Chapter 15
His eyes widened in fear. “Elowyn,” he shouted, “run!”
The horse’s mouth unhinged like a snake preparing to devour its prey, revealing rows of deadly sharp teeth and wailing out a horrendous, shrill scream that pierced my world, stabbing into my eardrums and shattering the balmy dream its words had coaxed into my mind.
Dread strangled a scream of pure terror swelling in my chest.
Hylos’s song filled the room, his orb glowing blindingly bright. With a flick of his wrist, he hurled the sphere of water at the monster. It splashed against its skin, burning the creature, the smell of scorched hair filling the air.
The beast let out another screech, furious at Hylos. He raised his finned hand, rhythm thrumming with the movement, and shoved his palm in the beast’s direction. The song charged with the water in a racing stream to the creature.
The monster turned swiftly to flee into the dark pool, showing the dreadful other half of its body. It was like a slimy crab, and one of its long, scuttling legs slammed into me with a hard blow to my diaphragm, hurling me across the space.
My teeth clattered as I landed, my head bouncing off the unforgiving ground.
Hylos’s music stopped.
The only audible sound was that of my heart slamming into my sternum and the sloshing center of that oil-black pool.
“Are you all right?” Hylos said, rushing to my side.
“What in Infernum was that thing?” I asked between gasping, painful breaths. I could already feel the bruise across my rib cage, puddling under my skin in black and blue.
“A kelpie.” He scowled toward the pool, but held out a finned hand to me.
I took it, and he pulled me to my feet.
“A what?” I asked.
Reality was hitting me hard and fast, spinning me dizzy.
Why had I followed that voice down here?
“They lure humans into the water, take them deep below to drown them, then consume them. Nasty vermin. Thank the Holy Mother I was having trouble sleeping and walked the castle. If I had not heard that strange song …” Hylos looked at the still-sloshing water.
“It’s so odd. They’re usually found in lochs in the northern country when they’re not hibernating in the Midnight Realm.
I’ve never heard of one attacking in Naiadon.
” His blue brow furrowed. “We have no free roaming humans for them to feed on.”
A splitting headache carved through my head, and I rubbed at my temples.
“Yeah, their call has that affect. Dreadful migraines. Come on, let’s get you something for the pain.”
We walked up slippery, moss-covered steps and wove through winding, worn halls. Did I truly make my way down this path all on my own? I remained close to Hylos and the lambent orb he kept bobbing at his shoulder. It was far more horrifying in Hylos’s light, without that voice guiding me.
We turned down an impressive corridor that led to towering double doors. Music emanated from Hylos’s hand, and with a simple motion, the doors swung open, revealing a comfortable study. The world outside an immense tracery window was graying as morning broke.
Hylos pointed a finger at a hearth-like structure in the center of the room, and a deep, thunderous percussion struck, conjuring a ball of steaming water that whirled inside like a strange fire.
“Have a seat,” Hylos said, pointing to two couches facing each other. Needing relief, I did as he said, passing a large map of Oakhaven made from a piece of white coral. I noted the ship-shaped figures littering the top.
Hylos handed me a thick, soft blanket, and I settled into the plush couch, the pulsing in my head persistent. At a counter beneath the hearthside bookshelf, Hylos prepared two mugs of something steaming, like he was fixing a cup of tea for a friend.
“This will help,” he said, handing me the steaming mug, his own in hand.
Warily, I scowled at the dark liquid, but didn’t take the mug. Could I trust it? Could I trust him?
“It’s safe,” he said with a scoff, but I didn’t relent.
He took a sip. “See? Safe.” Then he returned the warm mug to me.
“Well now you’ve tainted it with your siren-y spittle,” I complained, but smirked.
He let out a chuckle and sat in the seat across from me.
Something about Hylos was comforting, despite every logical thought in my mind telling me to flee the strange being before me with his blue, otherworldly features.
But it was like he was safe, or familiar. Like those dark-ocean eyes were a long-forgotten memory.
“Is this your study?” I asked.
“Technically, my father’s. But my mother commandeered it when she visited Naiadon.
She loved to read and write. Well … so I’ve been told.
I come here to be close to her.” He leaned back into the seat, pulling a blanket across his lap, and a look washed over his boyish features, aging him into the man that circumstance had forced him to become.
I knew that look well.
“She is no longer alive?” I asked gently as I pulled my knees in. I sipped the drink and it unknotted the throbbing in my temples.
“I don’t think so,” he said, watching the hearth. There seemed to be more to the story, but we both let his words dissipate and be overtaken by the gurgling of the fireplace we both watched.
“My mother died when I was young,” I said. “Well, was murdered, really.” Saying it out loud gave it the weight of truth. I could never utter those words upon land, not without the threat of a traitor’s death.
“It is a strange feeling,” Hylos said, “not having the people who brought you into this world there to guide you through it.”
I nodded. “A lonely feeling.”
“So lonely,” he added.
Like you were adrift at sea, never knowing when you would see land again.
“But you find ways to see them in the world,” I said. “To hear them. Feel them. You were once a part of her. She’s forever a part of you.”
He smiled gently. “Among my people, they say that if you listen closely, you can hear the song of your ancestors within your own. Maybe every note we sing carries the voices of those who came before us, woven into ours like threads in a tapestry. I can’t say how much is truth and how much is hope, but I like to believe my parents still live together, at least in my song.
