“Not you, or most of your duchy, really…” I give his people the benefit of the doubt. “But here, I feel like a caged animal. Brought out for the fancy of others.”
“Humans are never seen in Midscape, save for the Human Queen…and some sirens do blame them for the demise of Lady Lellia.”
“Why?
Ilryth stares out into the Abyss, thinking. His eyes are drawn to the roots of the Lifetree when he speaks. “It was shortly after the humans were crafted that Lady Lellia stopped walking among us. Some say it was shame for their lack of magic. When the Fade was made and humans were separated, her song was no longer heard.”
“But wasn’t the Fade made to protect humans?”
“It was.”
“Then why blame the humans?”
Ilryth shakes his head sadly. “When people are wounded, they look for an easy person, or people, to blame. The humans weren’t there to defend themselves, so they made for simple targets for the ire of many.” He brings his eyes to me. “But I think most sirens today have little feelings one way or another toward humans beyond mild fascination.”
I nod. “All right, then, your turn.”
We go back and forth for hours. I learn of his favorite memory growing up with Lucia and Fenny—of kelp-fishing with play spears. I learn of the siren performances around yule to sing in the new year. I tell him of my own childhood. Of the vast and mysterious places I’ve seen while sailing for Kevhan Applegate, choosing to speak fondly of how I remember him in life, not as I last saw him in death. How I was the best of the best among the sailors—thanks to Ilryth’s magic.
I sigh wistfully, thinking of my early days among the waves. A rogue thought from those times resonates through my mind:Those early days, I felt like I was truly free of Charles. Even though he still held my soul and on paper my name. I felt like I could sail far enough and escape him.
“Who was he?” Ilryth asks softly, gently.
“Who?” I look to him, my heart seizing. My musing got away from me, my thoughts wandering beyond my tight grasp.Don’t say it. Please don’t say it. I can’t stop myself from clutching the shell necklace, hoping that somehow, I’m wrong. That it protected me even from my deepest thoughts. It’s futile.
“Charles.”
CHAPTER29
“It’s goingto be hard to tell you about him,” I say softly, when I’ve recovered from my shock of him outright asking about Charles. I’ve worked so hard to erase him from my history but he continues to haunt me…even if I don’t fully understand why.
How can I tell Ilryth who Charles was to me in a comprehensible way? All I know, now, are the broad strokes. But how could I communicate those without Ilryth losing faith in me? It has taken us months to build this foundation of trust. The mere thought of losing it turns my insides to lead. I grapple with my next words.
“You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to,” Ilryth reminds me gently.
I shrug, pulling my eyes from his. Somehow, compared to his affectionate and yet piercing stare, the Abyss is a welcome alternative. “It’s…it’s all right. We’re being honest with each other, aren’t we?”
“Yes. But that doesn’t mean you must share something you might otherwise not want to.”
“Stop telling me not to, or I won’t.” I laugh, though it is a joyless sound. “I really haven’t talked with enough people about him.” If there’s one thing I learned from going back to Dennow, it’s that I should have been talking more, to everyone, for a long time. I can both be relied on, and rely on others, at the same time. “Besides, what does it matter if you know? I’ll be gone soon anyway.”
“You shouldn’t say that.” Ilryth’s tail twitches slightly. It’s the only movement on his body, but it betrays agitation and alarm. The tiny fins on the sides of it ripple several times. There are all these small things about the sirens and their mannerisms—about him—that I’m still learning. I’ll likely never have the chance to study every movement and indicator the way I would want to know him. My shoulders feel even heavier.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” I try to shrug, making light of it. Facing it head-on rather than by cowering in fear is the only way I know how to keep moving on when the world gets tough. Hide my pain not just from everyone else, but from myself as well.
“It’s hard to be reminded of it…” He trails off, then hastily adds, “And that’s speaking for me personally. I can’t imagine how it might feel for you.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Ilryth looks at me skeptically, but doesn’t object.
“Anyway, when I said it’ll be difficult to tell you of him, I didn’t mean just emotionally. It’ll be difficult because I seem to have eradicated memories of him first.”
His skepticism shifts to surprise. Ilryth’s brow furrows, and there’s a flash of rage in his eyes. His words take on a protective edge. “What did he do that would make you target him for complete removal from your memories?”
“I don’t think I could tell you anymore,” I reiterate. The Abyss is as dark as the voids in my mind. “But I’ll tell you what I know, what I can still piece together…
“I grew up on the outskirts of a small town. My father and mother both worked—as hard as they could. But it was difficult for either of them to hold down any kind of steady job. My father because he sustained an injury that made it hard for him to work the manual labor that was abundant in our area, and he didn’t have the book skills to work as a secretary for a local merchant noble…and my mother because it just wasn’t really in her blood to stay in one place for long. But they made do…” I wax poetic about my childhood. About the long days down by the creek that ran by town catching bugs with Emily. About the cold nights that I didn’t hate as much as I thought I did in retrospect because it meant we were all snuggled close.
