Chapter Nineteen
MILA
In the castle, Stulla stroked her fingers through Mila’s hair, over and over. A singsong lullaby wound from her lips.
Oh, so gentle.
Oh, so heartfelt.
Draped over Stulla’s bent legs, and utterly unable to breathe, Mila sobbed. As Stulla’s heavy hand lay on Mila’s shoulder, she cried and cried and cried.
The world broke.
And Mila broke with it.
Mila awoke slowly.
Her head banged with pressure. Water lay heavy on her eyelids, which resembled hot sandpaper. Groaning, she brought a hand to her face, rubbed her swollen cheeks, and remembered everything.
She sat upright with a gasp.
Mother stood across the room, near Mila’s fireplace. She regarded Mila with shuttered eyes that poorly hid a tortured soul. Mila shoved off the bed where Stulla had left her and demanded, “Where is he?” before tripping over a gathered blanket.
“On his ship.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Mila’s wrought terror swapped with surprise. “You haven’t . . . you didn’t take his soul?”
“We may lure disgusting, heartless humans to our shores and anchor their souls to the stones, Mila, but we aren’t the Arcanist of Souls.
” With less cutting disdain, Mother admitted, “Pedr’s soul was never one we could take, or we would have,” while calmly folding her hands in front of her.
An ivory gown graced her from shoulder to wrist, wrinkled at the elbow.
Dark ringlets tumbled down her back, shiny and lustrous. Her eyes remained dead.
“That’s right. His soul isn’t yours,” Mila snapped. “His soul is his own.”
“Onskar has already anchored Pedr’s soul to the arcane. It certainly does not belong to Pedr. Which,” she added coldly, “is the only reason he isn’t serving Stinna as a spectral this very moment.”
Bitterness rooted in Mila’s chest, widening deep tendrils and roots. Spreading her arms, Mila gestured to the side.
“What will it be, Mother? Imprisonment again? Isolation? No food for months?”
“Always so dramatic,” Mother replied, fully embodying the Mother Queen. All vestiges of maternal warmth had vanished. “Until Pedr passes his time as the Arcanist of the Sea, you shall remain in this room. When his soul is sent to the After, you may emerge.”
Mila held her shock. But that could be hundreds of years . . . in this room? As an arcane being, she didn’t have the luxury of death by boredom, either. Her ribs locked. Swallowing her disbelief, she managed a tight nod. She’d die before she let Mother see her shock.
“I see.”
“Don’t look at me like that, Mila,” Mother muttered. “He will live a full life, and you shall live a safe one. We could only curse him.”
The words echoed uncomprehendingly in Mila’s mind.
We could only curse him.
“Cursed?” she whispered.
“Mmm, yes.”
As if a curse didn’t separate Pedr from Mila more effectively than death. As if a curse wasn’t its own kind of horrifying trap. Mother ripped Mila’s heart from her chest and tossed it, writhing, on the floor. What was worse? The heart pain, or Mother’s careless regard?
Mila breathed fast, scenting the air. She found no regret. Only determination. Steely resolve. All things she always smelled near Mother. Mila clenched her fists.
“Who cast the curse?”
“Amalia.”
“How many?”
“Three layers, with increasing consequences.”
Mila’s head swam. She gripped a chair to stay upright and breathed, “You gave him a Noxaris.”
Mother’s chin elevated.
A cry bubbled from the depth of her stomach, but Mila couldn’t release it.
Stubbornness held her fast. She deserved this bubbling agony.
She deserved to feel and experience a fathomless horror.
She brought this to Pedr by loving him, by allowing hope.
As if their bond could bring anything but heartbreak.
“Mila.”
Mother’s single word, spoken with such sorrow, snapped Mila’s spine upright.
Amalia couldn’t cast a Noxaris curse without the Mother Queen’s approval.
In fact, the Noxaris required the majority of Siren Queens, not just Amalia.
The sheer amount of arcane required to enact such a cost wasn’t possible from a single siren, so all of them were responsible.
Only Stulla held no responsibility—she’d been with Mila.
Fury replied, and Mila met Mother stare for stare. Mila’s arm elevated, pointing to the door.
“Never speak to me again. Do you hear me? Never. Get out.”
“Mila—”
“Out!” she screeched.
