The Siren and the Dark Tide: Fairytales Forever Book Two

Chapter 1

The tide pulled gently at Riella’s hair, creating a silvery cloud around her face. The reef was warm from the relentless Zermetic summer and she lingered in the sun-dappled outcrops of coral with her two best friends. Tiny orange fish darted playfully around her tail while she collected rubbish from the sea floor.

“I miss wrecking their ships,” Galeil Sent via siren telepathic connection.

“We all do,” Sent Mareen in reply. “But we must hold back from aggression, as the elders ordered. Against pirates, at least. Slavers are still fair game.”

“Killing slavers is fun,” Sent Galeil. “But pirates put up more fight.” She paused. “What if we accidentally punched a hole in the hull of a Dark Tide Clan ship?”

“Then you would accidentally start another war,” replied Mareen, sending an impatient sigh alongside her telepathic words. “And really, the elders are right. We belong in our world and the land-walkers belong in theirs. We ought to leave each other alone. If only they’d stay out of the sea.” She unhooked a piece of garbage from the coral and grimaced. “What is this?”

Mareen flicked it into the steadily growing pile of garbage they were collecting in a discarded fishing net.

“Who cares?” retorted Galeil with a giggle, a stream of bubbles erupting from her mouth like a string of pearls in the aquamarine water. “Do you miss fighting, Riella?”

Riella forced herself to concentrate on the conversation running parallel to her private thoughts. She rolled over in the water to face her friends.

Mareen’s vivid orange hair flickered in the light like an underwater flame while she meticulously removed fishing hooks from the fins of a nurse shark. Mareen’s purple tail was three times the length of her upper body, beating rhythmically and instinctually against the current to keep her stationary. Thin ribbons of blood rose from the shark’s wounds, dissolving into the saltwater.

Meanwhile, Galeil turned backward somersaults through the water, her dark hair touching the end of her green tail to form a perfect circle.

“I don’t miss holding wounded sirens in my arms,” Sent Riella.

“I suppose,” Sent Galeil, coming to a stop. “But surely you miss attacking their ships. Tearing up their sails. Singing to them,” she added, with a vicious gleam in her piercing violet eyes.

Riella giggled. The others joined in, and soon their giggles transformed into unhinged cackling. Singing to a male human, when a siren was angry enough, shredded his eardrums.

“It was entertaining,” conceded Riella, sweeping her lightly-webbed hands through the water, enjoying its cool, gentle resistance. She smiled. “I always enjoyed making them scatter like rats across the decks of their ships.”

Mareen released the shark, now free of hooks. It nudged the siren’s hand in thanks before swimming away into the cobalt-blue depths. “Ah, you speak like that, but you’re soft on humans, Riella. You linger on their vessels whenever you get the chance. You converse with them. And no one listened more avidly than you during our land-walker lessons with the elders. Don’t pretend otherwise.”

“I’m not soft on them.”

“You are,” chorused Galeil and Mareen. “The only words we should reserve for humans are threats,” added Mareen. “To be swiftly carried out.”

Riella fixed them with a glare. “Curiosity isn’t the same as being soft. I believe it’s a good idea to understand the enemy, that’s all.”

Her friends raised their brows at each other.

“Here,” Sent Mareen, swimming to the garbage net and tying it closed with a length of fraying rope. “Since you love humans so much, you can be the one to deliver this to the boat we passed a way back. But hurry, because we must return to Zydenthis for Thera’s ceremony. Every pod from the realm will be in our city.”

“Our little Thera has come of age,” Sent Galeil, smiling wistfully. “She really needs to hurry up and get her first kill.”

Riella and her friends had their first kills before coming of age at twenty-one. That was three years ago, and they’d had many kills since, thanks to the bloodiest war between sirens and pirates in living memory. The war had ended, but grudges remained.

“She will in time,” Sent Mareen, darkly. “If anything’s certain in our world, it’s danger. That’s what happens when we allow humans to traverse our waters.”

