Of Song and Scepter (Sirens of Adria)

1. Enna

Chapter one

Enna

I count my life in kills.

My first was the hardest: a male siren with a scowling face. My knife didn’t cut deep enough, and the poor fucker clung to his life. It took me until my twenty-third kill to perfect the flick and slice of my blade. I’ve killed 2,735 since him, and now I know better. I have learned how to make it painless, as easy as blinking.

I’m a death-dealer. A monster. But like Odissa says, there are worse things to be than deadly—dead is one of them.

Soon, I’ll be thirteen kills older. Already, my blood warms with the anticipation of my task, hot against the cold, black water.

Twelve merman soldiers swim in single file above me, pumping their tails in a quick but labored rhythm. Each carries a darksteel trident strapped to their backs; the metal clinks against their scales. These are royal soldiers. Their fear is palpable. I can smell it from down here, thick and uneasy. They’re deep in the Drink—the home of monsters far more wicked than a death-dealer like me. In these abyssal plains, dredgebeasts make a quick snack of anyone stupid enough to cross their waters.

But I’m no one’s snack.

Like a death sentence, I approach from beneath, rising through the black water. As mermen, they lack the advantage of heightened siren senses. Their noses are flat, their eyes beady and small.

Lesser beings. My father’s disdainful voice filters through my memory, but I shove it away. I have no use for his sentiments here.

Mermaid or magic-wielder, we bleed the same. I angle for the back of the formation, where the soldiers swim with less confidence. Easy targets . The first soldier dies to my knife: one cut to his throat, across the gills, and the merman falls limp. His blood blurs my dark vision. I push his body into the blackness to mask his scent. I have less than a minute now to dispose of the formation before their blood attracts a feeding frenzy.

The next soldier goes the way of the first. One by one, I slit their throats, easing into my rhythm. At the center of the formation, the Abyssal Princess swims, oblivious to her approaching fate, the glint of her siren tail reflecting the dim light of the glowmites.

Killing the princess is Odissa’s ticket out of the Drink, she said when she gave me the order. And if all goes well with this deal, she will release me from her service.

My knife cuts through withered skin. That’s 2,743 kills for Odissa. And after each kill, she promises to grant me freedom from our blood oath. How many more kills after this hit? When will my work finally be enough to appease her?

2,744. With the blood of eight soldiers flooding the water, I’m out of time. Their bodies sink toward the abyssal plain below, where the dredgebeasts lie in wait. I grab the nearest bleeding neck and focus, stirring the magic in my belly. I run my fingers over the hot line of my cut. A quick, short hum of my siren Voice, and lightning zaps beneath my fingertips, cauterizing the wound. The purple light slices through the dark.

The princess screams, and the four remaining soldiers stir into action, fumbling for their weapons.

Time’s up.

I dive deep, locating each sinking corpse before they escape. With a few more zaps of my magic, my job is nearly done.

Water rushes in my ear, stirring the glowmites into movement. A trident narrowly misses my head as I twist out of its path. I grab the staff and yank the guard off his balance. Smacking my tail, I send a fury of bubbles into his face, and he grunts before my knife finds its mark. Zap.

Three more soldiers, then the princess.

I can almost taste my freedom. Will she be the last siren I kill? The final price to pay for the life I want? Visions of warm beaches and sunlit tidal pools flood my brain. Rumors of these things come from merchants, though I’ve never confirmed the existence of the sun. I’ve always imagined it would be green, like a massive ball of glowmites suspended from the sea of air that gathers above the surface.

I barely dodge the jab of the next trident, growling in frustration as it slices my arm. Its darksteel edge leaves a stinging trail.

Dammit, Enna. Focus.

I turn on him, grasping his weapon. But the male is stronger than the others, unfazed by my attempt to unbalance him. In the light of the glowmites, I find his eyes—small, black orbs set in a flat, gray face. He bares his teeth, revealing a double row of sharpened bones.

We grapple for control of his weapon, our tails slapping together. The closer I keep my body to his, the less capable he is of making the shot with the trident. Where he is large and muscular, I am small and lithe, and my knives fit easily in tight spaces. I lift my knife through the opening beneath his arm, angling for his gills.

From out of the deep, a streak of turquoise light barrels toward us. The gel globe of the creature’s head pushes through a cloud of glowmites, which illuminates at her touch. Glowing streamers dangle from her body. Out here, Odissa is conspicuous.

And she’s going to ruin our score.

The princess shrieks again, whirling helplessly in the water and pointing at the oncoming attacker. The two remaining soldiers, previously scrambling to find me in the darkness, spot Odissa immediately and take aim. Maybe I should have killed the princess first.

