Chapter Forty-Two Rhea #2
“The Spell,” Queen Amari repeats slowly, looking at where it gleams behind me.
“Such a troublesome nuisance, isn’t it? One would think that, in the two hundred years since it was cast, a mage would have been able to bring it down.
” Those terrifying eyes move to me again.
“Though why would they test something that is of no consequence to them?”
My heart pounds in my chest, panic filtering in the longer her question lingers between us.
Of course, she knows the mages’ secret. She would have known the moment she saw me use my magic on the beach.
It’s the way she looks at me, as if I’m something to be devoured.
Something that she can sink her sharp black talons into and claw away at until I’m nothing but pieces for her to use.
King Dolian clears his throat, taking a small sidestep so that he partially obscures me from her.
“What are you getting at?” he asks.
The queen just smirks, the strands of her midnight hair stirring as a powerful gust of wind rolls off the ocean.
Then she lifts her trident high in the air, sunlight catching the diamond tips and casting small flares of rainbow light onto the sand.
Again, the guards stir behind me. Again, Xander holds off their response.
With the king’s new position in front of me, I can’t see the pink-haired siren, but I can see the other one.
She watches the queen with intense concentration, her talons gently scraping her hips in quick motions.
“Gods above,” one of the guards behind me says, the sentiment echoed throughout the group and even by Xander, his softly murmured curse only barely hitting my ears.
When I lean a little to the side to have a clear view of the ocean, I gasp too, though I’m unsure of what I’m actually looking at.
It starts out with tan-colored points rising above the thrashing water line before they grow into giant…
shells. The kind I had only ever seen drawn in books.
They are larger than I could have possibly imagined, and it isn’t until they rise about a foot from the water that I realize there is a person beneath.
Like some sort of macabre helmet, the shells—variations of brown and tan and white—mask the sirens’ heads and some of their faces as they rise from the ocean, transforming into their mortal forms beneath what appears to be shell armor.
The king takes a step back, his hand wrapping around my wrist. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Do not panic, dear king,” Queen Amari cajoles, walking until she is only a hand’s width away from him. He keeps his gaze keenly on her face, though he squeezes my wrist so tightly my fingers flex from the pain. “They are not here to harm you.”
Row after row of armored sirens emerge from the sea, an entire army of them.
The females, each with the same soft curves as the queen and her companions, wear expressions that suck the air right from my chest. By the time they finish lining the beach, I count upwards of fifty sirens.
Almost all of them hold metal spears while a select few carry miniature tridents, and all of them send us steely jewel-colored glares.
“Bring your fiancée forward,” the queen says, dropping her voice lower.
King Dolian, to my astonishment, obeys immediately.
He tugs me a single step forward until I’m right at his side, his grip growing tighter.
I hiss a breath out through my teeth and attempt to pull away from him to no avail.
The queen’s mouth curves deviantly. “You will let the girl go.”
Without hesitation, his fingers leave my skin. I draw my arm up to cradle it against my chest, but the queen snatches it first. Her touch is cold, and though she’s retracted her talons and only mortal nails remain, I swear I can feel the prick of them indenting my skin.
“We have work to do, Lady Rhea, and I don’t want to waste another moment.”
“What work?” I rasp while she positions me at her side, forcing the ruby-haired siren to move farther down.
“I know that mages have the ability to pass through the Spell.” Her gaze slides to mine, but I keep my lips pinched closed. “And I have a theory that the reason that is possible is because their magic heals them from the Spell’s side effects.”
Again, I don’t respond, my heart pounding near my throat.
“Today, we are going to test that theory.”
“I—I can’t do that,” I sputter, shaking my head. “It won’t work. My magic doesn’t—”
“Have you tried healing another in this way?” she asks.
“No, but—”
“Then you cannot speak to whether it will work or not. I have willing subjects, ready to fulfill their duty to their queendom,” she says quietly, leaning in until her nose nearly touches mine. “And I have a king under my control just as you are.”
My blood runs cold as her eyes dip down to where my hands press against my stomach.
To a ring of golden coral topped with a pearl.
One that matches the king’s, though his is striped with ocean blue.
Gods, in some poetic and dreadful twist of fate, she is using the same magic to control him that he is using on me.
That’s why he didn’t resist earlier. She was commanding him.
Does the king realize that’s what she’s doing?
Does the same rush of magic flood him that does me?
Noting my discovery on my face, Queen Amari smiles brightly and turns back to face her subjects, forcing me to do the same with a tug at my arm.
“My sirens, now is the time you have been waiting for. Now is the first day of retribution! For today, we will finally take our first step on mortal lands in over two hundred years!”