Chapter 15
Maren
Lyrei at dusk presented a magnificent picture.
The reef islands looked like a fairy tale conjured by a magical dream.
The lithe, elegant bodies of the sirens moved through the shimmering water, with their translucent, delicate fins fanning out from their calves and forearms. The bigger fins along their spines opened like iridescent sails as the sirens twirled in dance in the ocean spray or chased each other through the waves.
Apparently, the thin spines of their fins stored poison—a fatal danger hidden under all that grace and beauty.
From Kye’s songs and the books I’d read, I’d learned about the dangers of gorgonian eyes, the fire-breathing gargoyles, and the poison-dripping teeth of the werewolves of Sarnala.
Apparently, the graceful sirens of Olathana had their own deadly weapon too.
“You want to tie me to yourself?” I asked, eyeing the string of glass and wooden beads Kye held in his hands.
The string looped in a long necklace. Even folded in half, it was still about four feet long.
It was either meant to be worn in several strands over one’s neck, or it wasn’t meant to be worn at all.
Kye had already turned most of the beads to glass while running the necklace between his fidgeting fingers.
The surviving beads were brightly painted, like a child’s toy.
He looped it around his right wrist, giving me a coaxing smile. “How about you’ll tie me to yourself instead then? Put me on a leash.”
I gave him an unimpressed look. “Kye, I’m thirty-three, not three. I know how words work. Switching them around doesn’t always change their meaning or the action they represent.”
“Alright. As an adult woman then, do you not see it as a practical solution?” He moved his arm, dangling the end of the necklace from his wrist. “It’s the next best thing to holding hands.”
“I don’t know.” I hesitated. “It’s not ideal to leash myself to the man who’s already forced me into nearly a week-long confinement.”
He didn’t look either offended or ashamed by my statement. Instead, a seductive smile stretched his lips.
“I’ll sing you a lullaby if you want to take a nap tomorrow,” he sweetened the deal in a voice smooth like honey.
I heaved a breath, catching the loose end of the long necklace.
“Fine, but only because you’re right and running headfirst into the ocean while following a stranger’s voice was odd behavior on my part. I’m not sure what came over me.”
It didn’t feel like I’d lost control or blanked out. I remained fully conscious during my entire run through the market and across the beach. I was aware of Kye being near. There was just an unexplained sense of urgency to meet the singer and a large disregard for caution.
I now believed the legends of sirens luring sailors to their deaths were true. If those sirens came from Nerifir, I could easily see how people would follow them wherever their song would lead them, even to their deaths.
Standing in front of Kye, I wrapped the beads around my left wrist when someone suddenly bumped into my legs from behind.
Caught off guard, I lost my balance and would’ve probably fallen forward and died on Kye’s lap had he not jerked his arm aside, yanking at the string and changing the trajectory of my fall from forward to sideways.
I fell on my hip onto the sand. Slightly bruised but alive.
Kye jumped to his feet in alarm, then quickly sat back on the rock again and crossed his legs to hide his “magnificent cock” from view.
“Sorry, my lady,” a thin voice sounded above me. “He tripped me.”
“No, I didn’t!” another almost identically squeaky voice argued.
I sat up, finding two little sirens standing over me.
They were like two miniature porcelain figurines with identical shoulder-length golden curls and white knee-length sarongs.
The only difference between them appeared to be that one had minty green skin, and the other one was of shimmering dark gray, like a black pearl.
“She’s just clumsy, that’s all,” the minty-green little creature accused.
“I’ll tell Mom you pushed me,” the pearlescent gray girl sulked.
“Are you siblings?” I asked.
The girl giggled. “No. He’s my cousin.”
The kids looked like they were about five or six. A bit too young to be wandering on their own this late, if they were humans. But maybe it was acceptable for sirens? Either way, there didn’t seem to be an adult nearby who would claim them.
“Why don’t we all move a little bit that way?” I shooed the children away from the king with his deadly touch, shifting a bit farther from him myself as far as my “leash” allowed.
The girl eyed the string of beads that stretched between Kye and me.
“Are you selling him?” she asked.
“What?” I choked out in shock, while Kye laughed.
“Father bought a kelpie the other day. He brought him home on a rope like that,” the boy explained.
I glanced back at Kye. “You have kelpies?”
He nodded. “Farmers and merchants sometimes use them as livestock, to gather seaweed or transport goods underwater.”
