Chapter 7 #2
"And the price?" I asked, bracing myself.
The witch smiled, and this time there was no cruelty in it—just ancient, weary amusement.
"The price. Always the price. You creatures never want to pay, but you always come asking anyway.
" She drifted to a shelf carved into the cave wall, lined with bottles and vials of every shape and color.
Her fingers, too long, too jointed, trailed over them until she found what she was looking for: a small bottle filled with liquid that glowed faintly blue.
"For the potion," she said, turning back to us, "I want a memory." Vale and I exchanged glances. A memory. That could mean anything—could be nothing, could be everything.
"What kind of memory?" I asked carefully.
"A happy one." The witch's black eyes fixed on mine, unblinking.
"Your happiest memory, pack leader. The moment of purest joy you've ever experienced.
I'll take it from your mind, and you'll never feel it again.
You'll remember that it happened, but the emotion will be gone.
Like a painting with all the color drained out. "
My happiest memory. I thought of my pack, Riven's fierce loyalty, Vale's sharp humor, Thane's gentle warmth.
I thought of the hunts we'd shared, the kills we'd celebrated, the centuries of swimming these waters together.
None of those were my happiest memory. Not anymore.
My happiest memory was three days old. A girl in the water, oxygen running out, looking at me with wonder instead of fear.
A pearl pressed into my palm. A wave—silly, human, perfect.
"No." The word came out strangled. "Not that one. Anything but that."
The witch's smile widened. "Ah. So it's her, then. Your happiest moment involves the little human." She laughed softly. "You really are lost, aren't you? Already so tangled up in her that you can't bear to lose even a memory of her."
"Ask for something else." Vale stepped forward, his beautiful face hard with determination. "Take one of my memories instead. Take my voice for two days. Take whatever you want from me, but not his memories of her."
The witch studied him for a long moment, her tentacle-hair writhing thoughtfully.
"Your voice for a couple of days," she repeated slowly, her black eyes gleaming with sudden interest. "The famous voice of Vale, the singer, the lurer. Do you know what I could do with a voice like yours, even for two days?"
She drifted closer to him, her tentacle-hair reaching out to taste the water around his throat.
"I could lure a dozen ships onto the rocks," she breathed, her voice thick with hunger.
"A hundred sailors, walking willingly into the deep, drawn by the most beautiful voice in all the seas.
I could feast for months on what your voice could bring me in two days time.
" Her smile widened, showing all those needle-sharp teeth.
"The Voice of Vale, singing my song instead of yours.
How many humans do you think would die, pretty one?
How many would follow that sound into the dark and never surface again? "
Vale's jaw tightened, but he didn't waver. Didn't look away. "That's not my concern."
"Isn't it?" The witch laughed, delighted. "Oh, you really are monsters, aren't you? You'd let me slaughter a shipful of humans, men, women, perhaps even children, just to keep your pack leader's precious memory intact?"
"They're not our humans," I said flatly.
"They're not her. Whatever you do with his voice, whatever sailors you lure to their deaths—that's your business.
As long as it doesn't touch our omega, we don't care.
" The witch stared at me for a long moment, something like respect flickering in those bottomless black eyes.
"How refreshingly honest," she murmured.
"Most creatures who come to me pretend to have morals.
Pretend to care about the cost their bargains extract from others.
But you..." She circled me slowly, assessing.
"You don't even bother with the pretense.
You'd let the world burn as long as your little human stays warm. "
"Yes," I said simply. There was no point in lying. We were sirens. We'd killed more humans than we could count, lured countless ships to their doom, feasted on flesh and fear for centuries. The lives of strangers meant nothing to us.
Only she mattered now.
"The memory would be gone forever," Vale added, his voice hard with determination.
"Whatever you take from him, he'd never get back.
My voice will return after two days. And whoever you kill with it.
.." He shrugged, elegant and dismissive.
"They were going to die eventually anyway. Humans always do."
The witch laughed again, a real laugh this time, surprised and almost delighted.
"Oh, this is even better than I hoped. Four sirens, brought to their knees by a single human girl, and yet still so wonderfully ruthless about everyone else.
