“I am a one-hundred-and-eight-year-old siren. Young, sure, but I might as well be an infant as far as my mother is concerned.” The last part was drenched in resentment.
Yemi’s curiosity was piqued. “A siren? Is that how you did that with the Quorum?”
Lirik nodded. “We’re not supposed to use it on our own, but that’s really more of a guideline than a rule.”
“Have you thought about leaving like the others?” Yemi asked her.
A grim silence fell between them, and Yemi knew to leave it alone.
“What is Queen Helene like?” she asked instead.
Lirik sighed. “Quiet. Distant. Sad.”
“I glimpsed at least one of those, and it wasn’t the ‘quiet,’?” Yemi replied.
“I don’t know. I feel bad for her. She’s lonely. She wasn’t in line for the throne but took it up anyway, and now everyone’s gone.”
“What do you mean?”
Lirik dragged a finger around the rim of an old drinking glass, filling the cove with an eerie whistling noise. “There’s only the one kingdom, but Triton’s children all left for other seas and now have their own territories. When Helene’s line ends, my mother will replace her but can never hold the title of queen. So that will be the end of this place. The city of Abyssa becomes a reliquary, and the real power of the seas will shift to one of the others. Their territory will be the new seat of the kingdom.”
I should have gone to one oftheminstead,Yemi thought.
Lirik propped herself up on an elbow. “She was in love once, the queen. With Ursla’s daughter. Back then, I hear she was more fun. More everything. Not a queenly type, but back then, she didn’t have to be.”
Yemi shut her book. “Ursla’swhat?”
“Yeah.” Lirik waggled what might have been eyebrows. “They made a lot of trouble together, and then the daughter, she… died or something. Poor queen hasn’t been the same since.”
Yemi reeled. Ursla had a dead daughter? But what was it Selah had said? She couldn’t create life as a witch, only manipulate—
“Selah,” Yemi said aloud.
“Hmm?” Lirik perked up.
“Nothing,” Yemi replied. She reached for the medallion tying her hair together to confirm it was still there.
Give this to Helene.
Her mind reeled. Selah and Helene… but why hadn’t Ursla mentioned it? If Ursla could create life of her own, why did Selah insist she was only a witch?
“You wouldn’t know why Ursla’s exiled?” Yemi asked, trying not to sound overeager.
“Goes back to Merrine and Peris. The royal line was created so there would always be someone with the blood of the Old Gods to rule the sea. Without it, Ursla would have no one to keep her from the throne. The Old Gods, they didn’t like her much.”
Yemi snorted.
“Triton had the power to banish her after Arielle… you know.”
“And she just stayed away?” Yemi raised an eyebrow.
“Pretty sure. But you never know.” Lirik winked.
She wasn’t wrong. The old girl did have a knack for showing up in places she’d been expressly unwelcome.
“You don’t approve of her,” Lirik sang, observing perhaps the deep frown that settled across Yemi’s face. She dangled the very tip of her tail into the pool below, circling it above a small group of green fish.
“I suppose that’s one way to put it,” Yemi replied.
