It is that line of thinking, and only that line of thinking, that leads me to ask, “Why is the queen deciding your fate?”
Aria punches at my extended hand, pausing when she makes contact to look at me with wide eyes. “Why do you want to know?”
“It seems pertinent for me to know,” I answer, gesturing with my chin for her to keep going. “Stay light on your feet. Use your back leg and core to power the punch.” I give her time to think her answer over as we move around the cavern, my muscles welcoming the heat building from the exercise.
“It’s… a complicated answer,” she says, her elbows dropping slightly. I reach out and use the tips of my fingers to lift her arms back up, putting her guard in place. Once she’s steady there, I send a few punches of my own, pulling their weight back. She blocks them, wincing slightly as she does.
“Life is complicated,” I say with a shrug, opening my palms to signal it’s her turn to come at me now. “If it helps, there is not much you could say that would surprise me.”
“I don’t know if that is a good or bad thing.” When I let the silence linger as an answer, she rolls her eyes. “I am being investigated for treason.” I suck in a breath and choke on it, all while Aria swings her fists towards my palms, driving me backwards a few steps. “Oh my gods, did I catch you off-guard?”
I growl and then cough again. Fuck Ihadbeen caught off-guard.Treason? Clearing my throat to settle the coughing, I ask, “What did you do to warrant that?”
“What makes you think I did anything at all?”
I tuck an errant strand of onyx hair behind my ear before gesturing for her to continue punching. “Seems like a fairly major accusation,” I answer. “Is your queen in the business of wrongly accusing the innocent?”
She exhales roughly, a dark expression flitting across her features briefly. “Queen Amari isn’t known for being fair. She’s merciless, and she extends that to anyone who she believes to be a threat to the Siren Queendom. Toher.”
“And she believes you to be that threat?”
She punches at me twice, each reverberation making her brows lower. “Someone told her I was a threat because they believed I wasn’t doing what they wanted,” she says quickly, as if needing to force the words out as fast as possible. “So now I must face judgement from the queen and her daughters.”
Interesting. I don’t know a thing about how the sirens run their queendom and certainly not about how they mete out judgement.One-two. One-two.We dance in circles, her hits coming as quick as her breaths and with more strength behind them.
“It’s ridiculous, really. I didn’t fight back when Nia demanded I stay away from the seamount sirens. I didn’t fight back when she cornered me and ordered me to help her get their weapons.”
One-two. One-two. We keep moving as Aria punches at my hands, her eyes focused where her knuckles meet my skin.
“I didn’t fight back when shestolethe items I had gathered, each one a remembrance of the lives our kind had taken. And she justsoldthem off, as if they were nothing at all. I didn’t fight back when she threatened to tell the queen of my involvement with those that were banished. Somanytimes, I didn’t fight back. And for what? I have been beaten. Forced to do things that no being should, and still, that is not enough. For Nia. For my mother. For those the queen surrounds herself with.” Aria’seyes grow glassy as her punches get sloppy, my hands trying to anticipate their direction so she doesn’t hurt herself. “I was theonlyone tryingto help her, and she betrayed me sofuckingeasily! I feeltrappedbetween falling back into the siren I was and becoming one I am trying to be, and it’s—” Her breath hitches when she sends an errant punch in my direction, the force of it making her stumble forward. I catch her wrist in one hand, letting her fall into my chest while my other hand lands on her hip to steady her.
“I’m sorry,” she rasps, eyes wide as they meet mine.
I swallow against the strange tightness in my throat. I know all too well what it is like to not be enough for those around me. To feel trapped within my circumstances. Even now, even with how I spend my nights, I still feel the invisible bars of my cage surrounding me.
I suppose I never considered that someone like Aria might also understand what that feels like.
My fingers flex on her hip, her sweet, warm scent laced within my next inhale. The rise and fall of her chest against my own makes meacutelyaware of just how close we are, even if the distance between our lips feels like miles.Would she taste as sweet as she smells? The thought appears unbidden, yet my body responds to it, heat pooling low as I draw in another breath. My mind betrays me further when it conjures up the memory of our kiss beneath the water, the positioning of our bodies not so different than it is now. And, fuck, if there isn’t something about her that makes me want to test her reaction if I closed that small space between us. If I drew my lips against her own not because it was needed but because I want to.
Because I want her.
It’s that realization—more than the warmth of her body against mine and the way she feels beneath my fingertips—thatis more sobering than a punch to the gut, and as if I’ve been hit, I release her quickly and back away.
“Myla?”
My name comes out as a question, and I grit my teeth, pain flaring to my temples as if that will dispel whatever fucking chaos just arose inside me. Something within me yearns to erase the disappointed look on her face. To tell her that I understand, to some bizarre degree, everything she’s said. That I might have beenwrongin my assumptions about her.
But then my inner voice grows loud. It not only reminds me that, because of the sirens, I am forced to endure the brunt of my kingdom’s wrath and disdain but also that I have been down this road before. My back bears the scars of that consequence. It’s a stark admonition that warns of the dangers of believing I’ve found common ground with someone. Of believing I’m worthy of any kind of deep connection.
Aria continues to stare at me, her body frozen in the position I left her in when I stumbled away. My voice is rough when I finally find it. “You’ll have to learn how to control your emotions when you fight. While the intensity will benefit you, the sloppiness will not.” For a long moment she doesn’t move, nothing beyond the working of her throat as she swallows. Then her expression shutters, and the tension between us dissipates as she nods.
“Teach me another combination of hits.”
The rest of our time together is spent mostly in silence, the only words spoken when I make a suggestion to her form or show her a new combo. By the time Navin and Lan show up, I’m on edge, frustration coiling through my veins. Aria wastes no time returning to the ocean, giving my brother a parting wave before returning to the sea.
I climb on Lan’s back, sitting behind Navin as I grip the leather strap and prepare for flight. Only, Navin lingers. “What?”
“I found something out, and I don’t want to tell you.”
