Chapter 9
The room I awoke in was fantastical, as if crafted from pure magic.
There was a bed at the center of the room, untouched.
Its layers of pearlescent pinks and yellows gleamed in the morning light.
Towering white columns encircled the room and reached up toward the soaring glass ceiling.
Light filtered through from the dark sky.
No. That was not sky. Hundreds of fish swam by, shimmering in silvers and golds.
I jolted upright, a surge of adrenaline slamming into my sternum. Memories of the ship, the crash, and the strange beings flooded back to me.
That was water outside ⒈／⒋ outsea … that shone hazy blue-green. Because somehow, I was beneath the ocean.
“Good, you’re awake,” the pink-haired woman, Nixie, said as she peeked in from the entrance. My skin prickled as she breezed through the room and I kept a wary eye on her.
The longest end of her mauve dress kissed the marble floor, while the shortest end exposed her muscular thighs sparkling with opalescent scales.
Scales. Like a fish. They twinkled past her calves in the light and blended into those long pink fins that she used to propel her in the water just outside these walls, as she did when she saved me.
She disappeared through an archway, a bolt of blush-colored fabric hanging from it.
A rush of water. “I’ll draw you a hot bath and leave you some clothes,” she called over the sound, her voice crystalline, like a note from the treble.
“I asked around and found something modest. I know your people dress more than we do.” She returned through the archway.
“Hylos, our ruler, requests you join him for breakfast.”
Her ruler …? Did sea-dwelling monsters have such things?
She entered the main room and stood before me. Completely and utterly mythical.
“He is kind. So please, don’t … I know it’s hard not to but …” She looked down at her finned feet. “But ⒈／⒋ please don’t be afraid.”
I couldn’t help but stare at her.
A wave of embarrassment washed over her features, which she flattened with a smile.
“After you bathe and dress, we’ll go to Hylos together.”
“What are you?” I asked, finally meeting her light, gray-pink eyes.
“I should have started with that,” she said coolly. “We’re children of Nymphaea.” She pointed to mother’s prayer beads. “Sirens.”
I rushed my hand behind my back. “Sirens are fables for the overly religious,” I parroted Vega.
She looked down at herself, evidence I was very wrong.
The words of the old men at the Yule feast about sirens taking ships swam back to my mind.
Vega had dismissed them, but it seemed they weren’t wrong in their accusation of who or what was taking those ships. Who had also taken the ship I was on.
“And where are we?” I asked.
“Naiadon, the castle under the sea.”
The under the sea part was obvious.
“The men on the ship? Where are they?” I pressed.
“They’re here too, and safe. But Hylos will give you more details. Is there anything else you may need?”
“A way home for myself and the men you abducted would be lovely. Thanks.”
Her smile faltered. Good.
“You can speak with Hylos about that matter. For now, I’ll give you some time to freshen up.” Her tone was wounded as she started for the door.
“Nixie, that’s your name, is it?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“If anything happens to those men …” I started, but the threat rang hollow, even to my own ears. What could I really do? Either way, I let my eyes pierce into hers, a silent promise to fight back whatever way I could.
“You have my word. They will be safe. You as well,” she answered.
“What is the word of my jailer?”
“I didn’t know jailers kept their prisoners in their personal bedchambers,” she snapped back.
I looked around at the shades of rose that decorated the room beautifully. It clearly belonged to her.
“A cage is a cage no matter how lovely,” I quipped.
“And fear often forces us to remain behind bars. Even when the cage door swings open. I’ll be back within the hour to fetch you for breakfast.” Then she dipped her head in farewell and left.
I followed the sound of rushing water, startled to see a ball of liquid swirling and steaming in the air, pouring itself out into a clawfoot bathtub in the middle of the room. Was it safe? Licks of steam unfurled as my muscles begged for relief. Did I care?
Out of my robe, I climbed into the long tub, likely meant to accommodate those long flippers. Fins. Whatever they were that the woman possessed.
I sank into the bath, soaking up to my nose in the exquisite heat as my mind sped.
Sirens were real. Not just fables or cautionary tales but living beings in the ocean’s depths.
I racked my mind for any morsel of information from the sacred prayers about their existence while running a thumb over Mother’s prayer beads.
I dunked the bracelet into the water, waiting for that strange blue glow to return. Nothing. I looked up to the glass ceiling, rays of sunlight beaming down, the swaying sea disorienting. Everything around me said land. But out there, it was clear there was nothing but sea.
