“Sade, you and Aria will converse on what should be done to catch the traitorous sirens of the seamounts. I don’t want to waste a second more than necessary finding them.”
I look to my older sister, her tangerine braids tied back behind her. Her jaw clenches tightly before she forces it to relax, her gaze then falling to me. “It will be done.”
The queen and Dyanna depart for the library, leaving Sade and I to float in place in awkward silence. Did she remember how she held a male in her thrall until our mother brought me to him to fulfill myduty?
Sade’s expression is placid, though her eyes remain keenly on me before she sighs. “Come. We will discuss this away from any prying ears.” Shaking my hands out, I follow behind her until we come to a door, a citrine-colored jewel set at its center.
“Your bedroom?” I ask, lifting my brows in surprise. I have never been in any of my sister’s rooms except Lyre’s.
“Do you know anywhere else that we won’t be overheard?”
I suppose she has a point.
“I’m hardly ever here anyways.” As the commander of the Queen’s Legion, Sade spends most of her time where they are stationed near the palace. I take in her room as we enter, the colors a bright combination of yellow and orange. A red clamshell bed, its pearlescent finish gleaming beneath glowing white crystals, is centered in the space though not much else decorates it. “What do you know about these sirens?” she asks, swimming to the bed and collapsing onto it.
“I’m afraid I don’t know much.”
“You visited them frequently, did you not?”
“You knew?”
She snorts, rolling onto her back and staring up at the ceiling. “Everyone did, Aria.”
My shoulders round. “I did visit them, but I mostly played with the offspring. Or gave them spare coi—”Shit. Though Iinterrupt myself with a clearing of my throat, Sade sends a flat look my way.
“You needn’t censor yourself for me. I only care about finding the traitors now, not what you did with them in the past.”
Surprised, I can’t help but ask, “You’re not going to berate me for helping them?”
Sade sits up and runs her fingers through her braids. Where my features are softer—fuller lips and freckles lining my cheeks and nose—her chin is sharper. Her jawline more defined. Though her arms and stomach are toned with muscle, there’s no shortage of curves to her physique. She’s beautiful, as all sirens are, but that beauty doesn’t hide her strength. Rather, it accentuates it. “What good does that do? You’ve already committed the act. As I said, I just want to find the traitors.”
I nod, but dread sits heavy in my stomach. Finding them means betraying them, and while I may hold no love for Nia, Idocare about the youngest sirens. My mind spins while I try to find a way to appease both Sade and Nia. I might not be able to stop my sister from her attempts to find them, but I could distract her. Perhaps misguide her even. Just long enough to get the weapons back to Nia and ensure they’ve found somewhere safe to hide.
“The ocean is vast, but a group that large cannot stay hidden for long. They moved with haste when they were tipped off about the legion coming for them,” Sade says, her orange-tinted brows drawn low. “They must have had a preplanned place to meet.”
“Do you have any leads on who tipped them off?”
She gives a curt shake of her head. “Nothing yet. As you can imagine, the queen is not pleased by this. Thankfully, her attention is forcibly split between the treasonous sirens and her new deal with the mortal king, or we might feel the brunt of her wrath over it.”
“What that woman, Rhea, can do…” A shiver works through me.
“I have never seen anything like that. I suppose we should be grateful that our queen is able to control her, for a being that powerful is one that can’t be trusted.”
Grateful. As if there is joy to be found in robbing someone of their free will. Rhea’s screams—and the pain that was laced within them—is a sound I won’t ever forget. My guilt is thick, and it burns the back of my throat. If it were not for my retrieval of the rings, she would not be under my mother’s control. How fitting a punishment to know that someone else is suffering a similar torment to the horrors that plague me, andIam one of the reasons why.
“In any case, we must find the traitors before they have time to plot anything else against the queen. I’m tempted to use the legion if only to help us scan the surrounding area more quickly,” she says, tapping her fingers on the orange scales at the front of her tail.
No. While the seamount sirens are no strangers to keeping a low profile, it would be nearly impossible for them to stay hidden from Sadeandher army. And I know they must be close by, if Nia’s presence and insistence that I get their confiscated weapons back are any indication. “Surely, involving the legion now is not necessary?” I ask. Sade lifts a questioning brow. “I just mean, that between the two of us—”
“And what experience do you have tracking, Aria?” she interrupts, swimming languidly from the bed in my direction. “Unless you’ve got a secret set of skills no one knows about?”
The awkward laugh that tumbles out of me couldn’t be more poorly timed. “Of course not.”
“I don’t know,” she muses, her gaze searching mine in a way that makes me want to squirm. “It would certainly be easy for you to slip under the radar. You already defied the queen onceby helping the seamount sirens, who’s to say you aren’t doing so again? That your intent isn’t to leadmeastray so that I do not find them?”
“I wouldn’t do that,” I lie, my back hitting the wall as she forces me to retreat.
“I think you would, but if there is anything I love, Little Sister, it is pursuing the hunt. Finding a weakness and exploiting it.” The tips of her canines gleam as she smiles at me before she backs away and folds her arms over her chest. “We will start our search alone for now. I’ll come by tomorrow morning with the details of the radius we will cover.” Feeling my heart settle in my chest, I give her a quick nod and attempt to dart for the door. Her fingers—icy cold against the warmth of my skin—wrap around my arm, stopping my retreat as she leans in close to my ear. “Make no mistake, it is only a matter of time before I discover whatever it is you’re hiding. And when I do, I am not the one you will need to answer to.”
