To Kill a Kingdom(34)
Lira stands and she’s newly steady as she looks down at the dying creature. “Maybe it would be helpful,” she says, “if you take out her other eye.”
I flinch and a smile presses to the corner of Lira’s pale lips. I don’t know if it’s because the siren is so scared, or if Lira is simply pleased by the look on my face. If she said it just to see how I’d react.
“I’d be depriving her of your winning smile,” I say.
Lira cocks an eyebrow. “She’s your enemy. Don’t you want her in pain?”
She looks at me as though I’ve lost all sense. My crew tends to look at me the same way, though not usually on the days when I refuse to torture. There are many things the world can say about the siren hunters of the Saad, but one thing that could never be true is that we enjoy this life. The ocean, yes, but never the death. It’s a necessary evil to keep the world safe, and as dishonorable as killing is, it has purpose. If I start to like it, then I become the very thing I’m trying to protect the world from.
“Soldiers don’t enjoy war,” I say.
Lira purses her lips, but just as she opens her mouth to say something, I’m thrown onto my back. My head cracks against the floor, and pain explodes in my temples.
The siren is on top of me.
She scratches and bites, making an ungodly howl. I dodge her attacks as she tries desperately to take a chunk out of me. Her fin is a mess of clotted blood, ripped straight down the middle. She must have torn herself free.
“I can’t get a clear shot!” someone says. “I’m gonna hit him.”
“Me either!”
“Madrid!” Kye yells. “Madrid, shoot it now!”
“I can’t.” I hear the sound of a gun being thrown to the floor. “Damn thing is wedged again.”
I struggle beneath the venomous creature. Her face is fangs and hate and nothing else. She is hungry for part of me. Heart or not, she’ll take whatever piece she can.
The weight of her presses down, crushing my ribs. There’s a crack, and then I can barely breathe through the pain. Around me, my crew shouts so loudly that it’s almost incomprehensible. As their voices turn to noise, my arms burn with aching. The siren is too strong. Stronger than me, by far.
Then, just as suddenly as it came, the heaviness disappears. My breath rushes back.
Kye grips her devil shoulders and rips the siren from me. She skitters and slides across the deck before colliding furiously with the cabin wall. My crew jumps out of the way to let her body skim past them. The sound of her impact shakes the Saad.
The siren digs her fingernails into the deck, shoulders arched. She hisses and lurches forward. Quickly, I grab my knife. I ignore the furious pain in my ribs as I let the featherlight blade take aim in my hand and then hurl it through the air. It glides into what is left of her heart.
Most of the blood blisters onto her skin, but the remnants that threaten to spill onto my deck are quickly drunk up by my knife. The siren screams.
As Kye pulls me to my feet, I catch a discreet breath, not daring to show that I was surprised. Even if it’s obvious. It’s my job to expect the unexpected, and I was stupid enough to turn my back on a killer.
“Are you all right?” Kye asks, searching for wounds. He glares at the blood on my arm. “I should’ve been faster.”
The look on his face rips through me as much as the siren did, and so I roll my shoulder, careful not to wince as the pain in my ribs intensifies with each moment. “All in a day’s work,” I say, and turn to Madrid. “Your gun jammed again?”
Madrid picks up her discarded weapon and studies the spear mechanism. “I don’t get it,” she says. “I’ll have to bring it belowdecks for another service.”
She starts to walk to the other side of the deck and then abruptly stops when she notices the siren’s body blocking the doorway. Madrid swallows and waits patiently. They all do. Perfectly silent until the moment the siren begins to fade. The sight is never anything less than a wonder to them, even after all this time. But I don’t look at the lifeless creature turning to foam on my deck. I’ve seen a hundred monsters die. Instead I turn to the strange girl I pulled from the ocean.
Lira isn’t smiling anymore.
18
Lira
MAEVE DISSOLVES INTO NOTHING.
Killing a siren is not like killing a mermaid. Their rotting corpses stain the ocean floor and skeleton among the coral, while we dissolve into the very thing that made us. Into ocean and foam and the salt in our veins. When we’re gone, there’s nothing left to remember.
I thought I’d be glad when Maeve died, but the battle between our species wages on and I’ve just helped the humans in their bid to slaughter us. At the very least, the prince didn’t cut out her heart before he killed her. I’ve never paid mind to legends, unless I’m the legend of discussion, but even I know the stories. Ones that warn of any human who holds a siren’s heart being granted immunity to our song. It’s said that’s why we turn to sea foam when we die, that it’s not a curse to erase us from the world but a blessing from Keto to ensure a human can never take our hearts.
After Maeve disappears, I’m taken belowdecks to a windowless room that smells of aniseed and rust. The walls are not walls but thick drapes that hang from a varnished ceiling. Their damp edges catch the floor, and as the ship pierces on, they sway and reveal endless lines. Of books, weapons, and gold. Each curtain has its own secret. In the center is a large cube made from black glass. It’s as thick as I am long, with hinges and bolts that are heavy gold. The same kind that the eel-mermaid’s brooch was made from. It’s a prison of sorts and doesn’t appear to be designed for humans. Or, if it is, it’s designed for the worst kind.