As stoic as Mother’s face remained, breakage showed in her fluttering eyelashes. Mother came in today with a shred of hope, and Mila happily stomped it to ash. Indignation lent her defiant power. She hoped Mother burned from the pain.
Mila straightened her shoulders, elevating her chin in a near-perfect mimicry of Mother’s cool hauteur.
“Send no one but Stulla. The rest of you are dead to me. I will happily spend the next centuries avoiding the sight of you, Vassi. I hope your sacrifices were worth it.”
Amalia required two weeks to recover from the arcane expenditure the Noxaris curse required. Vassi honored Mila’s request, and all the sirens left her alone.
Brutally alone.
Mila spent the first three days laying in bed, the next three at the fire, wrapped in a sheet. Fog clouded the windows with unrelenting tenacity, and her depression spiraled into deep caverns.
Within a week, she clawed at the walls, seeking weakness.
She broke the windows eight times and nearly succeeded in lowering herself from one, but the protective arcane tossed her back inside.
She persuaded spectrals to help, and they vanished an hour after agreeing.
No amount of lock-picking, wall destruction, or door banging bought her release.
Her room spiraled into messy blankets, wrinkled dresses, and discarded handkerchiefs.
The four walls held her captive.
As Mother promised.
Her cheeks ached from constant tears. She cried until she had none left and sleep claimed her. When she woke, she attempted another escape and failed. She cried again. Bags formed under her eyes; she withered.
The inevitable cycle completed itself until she collapsed in exhaustion and slept herself back to health.
Two weeks came and went. Stulla began to check in, and Mila let her.
She had no energy to prevent Stulla’s quiet interjections, and she secretly longed for noise and life and stirring and a sign that the world existed beyond her captivity.
Stulla stared at Mila’s scratch marks on the wall for a long time before turning away.
As she departed, the desperate signs faded.
On a cold day, Mila sat at her window, staring at the swirling fog.
It hadn’t retreated, and she believed it never would.
Protection, Stulla had said, until Pedr passes on.
They wouldn’t speak to Onskar to remove Pedr, because Onskar would ask questions and no siren could lie to the Arcanist of Souls.
Onskar and the Queens deftly and successfully avoided each other.
Besides, it’s not like Mila could die. The idea captured her.
She played with the thought of death. Like a kitten, she batted it about, considering what would happen.
Could she die? Did she inherit immortality because of her arcane parentage?
Her wyvern sire may have granted her that, if he gave her nothing else.
Her thoughts drifted in uncanny ways these days. Nascient, lost in odd mind-paths from which little could draw her back. Sometimes, Venna smoked leaves to calm her occasional panic spirals. Is this what smoked-leaves felt like?
Head-floating numbness?
Out of sheer desperation, Mila turned her thoughts to something more pleasant and less depressing.
She imagined reuniting with Pedr. He’d pull up in his rowboat and leap into the water.
They’d race across the sand, sprinting closer with shouts and sobs, when a rap came on her door.
She jerked out of the reverie with a gasp.
She croaked, “Who?”
The rapping became more insistent. Mila pulled her shawl firmly around her and returned to her daydreams. Moments later—or was it many moments later?—two pairs of feet stood next to her. Familiar smells wafted closer. Authority and confidence, infused with hints of uncertainty.
Mila didn’t need to identify the slippers to know who came. Only Amalia wore that boxy, golden ribbon around her footwear, painstakingly created by the spectrals in their odd way. Mother’s signature scent of steely determination and utmost regret saturated her nostrils. Mila ignored both of them.
Mother spoke firmly, but not without caring.
“Stand up, Mila.”
“No.”
A sharp breath through the nose and a long-suffering sigh followed. Mila was eternally grateful she hadn’t faced them.
“I have not come to retract my former statement,” Mother said softly, but with dogged persistence. Mila hated her pandering tone, filled with false kindness despite all Mother had taken.
As if kindness could wipe out the truth.
Amalia’s feet shifted beneath her hem, and the dress swayed. She bunched her toes, kneading the tip of her shoe into the rug. Amalia had never struck Mila as a toe-crusher.
Toe-crusher.
Mila giggled. It sounded deranged.
Mother continued.
“We came with updates about Onskar.”
A hint of interest piqued, but she strove to hide it. If Amalia came with Mother, it couldn’t be bad.
“Henna and Issara are working to determine whether Onskar detected you on your. . . . wild adventure . . . or from Amalia’s curse work.
