Chapter 26
Asta’s head was pounding like someone had slammed a stone into it, but she managed to open her eyes. Her vision adjusted to the dimly-lit room as she took in the bright orange walls surrounding her. Her head was resting on a spongy pillow and her hair kept floating up into her line of vision.
Floating?
Asta sat up quickly in a plush bed filled with sponge pillows, topped with a very heavy red comforter. Her movements were easy and sharp, but she concluded she must be underwater by the movement of her hair and the fabrics of the bed.
Go to the surface. Everyone will love your song. Sing to them.
Her head was squeezed in an invisible grip so tightly she felt like it would pop, but Asta pulled back the blankets to emerge from the bed and look around the room.
Call them to you, call them home to the siren kingdom.
The beastly thoughts were flooding Asta’s mind as she continued taking in her surroundings. There was a tight ball in her chest, but it was much different from the one she had become accustomed to with her rituals.
Show them the beauty of the depths. Allow them the honor of seeing what humans cannot.
A flash of purple caught Asta’s attention and she dragged her gaze to her fin—not her legs—her large, deep purple fin. She couldn’t help but smile as it moved where she willed it to.
They want to play. Let them join your games. Everything you want is at the surface, in their veins.
Well, that was enough for Asta to feel a chill skitter down her spine.
As Asta reached up to steady herself on the headboard, she noticed the scabbed over bite mark from where Queen Arielle had turned her.
She ran a thumb over the mark, surprised that it was almost completely healed.
Now that she thought about it, her entire arm was healed of the injuries she’d had from her previous fight with Maren and Svanhild. Had she been sleeping for that long?
As the princess was about to try her first swim again, Queen Arielle entered the room. Her royal blue and gold fin moved gently as she made her way to the edge of the bed and sat.
“How are you feeling?” the empress signed.
A spotted seal came floating in through the doorway and laid on the bed next to Queen Arielle.
Asta rubbed her head then answered, “My head aches, but it is bearable. How long have I been sleeping?”
“Just a day,” the siren queen signed, then rested a hand on the seal in front of her.
Asta looked down at her scabbed bite wound again, her brows furrowing and a corner of her mouth turning up. “How am I nearly healed?”
Queen Arielle smiled. “Accelerated healing. Now that you’re a siren, you’ll find that healing comes faster in water. You’re also stronger, so please take care when touching breakables in my castle until you adjust.”
Asta laughed, until the realization that she was in Naltania—the siren kingdom—overtook her.
“The headache is from your bloodlust. All newly turned sirens experience it. We need you to feed before we can continue.”
The blonde princess started. She knew this was part of becoming a siren, but she hadn’t actually thought through her need to feed. It wasn’t going to be like eating food or drinking wine. This was entirely different and the thought made Asta’s stomach turn.
They want to give you their life. They want you to feast on them. Sing to them and they will tell you as such.
The empress continued, “That is why Annika is here. We’re in agreement with the selkie population that we may feed from them so long as we offer them protection from the finfolk.
” She smiled at the golden-eyed seal lying across the blankets.
“Many vow to work as messengers to help repay the favor, like Annika does for me. Now, whenever you’re ready, your royal highness. ”
Asta knew she shouldn’t be surprised that selkies were real, but she had really hoped that her growing list of not-so-mythical creatures had ended with Gyrial’s fae reveal.
She stared deeply into the seal’s eyes and saw a familiar gold within.
Not Gyrial’s gold, but the gold from the woman who had brought her to meet Queen Arielle for the first time.
The woman she had watched wrap herself in a seal’s skin before walking straight into the ocean and disappearing.
She didn’t quite understand the magic behind selkie transformations, but her headache was too strong to care. She needed blood before she burst.
There is a ship just above, filled with men and women. Their pulses are bounding, blood warm from a hard day’s work. Drink, siren. Drink.
Before she even realized what she was doing, Asta lunged forward and bit into the seal’s side.
It gave a quick huff of discomfort but settled soon after.
The warm blood coated Asta’s mouth and, to her shock, was not revolting.
The more she drank, the more she seemed to crave the metallic taste as it smoothly ran down her throat.
Something sharp dug into Asta’s temples and forehead, breaking her concentration on her feeding.
She pulled her mouth away from the seal to find Queen Arielle gripping her head with her sharp siren nails.
The seal swam off the bed and through the door, a faint trail of blood dancing through the water but dissipating quickly.
The empress released her grip. “The first few feeds are the hardest. You must always have someone who can stop you until you know you can control yourself.”
Shame roiled over Asta. Had she been about to kill Annika if Queen Arielle hadn’t been here? Would she have enjoyed it? Maybe turning wasn’t such a good idea, if all she would be able to think about was feeding. She needed to focus on why she had come here in the first place—to save Kaid.
“So, I sneak in and find the royal suites. And you think Kaid is there? It can’t be that simple,” Asta signed, her brows furrowing.
