“You lived on land?” I asked.
“Yes, I was once human, born in the city of Guardian’s Watch,” she answered.
“But how are you a siren now?” I asked, looking at her finned hands and feet that gleamed in gold scales like the flesh of a golden fish.
“I was made. That is what we call it. When a human is turned into a siren.”
Humans could become sirens?
“Why?” What would make a person become a creature tied to the bottom of the sea for the rest of their life?
“I will tell you if you wish to know. I think it may help you see our people better, but I wish to warn you. My story isgruesome,” she said in her soft, tepid tone. “Many of the made sirens’ tales are, sadly.”
I nodded yes.
“Guardian’s Watch is a hard place to live. As I’m sure you know. It is especially hard to live in when you are one of seven children and your family is impoverished, as mine was. There was little work for me. So I, like many others, turned to begging. On one evening, I was only a few coins short for a bowl of hot oats and I stayed out past nightfall. I knew the streets were more dangerous in the dark and had heard stories about the dangers of the city at night, but food was all I could think of. There is little room for logic when you’re starving.”
Images of the dilapidated shacks leaning against one another, dusted in snow, came to mind as we walked through a stony section of hallway. My eyes never left Lumina’s beautiful face as the siren light played tricks on her skin, reflecting in iridescent shades off her scales. I couldn’tenvision such a beautiful being on land, let alone in the wretched city outside my father’s castle.
“Most people ignored us. I wasn’t alone in my begging, but sometimes people were cruel. They would spit, curse, or shove. But usually nothing violent. That is, until they found me.” She swallowed hard, like she was there again, trying to gulp down the fear. “Two large men who beat me nearly to death.”
My stomach soured.
She stopped in the middle of the hall and turned to me. “I do not tell you this for pity or emotion. My story is not rare; many have similar ones here within Naiadon. I tell you so you will see the mercy of the sirens. Their inherent goodness. Those men dumpedwhat little was left of me into the Nettle River and luckily, my body drifted to the sea. There, a Circle of sirens found me andmademe.”
My heart ached for Lumina, but another emotion burned far hotter. Anger. This atrocity happened in Oakhaven, in my father’s realm. No food? No law? No one stopping a little girl from being beaten in public?
“That never should have happened to you.” It was all I could offer her. Empty apologies. Because my father allowed such reprehensible things to happen in his country. In his great city. One of the wealthiest in the world. All while he hid behind his castle walls and feasted.
“Sirens are not perfect,” Lumina added. “We have our prejudices, our wars, our traditions that bind us to rules that are antiquated and illogical. Just as upon land. But here in Naiadon I can learn, I have adequate food, and comfort. Most importantly, I have peace.”
“At first, just like you, I was so afraid, angry even. Then I saw and learned andreadof this world and others beyond it. Places I couldn’t even imagine, kindness I couldn’t even comprehend.” She turned and walked on. “I often mourn my younger self, begging on the street, unableto even conceive of a place this beautiful because only suffering and misery surrounded her. But now, I dream enough for us both.”
I reached out to Lumina’s finned hand and squeezed it.
“Thank you for sharing your story with me.” I said.
A small smile sparked on her lips.
“Thank you for listening,” she said. “Now, are you ready, Elowyn, to face the greatest siren Circles of all three seas?”
“Ready as one can be,” I answered. And together we walked onward.
Chapter 18
Acelestial choir of siren song welcomed Lumina and me in the banquet hall, a harmonious blend of highs and lows that ebbed and flowed through my veins.
The singers, draped in varying shades of purple and blue fabrics, shone as they moved in unison. Their music poured from their souls, spilling out into the space.
Heart fluttering, I drank in that sound. The sirens’ song was always exquisite, even when it had hunted the ship I was on and controlled the sailors to the sirens’ will. No two melodies sounded the same, but when they came together as one, it was beyond beauty. It was transformative.
“There’s Raylik and Nixie,” Lumina said, ushering me to the long glass table, the same one I’d first sat at to break my fast with Hylos and his inner circle. Now it was adorned with flowing streams of gauzy blue fabric. Swirling siren orbs bobbed on the tabletops, which shimmered with the rainbow visages of sirens sitting around them, chattering away like they were ordinary dinner guests.
“Good evening,” Lumina said to Raylik.
Two young siren girls sat beside him, no older than sixteen and clearly twins, with matching slim, strong chins and mirrored blood-orange eyes. Even the gowns with flame-red ruffles they wore were identical.
“Good evening. Elowyn, these are my cousins, Myra and Lyra, from Mariscal Circle.” Clicks and hums transpired between the girls, but Raylik sent them a harsh glance that silenced the pair. “Speak in the common tongue here,” he ordered.
