Chapter nineteen
The waters of the lagoon are still, the dark surface a perfect mirror of the night sky. I breathe in the Letum air, the sweet scent settling my lingering unease. I never thought I’d miss this island, for how could I ever miss my own prison? How could I long for the source of my suffering?
As angry as I was at Willa for sending me away, my time on the mainland was not in vain, if only for the clarity it brought me. My pain blinded me to Letum’s beauty; I was never able to look beyond the chokehold it had on me. But I’ve seen a hundred different shores, a thousand different skies, and this is the only one I’ve ever ached for.
Sheis the only person I’ve ever ached for. It isn’t lost on me that just as Willa and the island are irrevocably bound in magic, so they are in the recesses of my heart. Letum is home becausesheis home.
My death shudders in the air around me, one word pulsing through it.Mine, mine, mine.
Letum. Willa. They are mine, and I will damn us all to the pits of hell before I let anyone take them from me.
I untie my boots and set them in the sand beside my neatly folded cloak, vest, and shirt. The winter wind skates over my bare chest, its whisper icy and ominous:the king has returned, the king has returned.
“Oh, shut it, you garrulous airbag,” I mutter with a roll of my eyes. The winter wind holds no loyalty to any living being, only ever following its own currents. Dwelling onwhichking the breeze refers to will do me no favors.
A sudden gust rakes wildly through my hair.
“So very rude,” I muse. The wind doesn’t bother to respond.
The air rushes from me as I wade into the icy water. I grit my teeth to keep them from chattering, and suck a breath between tight lips as a fresh wave of agony slices through my chest. My death is unsettled—hasbeen unsettled since we abandoned Willa in the belly of the Crocodile—and I am still unaccustomed to bearing the weight of its power. Like a muscle that has atrophied, it is all I can do to stand up against the heft of its demand.
It tears at me nearly every moment of the day, pulling me in all directions, siphoning every bit of energy I have. It pulls toward the familiar aura of Willa—the shimmer of her power, the edge of her darkness. Our counter and our balance.
It pulls toward the Aeternalis, his mere presence on the island a slight neither me, nor my death can abide.
Tonight,I think grimly, winding the ribbons around my wrists and up my arms, until I am gilded in ruin and rot.Tonight will be the beginning of taking back what’s ours.
When I am submerged to my waist and my fingers have gone numb, a siren lazing on the far crags surrounding the lagoon begins to sing. My death writhes angrily, and I groan in pain as I tie it to me. It is like glass slicing through my skin as it strugglesin my grasp, eager to rise up and kill the song before it can wrap its silky sonance around my throat and drag me toward it.
My ribbons fight against me so furiously, I nearly lose my balance and fall face first into the surf. But with gritted teeth, I force them into submission and allow the siren’s song to sink beneath my skin to the bones beneath. It winds around my ribs and nestles into my heart where all melody begins. A heart’s eternal rhythm is the most beautiful song in the universe, and the sirens have learned to wield it well.
My heartbeat stutters and begins anew, its rhythm now under the siren’s control. And though every instinct in my body tells me to fight, I let the song draw me deeper into the lagoon. The waves grow wilder and the silt bottom drops out beneath me, giving way to the unfathomable depths of the sea.
I’ve always been a strong swimmer, a necessity both of growing up Strayed and later on as a pirate. My lungs expand in time to the rhythm of the song, a seductive drawl that untethers something in my chest I don’t mean to allow loose.
Because between the sibyllic harmonies, somehow, I hear Willa.
I swim faster, my joints screaming in protest, my muscles wasted and sore from the toll of my magic. My lungs feel like they’re filled with broken glass by the time I reach the other side of the lagoon, and each blink sends a sharp pain resounding through my skull as I tread against the crash of waves.
The siren doesn’t bother to look away from the ornate silver platter she holds up to gaze at her own reflection. She runs her fingers lazily through her scarlet hair as she sings, her song no louder here than it was on the other side of the lagoon. The iridescent scales of her tail shimmer in the starlight with each flick, and sea-crusted jewels jangle at her wrists and throat. Her skin is a deep midnight blue in keeping with the hour, the shadealways changing with the color of the water beneath the moon or sun.
It is only when I spit seawater out of my mouth and slap a wet hand loudly on the rock beside her, does she bother to acknowledge me at all. Her eyes snap viciously to where I sputter before her, their shade a clear aquamarine that speaks to warm oceans far from the shores of Letum. The song abruptly ceases, and an eerie shiver runs through me as the melody disentangles itself from the beat of my heart.
“King,”she hisses, her speaking voice far harsher in tone than her song.
“Lisian.” I dip my head fractionally. “I wish I could say it’s been too long, but as I know you despise lies, perhaps a simple hello will do.”
The siren bares her teeth in a smile, but it is not reassuring. Her razor-sharp incisors glisten, their edges stained a shade of crimson as deep as her hair. She runs her tongue along them, a mocking reminder of how easily she could tear out my throat if she so deigned.
“Why areyouhere?” Lisian seethes, dropping the silver platter into the waves in order to cross her arms. Her tail whaps against the rock in a furious rhythm as she glares at me with a petulant pout.
“I was called, as I’m sure all your visitors are.”
“I didn’t know it wasyou,”she snipes with a roll of her brilliant eyes, “or I wouldn’t have bothered. You’ve never been any fun to play with, Niko.”
“Yes, yes,” I tell her breathlessly, my legs leaden and heavy as another freezing wave crashes against me. “I apologize for my infuriating habit of refusing to succumb to your every whim. Now, are you going to let me onto that rock or simply watch me sink to the depths?”
The siren’s eyes narrow. “We both know I cannot drown you unless you allow it.” She shudders, rubbing her hands over the tarnished golden bangles wrapped around her upper arms. “That horrible magic of yours kills everything it touches. Even something as beautiful as a song.”