Riella grabbed the top of the net. “For now, I’ll return this garbage to them. See you both soon.”

She swam off with the net in hand, her powerful tail and body undulating to propel her through the crystalline water. Her long blonde hair streaked along behind her like a pale ghost and schools of fish shifted around her in synchronized harmony.

The boat was a shadow on the surface, floating over deep waters. Half a dozen lines ran from the vessel and disappeared into the blue abyss.

A mischievous giggle escaping her mouth in a bubble, she tugged one of the lines. The humans responded quickly, the line growing taut as they tried to reel her in, believing she was a catch. She held the line steadily in place, toying with them.

Then, without warning, she yanked the line hard. A fishing rod splashed onto the surface of the water, the line going slack. She cackled, knowing the sound would travel up to the men. By now, the humans would know a siren was in their midst. They would haul in the lines, or perhaps simply cut them, and head straight for shore.

As the dropped fishing rod sank near her, she caught it, along with the line, and swept them into her net. The boat still hadn’t moved. Riella frowned, wishing to chase them. It was more fun when there was a chase. The humans would do everything in their limited power to make haste in their vessel, while she swam lazy laps below until she felt like making her presence fully known.

But this boat would not move. What in the seven seas were they doing?

With an aggrieved sigh, she kicked her tail to propel herself straight upward, the water turning clear as she neared the surface. She kept going, breaking through with a delighted shriek. Dragging the garbage net with her, she leaped through the air and caught hold of the largest mast. Blinking her eyes to adjust to the harsh sunshine, she tossed the net indiscriminately on the deck of the boat, making sailors dive out of the way.

Her tail shone, her fins and scales iridescent blue and pink in the sun.

“Siren!” yelled one of the men. “Siren!”

She wrapped her tail around the mast and slid down it, surveying the scene before her. It was a fishing boat, with nets and rods and a pile of dead-eyed flounder growing stinky in the heat. The men were probably from Klatos, the nearest port city. In the distance, the brown and green land shimmered on the horizon like a mirage.

“You will dispose of this garbage,” she said, her musical voice bouncing off the water. “Now. Or I will eat you for my supper.”

She burst into laughter at the mens’ reactions to her presence. Several jammed their hands over their ears, fearing Sirensong. Others wore expressions of wide-eyed desire as they gazed at her body. It never ceased to amuse her, the ridiculous contradictions of the male nature.

A siren’s first weapon was her beauty. Even as the men feared for their lives, they gave in to the temptation to stare at her bare gleaming skin, ocean-blue eyes, and pouty pink lips. Her wet silvery-white hair clung to her shoulders and pert bust. To disarm them further, she gave a slow, smirking smile. The men covering their ears dropped their hands, their mouths going slack.

One sailor stepped forward, pulling his battered hat from his head and holding it in front of him with both hands, as if it might protect him. He was older than the others. The captain, perhaps.

“I, uh—” He gulped. “We’re from Klatos. Our boat, uh?—”

Riella slid farther down the mast and leaned forward, so that her face was level with his.

“Speak up, human,” she said in a teasing voice.

He cleared his throat and tried again, sweat pouring from his bald head. “Our rudder was destroyed on the reef. We’re unable to return to port.”

Riella bared her teeth and hissed, making the man stumble backward in fear. “Surely you meant to say that you damaged the reef with your rudder?”

His face crumpled. “Yes. I am sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Shut up!” she howled, her voice scaling several octaves. She could feel the Sirensong bursting to spring forth from her throat. “Save your breath, for you will need it when I fling you into the ocean as an offering to the sacred beauty you feel so entitled to desecrate.”

He fell silent, quivering.

Riella considered her options. She was supposed to return to Zydenthis soon for the ceremony. But the boat would sink sooner or later if she left the men here. She scanned the horizon again. No other boats or ships were visible in the afternoon glare.

She hissed in frustration. “Withdraw your lines. I’ll pull you to the nearest shore.”