Such a powerful use of arcane is justified by the situation, but would stir up questions.
If Onskar asks us why we did it, we plan to tell him we had a troublesome fisherman approach us, unwilling to leave.
It’s not untrue. Thus far, he hasn’t asked. Something has . . . distracted him.”
“It’s the only explanation,” Amalia murmured, as if captivated by a mystery. “He must be focused elsewhere, but I don’t know from what . . .”
Mila rolled her lips to suppress her laugh.
Troublesome fisherman?
Hilarious.
“Whatever unexpected boon we have been granted by his lacking attention, we’ll accept it.
Until such time as Pedr has left to the After, you shall remain here.
As the years pass, perhaps fifty or sixty, we can re-evaluate if you shall be allowed to leave the room for the outer halls, or perhaps move around this building. ”
Fifty or sixty years.
She had barely survived a month.
“If we are lucky, you have eternity,” Mother added. “I hardly think a few centuries will be impossible for you to navigate in a room. Brutal, perhaps, but it isn’t without precedent. We have books for you to learn from and activities to keep you busy.”
Amalia cleared her throat.
Mila hid a frown.
It isn’t without precedent, Mother had said. What did that mean?
“If we must keep you locked up in here to keep you safe,” Mother added with firm recourse, as if convincing anyone, “then we will. As much as it pains me to even say it.”
Yes, Mila thought. Please, give me your martyrdom. Tell me how difficult this is for you.
Amalia murmured something to Mother. Mila sharpened her attention without moving her eyes away from the fog. If she’d been a human, she wouldn’t have heard Amalia’s barely-there words.
She wasn’t human.
She was a siren.
“Are you certain she’s immortal?” Amalia whispered. “She’s wasting away. Too much more of this and?—”
Mother didn’t verbally reply. She must have made a gesture, because Amalia cut off and shuffled away.
“In time, Mila,” Mother reasoned, “you’ll begin to see the foolishness of this childish fit. You’ll accept and understand that he’s never coming back.”
A long pause.
Mila filled it with two croaking words.
“You’re wrong.”
“He can try all he wants, but he’ll never make it. The Noxaris is too powerful. It confines him too thoroughly.”
Mother sounded like she tried to convince herself.
Mila’s fingers tensed. Stulla said nothing of the details, nor what the layers cursed Pedr to do or not do. Confinement? To his ship, probably. How awful. What prison could be so torturous? To see the sea, and never swim.
To be the Arcanist of the Sea and never swim?
Horrifying. Crippling, too. Pedr wouldn’t access all of his abilities without touching the ocean, and that was the cleverness Amalia brought to the world.
The callous retribution. Deeply confining act of a vengeful woman.
Pedr bore the weight of consequences from who-knew-how-many men from before.
Amalia had probably been delighted to strap him to his ship and remove opportunity.
Familiar arcane swirled in the room. Mila smelled it rising. It reminded her of musty drapes and old rooms and decaying books. The powerful surge overwhelmed her.
Oh, no.
Mila shoved to her knees, then her feet. She stood so quickly that black spread across her vision. She threw out a hand and caught herself on a shelf. Amalia’s stern face lacked all emotion.
“Amalia,” Mila cried. “Please, I beg of you?—”
She shouldn’t have bothered. Amalia began the arcane reinforcement.
All the places Mila had attempted to escape had been patched up by Stulla, but she lacked the complex skill that set Amalia apart.
Amalia would seal the final layer, like gloss over Thessa’s favorite ceramic plates, crafted in her distant kilns.
Mila lunged, but Mother was faster. Ropes snaked around Mila's knees, ankles, and arms. She toppled.
A gentle force stopped her nose from slamming the ground and shattering her face.
Mila turned into a wild thing, but the arcane-infused ropes held like stone.
She cried out, tears blurring. Amalia sped into a black blur that swept the boundaries of the room.
Mother stood at Mila’s side, saying nothing, pinning Mila to the ground. Amalia’s smoke faded; she ceased. Like spectrals, the two of them departed without a word. The moment the door closed behind them, a thud rattled the knob. More arcane. The ropes dissolved into black puffs.
Mila stood up, charged the door, and banged her fists against it. “Let me out!” she shouted. “Let me out!”
The doorknob vanished.
She sank to the ground, her sobs echoing through her tomb-like room.
“Pedr,” she whispered. “I love you.”