I needed to find out how the bracelet worked if I wanted to escape back to the surface.
I couldn’t even see the break of waves above.
How deep was I? And what of the captain and his crew?
Could they swim to the surface themselves without whatever magic my mother’s prayer beads possessed?
My mind was working through the puzzle desperately.
But one piece didn’t fit anywhere at all. Why did my mother’s prayer beads have some sort of magical ability?
I huffed in frustration, bubbles in the steaming bath popping from my lips.
I thought of the captain and those kind honey eyes that he hid behind hard looks and orders. Was he afraid, wherever he was?
I sat up, leaning against the back of the tub. Tendrils of red covered my breasts and floated in the soapy water like rivulets of blood. With a deep breath, I steadied my thoughts. I needed answers, and it appeared those would come with meeting this siren ruler and figuring out what he wanted.
All rulers wanted something.
The water lost its heat as I devised a plan.
Nixie had laid out a dress made of lustrous green material for me.
It was shorter than anything I’d worn before, hemmed just above the ankles and tied at the nape of the neck, leaving my arms bare.
It was lovely. The material was light and swished as I made my way to the tall gold mirror in the bathing room, a table with brushes laid out beside it.
So human. So normal. Selecting one, I noticed the image of Nymphaea embossed in gold on the handle. Because like us, even they prayed to the Guardians. Or at least to one.
I worked the brush through my wet curls, uncertain who I was trying to impress.
Leaders were an unpredictable lot. I’d learned that firsthand in my father’s court. Though I’d encountered few, Vega had taught me that with nobility it was crucial to begin on sure footing. To be palatable at all costs. At which I had failed miserably at Highthorn.
Even so, I would follow these creatures’ lead in tone and manner. Patience wasn’t my forte, but it was necessary now more than ever.
“Are you ready for breakfast?” Nixie twittered from the doorway of her room, returning as promised.
I nodded a yes.
Ready as I could be.
We walked down an expansive hall, illuminated by the surface sun beaming through the latticed windows. I looked out over an entire world of life appearing and disappearing in metallics or splashes of rust-colored fins flicking in the cloudy water.
“Far better than any view on land, but I’m biased,” Nixie said, sharing the vista with me. I watched her cautiously as she drew near.
She was right. It was beautiful in its strange, saturnine way. Dark and cold as I read the North Elder Sea to be. But from this level, everything glowed in a soft green light and life shimmered everywhere, making itself known.
Creatures like Nixie swam in the distance, their bodies aglow in different pale shades as their legs, tightly together, propelled them.
We were so far away from everything I knew, in a castle beneath the sea. It was incredible but technically horrifying. Then why was I not absolutely petrified? In fact, something about this place felt oddly calming.
We proceeded through a towering archway marked by a hanging track of blue fabric and entered a room dominated by a long table made of glass.
Seated at the center, I recognized Raylik, as Nixie called him, from the night before, with his hulking broad shoulders and muscles that rippled beneath his brown skin.
He still wore only that small bit of red fabric around his waist.
The other being was positioned at the head of the table.
He was more dressed, but his appearance far more unearthly.
He ran a steady, finned hand through a wave of blue hair, long on top and sheared on the sides.
His pale skin was imbued with a subtle blue tone and covered in intricate navy tattoos that swirled around his arms, up his chest, and faded into the white tunic that twisted over his shoulder.
The two sirens rose politely.
“Thank you for waiting for us,” Nixie said.
“Of course,” the blue siren at the head of the table answered with a charming smile. Then he bowed in my direction. “Thank you for being a guest at my table.”
So he was their leader. But he seemed so young. Surely, younger than me by a few years. His face was smooth and unlined, the dimples in his cheeks boyish.
I tipped my head in return, determined not to allow his unusual coloring to unsettle me. I needed to be strategic. Diplomatic. Even if my pulse was racing.
“Really, Hylos … a bow?” mocked another siren so stark-white he glowed like a full moon. He sailed through the room, dressed in a bright-yellow cloth wrapped low around his hips, similar in style to Raylik’s.
He sat and began picking fruit off a platter on the table.
“You can’t wait for our guest to be seated before you stuff your face?” Nixie sneered, gesturing with her chin to the open seats beside him and ushering me to join the table.
I sat, trying not to stare at the utter lack of color in his flesh and hair. Even his eyes seemed devoid of hue beneath his icy white lashes.