The man stammered in shock. “Th—thank you.”

Riella rolled her eyes. She pushed off from the mast, snapping it in half out of spite, and dove cleanly into the water.

“What’s the delay?” Sent Mareen, from a distance, having sensed Riella return to the water. “Were you tormenting the sailors? If so, why didn’t you invite us to join in?”

The lines started to move through the water. Riella swam out of the way, lest the hooks snag her as they flew past. “They’re stranded with a faulty boat. I’ll take them to shore.”

Mareen and Galeil reacted with indignant cries. “They don’t deserve our help! Let’s sink them and be done with it.”

“And pollute the water even more?” countered Riella. “The boat would sit on the ocean floor, spreading filth.”

She knew they understood the logic. Their protestations were the sirens’ obligatory rebuke of any human foible, no matter how big or small.

“Do you need assistance?” Sent Galeil when her scorn had ebbed away.

“No, the boat isn’t large. Return home and I’ll follow you shortly.”

“Alright.” Mareen sighed exaggeratedly. “Promise you’ll terrorize them a little, for your trouble.”

A thick rope splashed into the water at the bow of the boat, spiraling downward until Riella caught it. She gave a firm tug, to ensure the men had secured it properly. The rope held.

“If I have time, I promise to ruin their day,” she Sent.

Soon she was out of communication range, swimming swiftly through the blue expanse with the boat in tow. The water became warmer as she neared the shore, the shallows heated by the mid-summer sun. Only when waves curled ahead, making spectacular white dips and rises, did she relinquish her hold on the rope.

She surfaced, beating her tail to stay in place. The waves picked up the boat and carried it to the beach. The men shouted their thanks from the stern and she responded only with a glare. As the vessel washed up on the sand, the fishermen jumped out, dragging the boat past the tide line.

The weather had turned. The sky was steel-gray and a stinging wind whipped across the surface of the water. Knowing she should already be on her way home, she dawdled just beyond the swell, eyeing the land. It was a remote stretch, with only a few small settlements dotted along the coastline, and the dizzyingly high Black Cliffs to the right. A good place to wreck a ship.

Klatos was many leagues to her left, out of sight. The men would likely struggle to return to the city, but that was not her concern. What mattered to her was the boat was out of the ocean.

Unbidden, she wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to walk the streets of Klatos. To go places beyond the endless blue desert of the sea. She ought not to have wondered such things, for no good could come of it. Sirens did not belong on land.

Cursing her curious nature, she dove underwater and surged out to sea, moving with incredible swiftness now that she was free of the boat.

Rain was coming. Perhaps even a storm. She could tell by the way the fish behaved, tightening their pods and seeking shelter.

A thrashing movement caught her eye, on the surface above her. At first glance, Riella thought it was a feeding frenzy—a shark devouring prey without mercy.

Her instincts tingling, she drew closer. Something was not quite right, she could feel it. This was no ordinary frenzy. Sure enough, the commotion was not caused by a shark, or any sea creature at all.

Human legs kicked madly, heavy in sodden trousers, arms flailing wildly. Riella hissed in disbelief. How many good deeds did she have to do for the land-walkers today?

Mareen and Galeil would leave him to drown. They may’ve even dragged him under, for amusement. Her friends would mock her for even thinking about saving him.

But, Mareen and Galeil were not there.

Riella rose quickly and latched onto the man’s wrist. It was not until she broke the surface that she realized her dire mistake. Before she could fight, or swim away, the human who baited her had already cast the spell.

Her vision went black. She lost the ability to move her tail or arms or even open her mouth. All she could do was drift, like seaweed. With her head out of the water, she couldn’t send a long-range distress signal to her friends. The man grunted with exertion as he tied ropes around her body and hauled her into his boat, which was invisible moments ago.

As her mind slid into unconsciousness, dread engulfing her, she had one last thought:

Mareen and Galeil were right. Humans didn’t deserve her help.