" She shook her head, tentacles swaying.
"Fine. I'll take your voice for two full days, singer.
From moonrise to moonrise, it will be mine to use as I please.
And I will use it." Her black eyes glittered with anticipation.
"There's a merchant vessel passing through the northern straits between tonight and tomorrow depending if they stop or not.
Rich cargo. Fat sailors. They'll hear the most beautiful song they've ever known, and they'll follow it straight into my waiting arms."
"Done," Vale said without hesitation.
"Vale—" I started, not because I cared about the sailors, but because I needed him to be certain.
"It's fine." He cut me off, his sharp smile returning, cold and certain. "A few dead humans mean nothing. Your memory of her, that first moment, the pearl, that means everything. I won't let you lose that."
The witch extended her hand, the potion bottle balanced on her palm. With her other hand, she reached for Vale's throat.
"This will feel... unpleasant," she warned, and then her fingers pressed against his skin. Vale gasped, his body going rigid, his eyes rolling back in his head. I lunged forward, but the witch held up a hand and some invisible force stopped me in my tracks.
"Patience, pack leader. I'm not hurting him. Just... borrowing." Light flickered between her fingers and Vale's throat, blue-white and cold, like lightning trapped underwater. Vale's mouth opened in a silent scream, and then it was over. He slumped forward, gasping, his hand going to his throat.
When he tried to speak, no sound came out.
"There." The witch released him and turned to me, pressing the potion bottle into my hand.
"One breathing potion, as promised. Enough for seven doses, give or take.
Should last you quite a while, assuming your little human survives your courtship…
.or unless you come back to replace her feet with a tail"
I clutched the bottle tight, feeling its cool weight against my palm. "She'll survive."
"Will she?" The witch drifted back toward the shadows of her cave, already losing interest in us.
"You're sirens, pack leader. Death follows you like a shadow.
You can dress it up in pretty words—courting, protecting, treasuring, but at the end of the day, you are what you are.
" She paused at the edge of the darkness, looking back over her shoulder.
"The question is whether she can love you anyway. "
Then she was gone, swallowed by the shadows, leaving us alone in the sickly green glow of her cave. Vale grabbed my arm, his eyes urgent, his mouth forming words that had no sound. I understood anyway, we needed to leave. Now. Before the witch changed her mind or decided she wanted something more.
We swam out of the cave and up, up, up, away from the cold and the dark and the ancient creature who lived there.
The water warmed as we rose, the pressure easing, the light returning by degrees.
By the time we reached the shallows, the sun was setting, painting the water gold and red.
Beautiful. Alive. Everything the witch's trench was not.
Somewhere to the north, a merchant vessel was sailing toward its doom.
In the next day or so, the witch would use Vale's voice to lure them onto the rocks, and they'd all be dead—drowned or devoured, their cargo scattered across the sea floor.
I felt nothing about it. No guilt, no regret, not even curiosity.
They were humans, and humans died. It was the natural order of things.
The only human who mattered was waiting for us on a ship in the eastern waters. Vale stopped swimming, floating in place, his hand pressed to his throat. His expression was thoughtful, distant—already accepting the temporary loss of the voice that had defined him for centuries.
I reached out and gripped his shoulder, waiting until his blue-green eyes met mine.
"Thank you," I said. "What you gave up—" He shook his head, cutting me off. His hands moved in a series of gestures—old signs we'd developed centuries ago for silent hunting. Worth it, he signed. She's worth more than a hundred ships. A thousand sailors.
She was. Whatever lives the witch took two days with Vale's borrowed voice, it was a small price to pay. Those sailors meant nothing to us. She meant everything.
"Let's go home," I said. "The others are waiting.
" Vale nodded, and together we turned toward the eastern waters, toward the ship that rocked gently on the surface, toward the girl who didn't know yet that she'd already stolen four siren hearts.
We had the potion. We had our plan. And somewhere in the north, strangers were going to die so that we could keep our memories of her intact.
We didn't look back.
Now all we had to do was make her love us back.