” We let the thought settle between us, quiet and warm.
It was as if, together, we could feel his mother in that room—reading, writing. Living.
Sadness sank into me. What did my mother love? There was so little I knew of her. Her name was like a curse in my father’s country. A memory he had ensured was thoroughly erased from the face of the world. All that remained of her was me.
“I heard what it called you. And I want you to know”—his blue, familiar eyes softened, truly kind—“when you’re ready to tell me who you are, no harm will come to you.”
I believed him.
“Will you tell me about Oakhaven?” I asked.
“What do you wish to know?”
“When did this all start?” I drained my mug and placed it on the table beside my seat, my head feeling exceptionally better.
“The first siren to disappear was my father.” The true king of the sirens.
“At first, like you, we assumed it was another rival siren Circle. My father had enemies, but it would have been odd for no ransom or other actions to follow. His inner circle searched all three seas meticulously, from the darkest midnight depths to the tropical shallows. But they found nothing.”
He frowned. “But then something changed. More and more sirens were taken mysteriously, like they were ripped from the sea to the sky without a trace. No one could figure out how, or why. Until …” Hylos stood, walking to the large map.
I followed him, the blanket wrapped around my shoulders.
He pointed at an area east of Oakhaven.
“This city formed on the ocean, raised from the sea like magic. It’s no coincidence. The missing sirens. My father’s disappearance. All of it has to be connected.”
“Whiterok,” I said, wrapping the blanket tighter around my shoulders. My prior fate.
He offered me a terse nod, not peeling his eyes from the map. “I think it’s made with siren magic.”
But how was that possible? Cedric was the one who built it. There was no way he knew of sirens, was there?
“Tonight you tried to leave,” he said, still not lifting his eyes from the map of my father’s country.
“But that bracelet you possess, the ventus, it’s no mistake that you possess it.
No mistake you’re here. The sirens have a saying: Nymphaea sends those to be saved.
She sends people to us for a second life, one not afforded to them above the waves. ”
He looked up at me. “Elowyn, I believe there is a reason you are here. The Guardians themselves have ordained it. Nymphaea herself has sent you to us.” Sincerity saturated his voice.
I wanted to trust him, wanted to believe; he was almost as convincing as the kelpie’s entrancing call.
“And maybe it’s because a ‘forgotten princess’ needs a place to start over. ”
But this was not my home. If the Guardians had done this, then it was only so I could leave and tell my father of the fate that brewed in the oceans past Oakhaven’s borders. That was the only thing that made sense. What else would the Guardians want from me?
“I wish to leave.” My words cut quickly through Hylos’s trance.
He frowned, then turned and looked out the large window, his back to me. Dark-blue ink swirled in waves on his skin, images of sea creatures visible between them.
“I’m sorry,” he said, watching the light permeating the sea and fishes lazily swimming awake. “But I can’t let you.”
Anger boiled my blood, heating my cheeks.
I wouldn’t stop trying to escape. Even if it meant my life would be at risk, because it would be worth that small chance that I could make it back to land, to Vega, to warn my father and his people of what was to come.
To do something for Oakhaven for once besides being locked away at another fucking ruler’s behest.
“The captain of the ship,” Hylos said into the void.
My heart went staccato.
“Calypstra reports he seems to know of the instrument you told Morvyn you enjoy, the virginal.” He turned to me. “And we just so happen to have one that needs mending.” He arched a blue brow at me. “All ordained.”
He stepped near and I didn’t retreat, instead hanging on to his every word. “I will allow the captain to leave his cell each day after breakfast. You will work with him on repairing the instrument and be with your own kind. Hopefully, you will find comfort in that.”
But my mind was already threading through a plan. If I could speak with the captain, spend time with him daily, maybe we could conjure a way out of here, together.
“On one condition,” Hylos added.
“What?” I asked.
“Spend time with us. See my people for who they truly are, what we stand for. See past the terra holy tales and learn what isn’t told in your prayers.”
I thought of the captain’s temperate hazel eyes that had undone me with one look. Thought of the wonderful rhythm of his voice that sounded like the gentle rise and fall of sunlit waves, warm and golden, breaking on shore. Crashing over me.
“Fine,” I said, trying to hide just how much I yearned to be with him again.
“And ⒈／⒋” he started.
“You ask two things of me when I am offered only one?” I scoffed, knotting my arms across my chest. “That’s not how negotiations work.”
“It is when you hold all the power.” He smirked.
“What is the second demand you unfairly ask of me?”
“Stop trying to flee.”
Never.
“Not just because you will die if you make it out of the safety of Naiadon, but because I believe our fates are intertwined. That there is more to this story than either of us know. I feel it in my very blood. I hope with time you will see it too. When the time comes for you to decide which side of this war you wish to stand on, if you believe it is truly not mine, then I will allow you to walk out of here without another word.”
“Fine.” I would bide my time, then escape with the captain and his crew. Once on land, I would return to my father’s castle and tell him all that I knew about Hylos and the sirens so he could stop them. So Oakhaven would be safe.
Hylos stuck out his webbed hand, and without hesitation, I shook it.