“Well,” I smiled, turning back to the children. “Kye... I mean King Kye isn’t a kelpie. And no, he isn’t for sale.”
At the sound of Kye’s name and title, the kids’ eyes grew almost as big as the pearls in the great hall.
“The cursed king!” they exclaimed in unison.
“True, but he doesn’t mean harm.” I expected the kids to run away in horror anyway.
To my surprise, the girl shoved her hand into the pocket on to the side of her sarong and produced a striped rock.
“Is it true that you can turn things into glass?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
The evidence of that was the rock he was sitting on. It’d turned to glass the moment his naked butt touched it, but he didn’t mention it. Probably not wishing to bring the children’s attention to his naked ass.
“Can you turn this rock into glass?” The girl thrust her hand his way.
Nervous for her safety, I stepped forward to stop her from coming too close.
“It’s a very pretty rock,” Kye said, leaning forward for a better look. “See all these colors? They’ll be gone when it turns to glass, just like these beads.”
He lifted his arm with the string of beads in demonstration.
The girl shrugged. “I don’t care. I can find another rock. I just want to see you turn this one.”
“As you wish.” Kye waved his hand in a regal gesture. “Place it on the ground right there.”
The girl put her rock on the sand, and I carefully moved it closer to Kye for her.
He bent down, reaching a finger toward the rock. “Ready?”
The kids crouched around the rock, staring at it with rapt attention.
Kye slowly brought his finger forward. His fingernail scraped the surface without any effect, then the pad of his finger connected with the rock.
With a brief spark of shimmer, the colors disappeared, and the rock turned transparent.
“Oooh,” the kids exhaled together.
Kye quickly moved his hand away before the girl eagerly grabbed her new treasure.
“I’ll get more rocks!” Her cousin jumped up with a mission.
“Leela!” An older boy was running down the beach toward us.
“Oh no. We’re in trouble.” The girl shoved her glass rock back into her pocket.
“Leela, your mother has been looking everywhere for you! She sent me to get you.” The boy who looked to be ten or eleven stopped, noticing us.
He gave me a quick look, then stared at Kye from under a furrowed eyebrow. I didn’t believe he’d recognize Kye since the boy was too young to have seen the king before the curse, and Kye hadn’t been out since. But the look the boy was giving his sovereign was far from friendly.
“It’s the cursed king,” the little girl announced brightly. “He can turn rocks into glass. See?”
She produced her glass rock from her pocket, displaying it on her palm for the older boy to see.
The boy eyed the rock, then glanced at Kye again, more intrigued than suspicious this time.
“Can you turn this too then?” The boy asked, taking out an item from the pocket of his wide, knee-length pants. “I carved it for my mom’s birthday, but it’d look prettier if it was made of glass.”
On the palm of his hand—light blue, just like the color of his long braid—lay a wooden carving of a turtle.
The wood was roughly whittled, with the turtle’s legs looking like clawed mini marshmallows.
But the time and effort he’d put into it was obvious in the details like the turtle’s beady eyes and skin folds on its neck.
He even carved some designs into the shell.
“It’s really beautiful.” I smiled in admiration.
“Let me see.” Kye craned his neck. “Did you really make it all by yourself?”
The boy nodded.
“You have a gift, my boy,” Kye praised, igniting pride in the boy’s expression. “Put it on the ground, then step back. Your mother will love it.”
The boy did as he was told, leaving his carved turtle on the sand by Kye’s feet. The kids huddled close in anticipation of another transformation, and I anxiously gauged the distance between them and their king to make sure it’d be just the turtle that ends up as glass.
Kye touched the turtle’s head, and the entire figurine turned to glass, accompanied by the delighted “oohs” and “aahs” from the children.
“This is the best kind of magic!” The boy reached for his treasure, beaming with excitement, and Kye promptly jerked his hand away.
A woman ran along the beach. Her beautiful face pinched with worry as her gaze scanned the sirens at the water's edge before she spotted the children.
“Orym! You found her. Leela! There you—” The woman stopped in her tracks abruptly, noticing the king.
“Good evening.” I plastered my friendliest smile, but she completely ignored me, darting an alarmed glance between Kye and the kids.
“Leela, come here, baby,” she called softly, not taking her terrified gaze off Kye.
“Mommy, Mommy!” The girl gushed, running to the woman. “The cursed king turned my rock to glass and Orym’s turtle too!”