Chapter 2
Lirin
Past
They come out of the waves like they are bringing the heart of the ocean with them, an aggressive vengeance-filled heart ready to kill anything that moves.
I wait, already regretting what’s going to happen.
My gaze is glued to the path, watching as they appear one by one.
Menacing, dangerous, deadly. We own the Black Death Oceans, the space between the worlds, but can only walk with two legs on this tiny island.
It’s barely the size of a small village, the cruelty is not lost on any of us.
We call each other brothers, but we’re only brothers in this hellish prison we’ve been dumped in.
None of us knew each other before the twisted magic that changed us into sirens was cast upon us.
There is no shared blood, just shared suffering but for eons that has been more than enough. It’s us against all the worlds.
Ronit is as much my brother as he is my lover. We’re family in this war against the ocean, in our desire and need to escape. He leads, and we follow. This one time, I wish I was strong enough to stop him.
His long red hair hangs in wet clumps around him as he approaches, his discerning gaze flying straight to the little monster in my lap.
Of all of us, his hair has more orange in it, making it look less like blood and more like rust. His eyes are a pale, eerie gold holding the haunting rage that has burned since he was betrayed.
Ronit’s got stubble on his jaw, so he appears feral and unlike the Fae we were.
The muscular body he earned from years as one of the Fae Warrior Generals has not left him.
But all these years of isolation have only driven him colder and harder, cruelty has sharpened him into the most deadly of weapons.
We kill because we have to. The curse won’t let us stop. Anything that is a threat to the worlds has to be eliminated. I barely remember my life as a Fae; now I am just a Siren, and as a Siren, I am nothing but a slave to the intentions that were woven into the magic that cursed us.
He kneels before me, putting us at eye level. “You live.” He grips my hand, only the tremble of his fingers betrays how distraught he is. The depth of feeling vibrates through our bond.
“Yes,” I murmur, swallowing the grief and relief, “thanks to this strange creature.”
He reaches out but doesn’t touch her. His fingers hold in the air above her head. He wants to touch her, but he won’t allow himself to. Ronit never allows himself comfort. The job always comes first.
“What is it?” he says at last.
I look down at her, feeling oddly protective. “I don’t know.”
“We can’t allow it to live,” Ronit reminds me. “She has too much magic.”
“I don’t think she’s a threat,” I protest, though I know it’s useless.
“Anyone with that kind of magic is a threat,” Brio says as he appears. Brio was a master composer with long, delicate fingers and a talent that became legend. He could master any song, any note, any instrument. Music was his life. Until they stole it from him.
His hair is blood red and hangs to his waist with a slight curl. His eyes are a deep, dark honey, and he’s got pale freckles that only add to his delicate allure. Of all of us, though I would never say it to his face, Brio is the most broken by our new existence.
What good is a musician without an audience?
“She saved me. I thought she would end things, but instead, she risked her life to give me mine. She’s not a threat…she’s cute,” I try to explain. This tide of panic isn’t normal, and I have to fight to hide it from them.
Scoffs come from Ronit and Brio.
I tense, staring up at them, begging silently for them to listen to me. To help me fight the magic that will spill her blood into the ocean. Feeding it like all others have before her.
“Look, just listen-”
Brio reaches for the veil and draws back in shock. “Blind. She can barely even survive. Put it out of its misery, Lirin, and come back to the oceans.”
“It would really be a mercy. She wouldn’t be able to find food or eat. Something much more horrible will get her,” Ronit murmurs, and I think, perhaps, he knows the truth I’m trying to hide.
I protest, the sound coming deep from my throat.
“They’re right, it’s not worth the chance,” Reed says, cocking his head as he drops into a crouch to look at her.
His hair is cut short around his face and is a deeper red, with mahogany streaks.
Reed is emotional and angry, and it shows in the inky stripes that appear and fade on his skin when he feels deep emotions.
He was dragged from the bed of his lover and into this hell.
His almost-black eyes take in everything with a predator’s precision. He doesn’t trust anyone but our shiver.
“She saved me,” I growl, getting angry at them. I might be the youngest and have very few memories of where we came from, but I still have a voice.
I know my crime was simply to refuse the wrong lady.
