To Kill a Kingdom(29)

“Would you like me to beg you?” I ask, and Elian’s jaw tightens.

“If you just tell me why you have it, then I’ll give it back.”

He sounds sincere, but I know better. Pirates are liars by trade and royals are liars by blood. I know that firsthand.

“My mother gave it to me,” I say.

“A gift.” Elian ponders this. “Passed through your family from how far back? Do you know what it does or how it works?”

I grind my teeth. I should have known his questions wouldn’t end until he ripped the truth from me. I would give it to him gladly on any other day, but I’m defenseless on this ship without the music of my voice to sing him into submission. I can barely even stand on my own. The seashell is my last hope, and he’s keeping it from me.

I lunge for it once more. I’m quick, even as a human, and my fingers close around his fist in an instant. But Elian is faster somehow, and as soon as my hand locks on to his, Elian’s knife is on my neck.

“Really.” He presses his blade firmly against my throat, and I feel a small slash of pain. “That wasn’t so smart.”

I tighten my hand around his fist, unwilling to let go. The cut on my neck stings, but I have felt and caused far worse. His face is roguish when I sneer up at him, nothing like the sweet and gentle princes I’ve taken before. The ones whose hearts are buried beneath my bed. Elian is as much a soldier as I am.

“Captain!” A man emerges from the lower deck, his eyes wide. “The radars spotted one!”

Quickly, Elian looks to the knife-wielding boy. “Kye,” he says. Just a name, just a word, and yet the boy nods abruptly and jumps the length of the stairs to the decks below.

In an instant Elian tears his blade from my throat and sheathes it. “Get in position!” he yells. He loops my seashell around his neck and runs for the edge of the ship.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

Elian turns to me, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “It’s your lucky day, Lira,” he says. “You’re about to meet your first siren.”





16


Lira


I WATCH THE HUMANS jumping from one end of the boat to another, pulling on ropes and yelling words and names I don’t quite understand. At one point the boy with the knife – Kye – trips and slices his palm. Quickly, the tattooed girl rips the bandana from her head and throws it to him, before running to the wheel and lurching it left. The ship twists too quickly for me to stay steady, and I collapse to the floor again.

I screech in frustration and search the decks for my captor. Prince Elian leans over the edge, one arm tangled in rope, the other holding the mysterious object up to the light.

“Steady,” he tells his crew. “Hold her steady.”

He whispers something to himself. A slew of Midasan that I can’t make out, much less understand, and then smiles at the compass and screams, “Torik, now!”

The large man leans his head into the lower decks and bellows at the crew. As soon as the boom of his voice shudders through my bones, a high-pitched whistle tears through the air. I bring my hands to my ears. It’s not so much a noise as it is a blade carving through my skull. A sound so shrill, I feel like my eardrums could explode. Around me, the humans seem unaffected, and so with a grimace, I lower my hands and try to hide my discomfort.

“I’m going in,” Elian calls over his shoulder. He throws the compass to the girl. “Madrid, lower the net on my signal.”

She nods as he pulls a small tube from his belt and places it into his mouth. Then he’s gone. He meets the water with barely a noise, so quiet that I stumble to the edge of the ship to make sure that he actually jumped. Sure enough, ripples pool on the surface and the prince is nowhere to be seen.

“What is he doing?” I ask.

“Playing the part,” Madrid replies.

“What part?”

She pulls a small crossbow from her belt and fixes an arrow in the latch. “Bait.”

“He’s a prince,” I observe. “He can’t be bait.”

“He’s a prince,” she says. “So he gets to decide who’s bait.”

Kye hands her a black quiver filled with arrows and cuts me a guarded glance. “If you’re so concerned, we can always throw you over instead.”

I ignore both the comment and the hostile look in his eyes. Human pettiness knows no bounds. “Surely he can’t breathe for long,” I say.

“Five minutes of air,” Madrid tells me. “It’s what the tube’s for. Nifty little thing the captain picked up a while back in Efévresi.”

Efévresi. The land of invention. It’s one of the few kingdoms I’ve been careful to steer clear of, made cautious by the machinery that patrols their waters. Nets made from lightning and drones that swim faster than any mermaid. Ships more like beasts, with a knowledge and intelligence of their own.

“When the captain comes back up, you’ll get to see something wonderful,” Kye tells me.

“Monsters,” says Madrid, “are not wonderful.”

“Watching them die is pretty wonderful.” Kye looks pointedly in my direction. “That’s what happens to our enemies, you see.”

Madrid scoffs. “Keep watch for the captain’s signal,” she says.