To Kill a Kingdom(39)

“We’re not in a kingdom.”

“Wrong.” Elian leans against the door arch. “We’re in mine. The Saad is my kingdom. The entire ocean is.”

I ignore the insult of a human trying to lay claim to what is mine and say, “I wasn’t given a list of laws when I boarded.”

“Well, now you know.” He twists the key around on his finger. “Of course, I could arrange for a more comfortable sleeping arrangement if you’d just stop being so evasive.”

“I’m not being evasive.”

“Then tell me how you can speak Psáriin.” The curiosity in his voice betrays his lax movements. “Tell me what you know about the Crystal of Keto.”

“You saved my life and now you’re trading comforts for information? It’s strange how fast kindness disappears.”

“I’m fickle,” Elian says. “And I have to protect the Saad. I can’t just go trusting anyone who climbs aboard. They need a good enough story first.”

I smirk at that.

If a story is all I need, then that’s easy enough. The Second Eye of Keto is a legend in our waters, too. The Sea Queen hunted it for years when she began her reign. Where previous queens dismissed it as a lost cause from the outset, my mother was always too hungry for power. She rehashed the stories of the ritual to free the eye, over and over, in a bid to find some clue to its location. Tales that generations had ignored, my mother made sure to memorize. And her obsession meant that I knew them, too. She once told me that the eye was the key to ending all humans, as much as it was the humans’ key to ending all of us. I think of her charcoal bone trident and the beloved ruby that sits in the center, the true source of the Sea Queen’s magic. The eye is said to be its twin, stolen from my kind and hidden where no siren can follow.

My mother knows everything about the eye, except for how to find it. And so, after many years, she gave up on the hunt. But her failure to succeed where her predecessors failed has always irked her.

I pause, an idea sparking inside me.

The eye is hidden where no siren can follow, but thanks to my mother, that no longer applies to me. If Elian can lead me there, then I can use the eye to make the Sea Queen’s greatest fear come true. If she truly thinks I’m unworthy of ruling, I’ll prove just the opposite by using the Second Eye of Keto to overthrow her. To destroy her, the way she tried to destroy me.

I lick my lips.

If Elian is truly hunting the eye, then he’s doing so on the faith of stories. And if a man can hunt them, then he can hear them. All I need is to convince the prince that I’m useful, and he might just let me above deck and away from the shackles of my cage. If I can get close enough, I won’t need my nails to rip out his heart. I’ll do it with his own knife. Just as soon as he secures my place as the ruler of the ocean.

“The Sea Queen stole my family,” I tell Elian, layering my voice in the same melancholy I’ve heard in the calls of sailors as they watched their rulers die. “We were on a fishing boat and I was the only one to survive. I’ve studied them ever since I was a child, learning everything possible from books and stories.” I bite down on my lip. “As for the language, I don’t pretend to be fluent, but I know enough. It was easy to pick up with one of them as my prisoner. My father managed to cripple it before he died, and that meant I was able to keep it captive.”

Elian sighs, unimpressed. “If you’re going to lie,” he says, “do it better.”

“It’s not a lie.” I pretend to be wounded by the accusation. “One of them was injured during the attack on my family. We’re from Polemistés.”

At the mention of the warrior land, Elian takes a step forward. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small circular object. The same compass he palmed when we spoke above deck. A thin gold chain hangs delicately from the hilt, and when he flips it open, the ends chime together.

“Do you really expect me to believe that you’re from Polemistés?” Elian asks.

I try not to take offense at the question – right now I wouldn’t believe I was a warrior either – but I don’t argue my case. I don’t like the way Elian glances down at the compass, as though he’s relying on it to discern something. With every lie that crosses my thoughts, I can almost feel the object reaching out to crawl into the watery depths of my mind. Pluck out the lies like seaweed roots. It seems impossible, but I know how much humans like their trickery.

“My family are hunters,” I say carefully. “Just like you. The Sea Queen wanted revenge because she felt she was wronged.”

The space between us cloys with the compass’s phantom magic, and I conjure an image of Maeve’s face to prove to the strange object that this is not technically a lie.

“I tortured one of her sirens to get what I needed,” I say.

“What happened to the siren?”

“Dead,” I tell him.

Elian glances down at the compass and then frowns. “Did you kill it?”

“Do you think I’m not capable?”

He sighs at my evasive answer, but it’s difficult to miss the intrigue in his eyes as he toys with the possibility of believing me. “The siren,” he says. “Did she tell you about the crystal?”

“She told me a lot of things. Make me an offer worth my while, and perhaps I’ll tell you, too.”