“Nix, darling, I am famished. She had us all waiting for—”
A grape pinged off his cheek from Hylos’ direction.
“Manners, Morvyn,” Hylos tsked.
The pale siren sighed, placed a heavy elbow on the table, and rested his broad chin in his palm.
“Where’s Lumina?” Nixie asked Hylos. Her tone was so informal. They were all before him as if they were merely friends sitting around, about to play cards. Not breaking their fast with their leader.
“She’s handling the cargo from last night,” Hylos answered quickly.
“She won’t be joining us then?” Raylik asked.
“No, she’s busy,” Hylos answered curtly.
I noticed the quick look that passed between Raylik and Nixie.
Through the glass table, I spotted the pale siren’s soles, fused together with that translucent membrane between each digit, just as Nixie’s and Raylik’s were.
He twiddled them like toes.
I looked up to meet his cold stare.
“Wanna touch?” he said with a wink.
I tried to keep my face in check, despite the scowl tugging at my lips.
I clutched the table knife at my place setting. “Sure.”
“Oh, I like her!” he said with a ridiculous giggle.
Great, off to a very undiplomatic start.
“Leave her be, Morvyn,” Hylos said, then with a mere flick of his wrist, he summoned a resounding beat like a drum that rolled through the room.
Frigid dread settled in my gut. He’d summoned music, just as they had when they hypnotized the captain and his crew. But this song was different. Not eerie or enchantingly beautiful, but demanding, like the sound of a military tabor being struck.
Two sirens holding large platters overflowing with food entered the room.
One was violet from head to toe, with a smooth head.
The other was a more earthly-looking being with long black hair and skin that twinkled, scales of gold trailing down his legs to his fins. They placed food upon Morvyn’s plate.
“Thanks love,” Morvyn said flirtatiously.
Then the siren placed a hunk of raw fish on my plate next, with a heaping pile of odd, purplish grain that made my face contort.
My stomach growled.
“It’s not that bad,” Nixie said quickly, “but this will help.” She pushed her palm at the plate, and a tinkling sound rang with the motion. The meat began to darken and cook before my eyes.
A gasp rushed from my lips.
“When will you all learn?” Morvyn said through a mouthful of food. “Terras need to be warned before you invoke stuff around them.” He looked to Hylos, then Nixie. “Freaks ’em out.” He turned to me. “It’s like MA-GIC.”
Before I could even tell him to fuck off for speaking to me like a child, even though he was right in some regards, Raylik spoke. “She’s tougher than she looks.”
Morvyn scoffed and returned to his food.
Raylik continued, “She gave me a run last night after nearly drowning to death.”
“She’s a fighter,” Nixie added as she forked up her meal with a pleased smile, like she was proud of that fact.
“A fighter, you say,” a raspy voice drawled. A woman appeared. She wore a short, sheer, black dress, and slinked to Hylos’s side, perching on the arm of his chair.
His hand found its way around her lower body as she picked off his plate.
“Calypstra, this is the guest Nixie was telling us about,” Hylos said, looking up to her as he mindlessly patted her ass.
Her midnight eyes narrowed at me as sharp teeth pierced a bite of food. Her skin was a pale, grayish color, like that of the dead, in contrast to her jet-black hair cropped short to her chin, which sliced through the air as she spoke.
“Why were you on that ship, terra?” she asked.
She was utterly terrifying and fiercely beautiful.
“Now, Cal, let’s allow our guest some time to settle before we interrogate her,” Hylos said.
Interrogate. I did not like the sound of that.
I looked around the table, noticing only six chairs.
“Are none of the men from the ship joining us?” I asked.
Nixie squirmed uncomfortably at my side.
Hylos cleared his throat. “They are safe, but occupying a different portion of my castle.”
The joyless smirk of the death-toned woman told me it was somewhere I wouldn’t wish to be.
“You see,” the violet siren filled Hylos’s chalice as he spoke. “Sirens have been vanishing, taken from the sea in the night. So I’ve ordered my people to intercept ships traveling between Whiterok and Oakhaven.”
The memory of sirens’ song came screeching back into my mind, burning my ears as it had the night before. Intercept. What he really meant was seize, like they had with the captain’s ship.
Hylos met my gaze, then swirled his cup as though carefully considering his next words. “I believe the king of Oakhaven is behind my people’s disappearance.”