Queen Arielle’s mouth formed a flat line, avoiding Asta’s stare. “He is likely chained in iron, which is the difficult part. If he isn’t chained, he can easily use his royal magic to escape. But since he hasn’t, I can only assume they have him restrained with that blasted metal.”
“I’ll break the chain. I’ll snap the hinge and he can get us out from there.”
The empress shook her head and sighed. “It’s not that simple.
Once iron is placed on a magical being, it can only be removed with a key, all of which haven’t been seen in centuries.
We’ve never found another way to break the iron since magic courses through our veins and the metal naturally deflects it.
You can likely free him from whatever he’s held down by, but the iron cuff will be stuck on him, rendering his magic useless. ”
Magic was stupid and had too many rules. But Asta would figure all of this out to get Kaid back. Did Kaid even know he had magic?
Every time she looked at the empress, she saw Kaid’s eyes staring back at her. It helped her stay grounded and fight off the longing need to drag a human to the deepest depths of the ocean and turn them into her personal puppet. Though, for some reason, that actually sounded fun.
Asta shuddered. “I’ll get him back.”
The violet-finned princess pushed into an upright position and threw the strap of her bag over her head so it crossed her torso.
She reached in and dug out her mother’s signet ring, placing it on her forefinger.
If she died while trying to save Kaid, she would not go down without a piece of Salendron on her.
Asta fastened her sword sheath at her hip and swam past the empress, stopping to gently squeeze her fingers before she exited by tapping the threshold.
Annika, who was waiting in the hall, guided her through the castle and directly out the front gates.
The seal continued swimming forward, but Asta turned to fully observe the kingdom of Naltania.
The sun shining through the reflective surface above illuminated the opalescent walls of the castle, the bright colors reflecting off the coral reefs surrounding the structure.
Fish, seals, crustaceans, and other sea animals swam carefree around the fortress, an emblem of Queen Arielle’s accomplishment of imbuing humanity into the sirens.
When Asta turned back toward Annika, she was swimming alongside an enormous, green sea dragon, followed by two sirens completely covered in blades of various shapes and sizes.
“Are you my rescue crew?” Asta asked, her gaze catching on the sea dragon in curiosity of which twin this one was, though she suspected it to be Tova based on its playful nature.
The male siren with a deep orange fin and a large scar cutting diagonally through his face bowed his head, his brown hair lagging behind his movements.
“We’re at your service, land princess. My name is Soren and this is Revna.
” He gestured to the pastel blue-haired female siren at his side and she stared Asta down with her icy gaze.
“We’re in the empress’s highest ranks and swear our blades to you for this journey. ”
Asta observed the warriors and took in their various scars. “Have you been to Ryktarva before?” she asked.
Revna scoffed. “Of course we have. We wouldn’t be accompanying you if we didn’t know where we were going. Do you land princesses have working brain cells or do you just hire other humans to think for you instead?”
Soren threw a hand in front of Revna, pushing her back. “Please excuse her. We haven’t had a newcomer in quite some time,” he turned and spoke through gritted teeth while glaring at Revna, “especially one of such importance. Revna would do well to remember her place.”
“Oh, it’s no problem,” Asta waved a hand and her elongated fingers still shocked her as they passed, “I don’t expect respect nor trust simply from having a title. But I will earn it.”
The group suddenly parted as a flash of emerald and white darted behind the crew and stopped next to Asta.
A large, emerald horse was beside her with a fin in place of its tail.
The mare swished the fin, causing a small current to jostle Asta’s hair.
She looked closely into the horse's gaze and her eyes widened.
“Thurs?” Asta reached out and ran a hand over the golden bridle containing the conch crest.
Soren swam forward, a wicked grin on his face. “You didn’t know?”
Thurs nudged Asta with her nose. “Know what?”
“‘Thurs,’ as you call her, is the alpha of the northern kelpies,” the scarred siren gestured to the horse. “Her entire herd has been at your command since you captured her. We even heard about it here in Naltania. The kelpies allegiance is to you. They haven’t been tamed in centuries.”
A mass of emerald green emerged from the clouded waters around them, nearly one hundred kelpies, from Asta’s quick count, and they all answered to her.
Asta grabbed Thurs’s bridle and ran her thumb over the crest on the golden coin. She grinned as she announced, “Then I guess we know how we’re traveling to Ryktarva.”
Annika swam in circles around the group, clearly eager to get moving. Revna pulled her light blue hair back into a tight knot, the strands of hair matching the color of her fin. But her nearly white eyes bore into Asta, which made her heart skip a beat.
No, Asta wasn’t a trained soldier. She couldn’t make someone’s stomach turn with one glare like this siren warrior could. But Asta could fight, and she was damn good at it. She already held off Maren and Svanhild by herself. Surely, with this group, she could free Kaid.
“Let’s bring the lost prince home.”