The soldier I’m fighting takes advantage of my distraction and rips his trident out of my hands, sending me into a head-over-tail spiral. I lose my grip on my knife, and it sinks, lost, to the deep.

Fuck. That was my favorite one.

The soldier thrusts his trident at me. Unable to draw another dagger, I sink my claws into his face. His jaw works furiously, snapping those teeth. My magic stirs, and I let out a long, low note of my Voice. Lightning courses through my hands, illuminating each bone in him with crackling purple light. His eyes glow under my touch, and his body writhes, until I release his corpse into the Drink. My energy drains, and I curse.

Above me, Odissa has the princess bound in the tight web of her tentacles, leering as the siren wiggles.

A dead soldier sinks past me, the flesh of his face feathered and torn by Odissa’s raging claws. A messy kill. Annoyed, I snatch him and suture the wounds best I can, but there’s already too much blood in the water.

The princess screams again, so Odissa clamps her hand over the siren’s mouth to stop her.

“Nobody can hear you scream out here, princess,” she snarls. “Nobody but me and the dredgebeasts. And we don’t want to wake them up, do we?”

“My brother will have you killed for this. Unhand me.” The princess’s voice comes out weak and shaking. The glowing light of Odissa’s skin casts angry shadows over the planes of the royal’s soft face.

With a long, sharp finger, Odissa traces the length of the princess’s arm—pale, flawless, the skin of a siren. Not a mermaid’s claw or tentacle in sight. “So beautiful.” She snatches a strand of floating, silver hair, drawing it out of the restless tresses. “So fragile. But you know that already.”

The princess’s eyes widen, pale blue and round, reflecting the light of Odissa’s translucent skin. “I have an appointment with the Kingdom of Coral. I will be missed, and they will come hunting, trench-scum.”

I inhale through my mouth, scenting the water for signs of a dredgebeast. The soldiers’ blood hangs in a thick, warm cloud. We should move.

“Odissa, let’s go,” I hiss.

The mermaid ignores my warning. “And what does their prince see in you? Princess Aris. The youngest sibling of the Abyssal King, but even that is debatable. Rumors of mermaids in the parents' royal bedchamber. Kings like their females high-born, or did you forget?” Odissa grabs a handful of hair, fingers twining tight against Aris’s scalp. “You pass as a siren, at least. And you have the Voice?”

“Don’t touch me,” Aris whispers.

Pathetic, soft female. The princess reminds me of a younger version of myself—steeped in nobility, weakened by comfort. I almost feel bad for her, the way her wide stare searches for a hero who will never come. Hope fades into sad, resolute acceptance of her own death. Not a shred of fight left in her. Had I been this pathetic when Odissa found me that day, 2,746 kills ago?

“It’s not nice to play with the target, Odissa,” I snap. “Be done with it.” I hate when I go soft, but I cannot stand to watch her suffer any longer. I’ve spent enough time burying my own regrets beneath a steel shell in my stomach, and I’m not about to dredge them up over a crying royal. Not with my life on the line.

I unsheathe another dagger, swimming closer. At the sight of my knife, the princess blubbers a stream of bargains as she finally fights for her life; too little, too late.

“Go ahead then,” Odissa grunts, finally moving her hands to give me a clear shot at the neck. But as I aim the tip of my knife, she grabs my wrist.

“Wait,” she snaps. “Not there. Cut her lower, between the ribs. Somewhere inconspicuous.”

Aris writhes, her whines of protest loud and unrelenting. I glare at Odissa, irritated by her indecision. This mission has been anything but efficient—a bloody, botched mess, thanks to her.

The princess will die painfully. I’ll crack her bones, puncture her lung. She’ll die in a few minutes, gasping and gurgling, loathing me all the while. I angle my knife once more toward her neck, where it will be quicker.

A familiar cold grip of magic wraps around my wrist, halting my hand. I swore an oath to help Odissa succeed in every way—bound in blood until the day she frees me. I press against the magic, and the resistance tightens. It’s a pointless fight. Either I do as she commanded, or I die defending this final shred of my morality.

What does it matter how she dies if I must kill her either way?

The grip of magic eases around my wrist. My knife slips between the ribs, and the princess’s whine cuts off with a gurgle. She glares at me with unfocused eyes as life slowly drains from her face.

2,747.

I suture the wound, ears pricked and mouth scenting for the sounds of a dredgebeast.

Instead, I hear the clinking darksteel and stirring water. A lone wounded soldier pumps his tail, his trident reflecting the light from Odissa’s skin.

Fuck. I missed one.