“I’m not yourliana.You are not myakua.And I’m not lying!”
“You know what I think? I think you’ve been lying so long to so many people, you don’t even know how to speak the truth anymore. I will help you with this. From now on, for every lie you speak to me, we will share an intimacy of my choosing. Nothing too much. Just a small kiss or caress, received or given depending on the needs of the moment.”
Her jaw dropped. “Why on Mystral would I ever agree to a bargain like that?”
He gave her a smile full of steely determination. “Ah,moa kiri,I was not asking for your agreement. I was explaining how I intend to help you keep our bond as pure, untainted, and powerful as possible so that I may best see to your needs, as is my duty and my right.”
She glared at him, rubbing her wrist (although in truth he’d not hurt her at all). “Look, whatever you think there is going on between us, you are wrong. Once I took your memory of what happened on that dock, you made it perfectly clear you had no interest in me—or have your forgotten how you prefer the taste of Summerlean fire brandy to milked tea?”
He winced. “This foolishness I spoke... it wounded you.”
“No, it didn’t,” she lied. “I’d actually have tocareabout your regard to be bothered by the lack of it.” Since he was still blocking the way to the eastern gate, she spun away and started walking back towards the palace.
“Tey,clearly it did, and I regret it.” He kept pace with her easily. “I was an idiot. A fool. I spoke without care, out of injured pride. You are not milked tea. You are so far from such blandness I cannot believe the comparison ever entered my mind. You are fire, without a doubt. Not the bright, blazing fire of your sister Autumn, or the controlled burn of your sister Spring. Nothing so small as that for you. You are the volcano deep beneath the sea. A power so vast, yet so well concealed most would never have known of its existence. Even I did not understand what you were until you killed that man.”
“Oh, I see. You’re attracted to me now because you think I possess some sort of terrible power you can use.”
“Ono.As you well know, I was attracted to you from the first. Deeply, powerfully attracted. To you before all others.”
She stumbled, his words too reminiscent of that voice resonating deep inside her.Claim him. He is thine, before all others.
She pushed that memory and the feelings it roused away and resumed walking briskly. “You have a funny way of showing it.”
“You made it clear you did not welcome my attentions. Besides, I was under orders from my queen’s council to marry your sister Spring or Autumn.”
“And I don’t see that any of that has changed. So go do your duty, Sealord.”
“Everythinghas changed. And I’m trying to do my duty—to you.” He caught her arm. “Gabriella, please, hear me out.”
She snatched herself free. “Don’t touch me! And don’t call me that, either!”
“Do you even know what a great power it is that you wield?”
“I am a weathermage of Summerlea. Nothing more. And not a particularly strong weathermage at that.” Maybe if she said it often enough, he’d start believing it again.
“What you are, Gabriella, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is a Siren—and you wield the greatest and most ancient power of Calberna.”
Her mouth dropped open. Of all the things she’d expected him to say, “You’re a Siren” wasn’t remotely one of them.
“Have you been into the Summerlean fire brandy again?”
He scowled at her. It made him look dangerous. “This is no joke.”
“You’re either joking or crazy. Everyone knows there’s no such thing as Sirens. They’re a myth—fantastical sea stories made up by mariners long ago.”
“No, Gabriella. The Sirens were real. They were slaughtered twenty-five hundred years ago by evil men who attacked the Isles. No Siren’s Voice has ever been heard again—not in Calberna, not in all of Mystral—until the night you killed thatkrillo.”
“I keep telling you I didn’t kill that man,” she protested.
“You mean you keep lying about it,” Dilys retorted. “But kill him, you did, and with a Voice that Called every Calbernan in Konumarr to your side. Every. Single. One. There is only one magic that could have done that:susirena.Siren Song. And given what you are, everything else makes sense. The attraction between us. Why I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. Why, sometimes when you look in my eyes, it’s as if you dive into my very soul. Because you do. Because from the first moment, you recognized me as asirakua—a Siren’s mate.”
“I did no such thing.”
“The Siren in you did.” He took her hand, and she was so stunned by his declaration, she didn’t protest when he laid her palm over his heart. “I am yours to claim, Gabriella.”
Good gods, his skin was so warm, so soft. “I-I don’t want to claim you.”
“This is because of my foolishness at the start. I did not recognize you for themyerial myerinasthat you are, and I wounded you with my prideful words.”
