reached him, we thought he was already dead. But then you pulled him to shore and blessed him with Naiad oxygen. Do you remember, child, the laws a Naiad must follow to tether herself to another life?”
My mouth parted as it dawned on me what Sidra was suggesting. I glanced across the walls, suddenly desperate to stall for time before answering, and a warm shiver ran down my spine, my heartbeat loud in my ears. The narrow room, devoid of anything but smooth rock and tallies, blue light, and spiny plants offered me little answer.
“To create life,” I breathed. The image of Kye’s deathly pale, sunburnt skin returning to color flashed behind my eyes. “And to preserve it.”