To Kill a Kingdom(38)

“Stop,” Crestell said.

She swooped in front of Kahlia, creating a barrier between us. Her arms were spread wide in defense, fangs bared. For a moment I was sure she would attack, slicing her claws through me and putting an end to this madness once and for all.

“Take me,” she said.

I paled.

Crestell grabbed my hand – it looked tiny in hers, but nowhere near as delicate – and pressed it to her chest. “Take it,” she said.

My cousins gasped around us, their faces contorted in terror and grief. This was their choice: watch their mother die or see their sister killed. I stammered before my aunt, ready to scream and swim as far away as I could. But then Crestell shot a look to Kahlia, who trembled on the seabed. A worried, furtive glance, quick enough for my mother to miss. When her eyes returned to mine, they were filled with begging.

“Take it, Lira,” Crestell said. She swallowed and raised her chin. “This is the way things must be.”

“Yes,” my mother cooed from behind me. I didn’t have to turn to know there was a smile cutting across her face. “That would be quite the substitute.”

She placed a hand on my shoulder, her nails scraping over my skin, clamping me into place before she lowered her lips to my ear and let a whisper form between us.

“Lira,” my mother said so quiet that my fin curled. “Cure yourself and show me that you truly belong in the ocean.”

Defective.

“Any last words, sister?” the Sea Queen asked.

Crestell closed her eyes, but I knew it wasn’t to keep from crying. It was to seal the fury in so that it didn’t burnish her irises. She wanted to die a loyal subject and keep her daughters safe from my mother’s revenge. From me.

When Crestell opened her eyes again – one such a pure blue and the other a most miraculous shade of purple – she looked nowhere but at me.

“Lira,” she said. Her voice rasped. “Become the queen we need you to be.”

It wasn’t a promise I could make, because I wasn’t sure I was capable of being the kind of queen my mother’s kingdom needed. I had to be without emotion, spreading terror rather than feeling it, and as my breathing trembled, I just didn’t know if I had it in me.

“Won’t you promise?” Crestell asked.

I nodded, even though I thought it was a lie. And then I killed her.

That was the day I became my mother’s daughter. And the moment it happened was the moment I became the most monstrous of us all. The yearning to please her spread through me like a shadow, fighting against every urge I knew she’d perceive as weakness. Every flash of regret and sympathy that would lead her to believe I was impure.

Abnormal. Defective. And in a blink of an eye, the child I was became the creature I am.

I forced myself to think only of which princes would please my mother most: the fearless ágriosy, who tried for decades to find Diávolos under the misguided notion they could end our kind, or a prince of Mellontikós. Prophets and fortune-tellers who chose to keep themselves apart from the war, rarely daring to let a ship touch the water. I toyed with the thought of bringing them to my mother as further proof that I belonged by her side.

Over time, I forgot what it was like to be weak. Now that I’m trapped here in a body that is not my own, I suddenly remember. I’ve gone from being my mother’s least favorite weapon to a creature who can’t even defend herself. A monster without fangs or claws.

I run a hand over my bruised legs, paler than a shark’s underbelly.

My feet arch inward as an awful cold snakes through me and small bumps begin to prickle over my new skin. I don’t understand what it means, and I don’t understand how I could have gone from darting through the ocean to stumbling among humans.

I heave a frustrated breath, turning my caress to the skin on my ribs. No gills. No matter how deep I breathe, the skin doesn’t part and the air continues to fog in and out of my lips. My skin is still damp and the water no longer runs off it, seeping instead into every pore and bringing with it an unbearable cold. The kind of cold that sends more bumps along the surface of my skin, crawling from my legs to my frail arms.

I can’t help but start to fear the water outside of this cage. If Elian were to throw me overboard, how long would it take for me to drown?

The lanterns glow, faint enough to give my human eyes the time to adjust. Elian presses a key into the crystal cage, and a section of wall slides open. I ignore the instinct to rush him, remembering how easily he pinned me to the wall when I tried to attack Maeve. He’s stronger than I am now and more agile than I gave him credit for. In this body, force is not the way.

Elian sets a plate down in front of me. It’s a thick broth the color of river water. Pale meat and sea grapes float curiously at the top, and the overwhelming smell of anise climbs through the air. My stomach aches in response.

“Kye and I caught sea turtles,” he explains. “It stinks to high heaven, but damn if it tastes good.”

“I’m being punished,” I say in a cold rendition of Midasan. “I want you to tell me why.”

“You’re not being punished,” he tells me. “You’re being watched.”

“Because I speak Psáriin?” I ask. “Is speaking a language a crime now?”

“It’s banned in most kingdoms.”