To Kill a Kingdom(4)

“Enjoy looking up top, do you?”

Torik reddens a shade and turns his attention away from the siren’s exposed breasts.

Of course I understand what he meant, but somewhere along the seas I’ve forgotten how to be horrified. There’s no looking past the fins and blood-red lips, or the eyes that shine with two different colors. Men like Torik – good men – see what these creatures could be: women and girls, mothers and daughters. But I can only see them as they are: monsters and beasts, creatures and devils.

I’m not a good man. I don’t think I’ve been one for a long time.

In front of us, the siren’s skin begins to dissolve. Her hair melts to sea green and her scales froth. Even her blood, just a moment before threatening to stain the deck of the Saad, begins to lather until all that is left is sea foam. And a minute later that, too, is gone.

I’m grateful for that part. When a siren dies, she turns back into the ocean, which means that there’s no unseemly burning of bodies. No dumping their rotting corpses into the sea. I may not be a good man, but I’m good enough to find that preferable.

“What now, Cap?”

Kye slides his sword back into place and positions himself alongside Madrid, my second mate. As usual, Kye is dressed all in black, with patchwork leather and gloves that end at the fingertips. His light brown hair is shaved on both sides, like most men who are from Omorfiá, where aesthetics are valued above all else. Which, in Kye’s case, also includes morals. Luckily for him – and, perhaps, for us all – Madrid is an expert at compelling decency in people. For a trained killer, she’s oddly ethical, and their relationship has managed to keep Kye from sliding down even the slipperiest of slopes.

I shoot Kye a smile. I like being called Cap. Captain. Anything other than My Liege, My Prince, Your Royal Highness Sir Elian Midas. Whatever it is the devouts like to spit out in between the constant bowing. Cap suits me in a way my title never has. I’m far more pirate than prince, anyway.

It started when I was fifteen, and for the last four years I’ve known nothing like I know the ocean. When I’m in Midas, my body aches for sleep. There’s a constant fatigue that comes with acting like a prince, where even conversations with those at court who fancy me one of them become too exhausting to stay awake for. When I’m on board the Saad, I barely sleep. I never seem to be tired enough. There’s a constant thrumming and pulsing. Zaps like lightning that shoot through my veins. I’m alert, always, and so filled with anxious excitement that while the rest of my crew sleeps, I lie on the deck and count stars.

I make shapes of them, and from those shapes I make stories. Of all the places I have been and will be. Of all the seas and oceans I’ve yet to visit and the men I’ve yet to recruit and the devils I’ve yet to slay. The thrill of it never stops, even when the seas become deadly. Even as I hear the familiar song that strikes my soul and makes me believe in love like it’s the first time. The danger only makes me thirstier.

As Elian Midas, crown prince and heir to the Midasan throne, I’m more than a little dull. My conversations are about state and riches and which ball to attend and which lady has the finer dress and if there are any I think are worth a tumble. Each time I dock at Midas and am forced to play the part feels like time lost. A month, a week, a day I can’t get back. An opportunity missed, or a life not saved. One more royal I may as well have fed to the Princes’ Bane.

But when I’m just Elian, captain of the Saad, I transform. When the boat docks on whatever isle I’ve chosen for the day, as long as I have my crew, I can be myself. Drink until I’m dizzy and joke with women whose skin feels warm with exploits. Women who smell of rose and barley and, on hearing I’m a prince, cackle and tell me it won’t earn me a free drink.

“Cap?” asks Kye. “State the play.”

I jog up the steps to the forecastle deck, pull the golden telescope from my belt loop and press it to my kohl-rimmed eyes. At the edge of the bowsprit, I see ocean. For miles and miles. Eons, even. Nothing but clear water. I lick my lips, hungry for the thrill of more.

There’s royalty in me, but stronger than that there is adventure. Unseemly, my father had said, for the Midasan heir to have a rusted knife, or set sail into open waters and disappear for months at a time, or be nineteen and still not have a suitable wife, or wear hats shaped like triangles and rags with loose string in place of gold thread.

Unseemly, to be a pirate and a siren hunter in place of a prince.

I sigh and turn to face the bow. So much ocean, but in the distance, too far to make out, there is land. There is the isle of Midas. There is home.

I look down to my crew. Two hundred sailors and warriors who see my quest as honorable and brave. They don’t think of me like those at court, who hear my name and imagine a young prince who needs to get exploration out of his system. These men and women heard my name and pledged their undying allegiance.

“Okay, you ragtag group of siren gizzards,” I call down to them, “turn the lady left.”

My crew roars their approval. In Midas, I make sure they’re pampered with as much drink and food as they like. Full bellies and beds with silken sheets. Far more luxury than they’re used to sleeping on in the Saad, or on the hay-filled beds of inns we find on passing lands.

“My family will want to see how we’ve fared,” I tell them. “We’re going home.”