If I’d have known what would happen, I would have cut her snake throat and committed a crime worth punishing.
Like Canto, I have blue-green eyes, though mine are much bluer than his, according to Reed.
My hair is also a mix of reds–light, dark, copper, rust. Reed cuts my hair short around my face.
We are the same. We look the same. Right now, I hate it. I hate them for forcing me to do this. For not caring enough to fight against it.
I look the most innocent, but I’m as jaded as the rest of them.
Usually. I’ve heard the pool fools who get trapped in the oceans whisper it about me.
They think I’m weak and easy. But I’m not.
I am as dangerous as Ronit, as vicious as Reed, my song is as powerful as Brio’s, and my training is all Canto.
I am the weapon the Fae put into the Black Death Oceans to protect the worlds, like dogs placed outside to run a property line.
Canto approaches, crouches in silence, and grips her jaw. Nothing gives away what he is thinking. “She is a very strange creature. Like a mismatch of several beasts. I wonder where she came from?”
“It doesn’t matter where she came from; she can’t go back,” Reed snarls and taps his foot irritably. He might be the quickest to anger, but he falls the fastest and feels the hurt the longest.
We’re all naked, but it doesn’t bother us anymore.
I haven’t seen clothes in so long I’ve forgotten what it feels like to wear them.
They are useless to us under the waves and upon this island, there is no one to cover up for.
Just the thick green jungle, the path down to the singular beach, and the cliffs that lead the unwary into a choice to die by Siren or a hundred foot fall to a rocky end.
It might look and smell like paradise, but it, too, is a trap for the unwary.
“Mmm, I want to know more about her before we get rid of her,” Canto murmurs, and a flicker of hope ignites inside me.
We’ll listen to him. Canto was given this life sentence because he rose too quickly through the warrior caste.
He got too good with his weapons, too brilliant at killing.
The lazy Fae sitting in their houses suddenly started to fear him.
Not because he had done something but because he might.
He also had a reputation for being incurably moral and just, though that has bent and possibly broken over the years.
Canto’s hair is the same colour as Brio’s but cut short like Reed’s.
His face is open and expressive. He’s got a beautiful smile and a boyish charm. It is the biggest deception.
Sometimes I wonder if Canto has a heart. If he loves or feels the same as we do. The only time he appears happy is when he’s killing things.
“May I?”
I reluctantly open my arms, and Canto lifts her up and holds her out from him like she’s an infant as he inspects her.
“What did you drug her with?”
I blow out my cheeks, frustrated that he picked up on what I did without me saying anything.
“Just the sleeping pear fruit. She should wake up soon. I didn’t give her a big dose.”
She does, in fact, rouse in his arms, but instead of panic, she inhales deeply and lets out a tiny whine.
My reaction is immediate and sickening. I roll to my feet, hoping none of them discover just how arousing I found that small sound.
Okay, that was weird. It’s unsettling, and I almost want to run away from her, but if I do that, they will kill her.
“What is your name, creature?” Canto sings, demanding an answer.
“Mei,” she whispers with a sleepy yawn.
“Mei,” Canto says her name slowly, like he’s savouring it. “Where are you from?”
Her face screws up, the muzzle wrinkling. It’s almost cute. What happened to her?
“From…home?” she whispers hopefully.
If she had a tail, I think she might be wagging it. Like she desperately wants to please us. Like the dogs at home. The kind of dogs that packs like us rip apart.
I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, trying to block out my morbid thoughts.
Ronit growls, and she shrinks into Canto’s arms with a whimper that has me almost stepping forward, protectively putting myself between them. As it is, I vibrate where I stand, getting a sharp look from Brio.
“Get rid of it,” Ronit says with a finality that crushes me.
My protest dies in my mouth, unvoiced.
“Okay. Lirin and I will handle it,” Canto says to me. He knows something, he can tell that I’m struggling.
The other three don’t linger. With bronzed muscles rippling, they return to the water and our dark home.
Canto sets her down and crouches in front of her. “Tell me, Mei, who sent you here?”
Her smile is gone, and she’s starting to get more alert and more alarmed. She struggles, but he captures her chin.
“Who sent you?”
“No one. I heard the song.”
Canto scoffs. “Impossible.”