Chapter 1
Kye
Itried to stay away from water, but it wasn’t easy for a couple of very important reasons.
One, my palace stood on the coral reef Lyrei, in the middle of the ocean. Not only was it almost entirely surrounded by water, but every door and terrace here led out to the shore.
And two, I was a siren. Water called to me, no matter how much I tried to stay away from it.
I lived in the vast, majestic Kingdom of Olathana. It was undoubtedly the most beautiful place in the whole of Nerifir, magical and perfect.
The kingdom’s only blight was me, its cursed king.
No matter how much time I spent by the water, I couldn’t do anything that sirens normally did in the ocean. That was one of the many ill effects of my curse. The water no longer obeyed me as it should. Even my song was long lost.
All I did while at the water’s edge was sit on a glass branch of the dead coral, stare out to the horizon, and bask in the sun like a fucking turtle.
I dipped a foot into the waves below and felt only the faintest whisper of the connection I’d once had with the ocean. The sun warmed my skin. The breeze played with my long hair. Those sensations were strong and clear, but the caress of waterbetween my toes was muffled, reaching to me as if through a thick fog or a layer of dense wool.
A large rainbow butterfly fluttered by. I promptly leaned back, away from its colorful wings, giving it enough space to continue on its way.
“You don’t want to get too close to me, little guy,” I muttered as it flew by.
Suddenly, the butterfly turned back toward me, probably pushed by the breeze.
“No.” I shifted aside as it fluttered straight toward my bare chest. “Hey, stay away!”
My naked ass slid on the slippery glass of the coral. I flailed my limbs. My fingernails scraped against the glass but found no purchase as I plunged into the ocean.
The water didn’t feel wet to me. It rolled around my body in a thin layer of glass dust, obscuring my vision and plugging my nostrils. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t swim. I was the only siren in this whole damn world who was drowning in the ocean we all called home.
Panic speared through me. The urge to release my fins burned my skin along my spine, my calves, and my forearms. But no fins appeared. They’d been locked under my skin for ten decades now. Frantically, I beat the water with my arms in a desperate attempt to stay afloat.
The water grew thick and heavy with glass dust from the contact with my skin. I used whatever power I still had over it to keep me from going under. But I failed. The water closed over my head, smothering me.
A hand reached from above, breaking through the surface, and I grasped it without thinking. Alarm jolted me the moment the slim fingers curled around my hand. I froze, no longer struggling and allowing the water to close over me once again.
Had I just killed the person who tried to rescue me?
Incredibly, the hand still felt alive even while being firmly clasped in my fingers.
My lungs burned with the all-consuming need for a breath. My body tightened in convulsions, yet I knew I wouldn’t die.
I couldn’t die this quickly.
I was meant to suffer.
Miraculously, the stranger’s hand didn’t turn to glass. It was smaller than mine, more delicate, but very strong. As it pulled, it drew me upwards, out of the water, and back onto the shore.
Gasping for air, I fell onto the ground by the dead coral’s branch.
The hunched woman in a pearlesque gray cloak looked too frail to lift a pebble, yet she held onto me with ease. Deep lines of wrinkles crisscrossed her gray skin, but warm amusement shone brightly in her dark-brown eyes.
“Odine... What are you doing here?” I asked between my panting breaths.
She laughed.
“Did you just take the plunge to save a butterfly, my boy?” she mused.
