To Kill a Kingdom(45)

He doesn’t look at me again before he turns to weave his way through the market and toward Kye. I catch a brief glimpse of them standing together and then, just like that, they disappear into the crowd.

IT TAKES ME THE better part of an hour to find the Reoma Putoder. I don’t ask for help, partly because my pride can’t take another human rescuing me. Mostly, because my patience can’t take another human talking to me. I’ve already been stopped over a dozen times by locals offering me food and warmer clothing, as though I need it in this sweltering heat. There’s something about a girl wandering alone in a wrinkled dress and old pirate boots that unnerves them.

I bet ripping out their hearts would be more unnerving.

The Reoma Putoder is a waterfall with a pure white lagoon that, somewhere far in the distance, leaks into the ocean. I heard it before I saw it, lost in the endless bakery alleyways, the smell of pastries clinging to my skin like perfume. It sounded like thunder and there were a few hesitant seconds when I thought for sure that was what it was. But the closer I got, the more recognizable the sound was. Water so powerful that it sent shudders through me.

I sit quietly at the base of the waterfall, my legs hanging over the edge of the lagoon. It’s so warm that every now and again I have to take my feet out and let them rest against the dewy grass. At the bottom of the water, sitting on sand that looks akin to snow, there are thousands of red metal coins. They peek out from the shingle like tiny droplets of blood.

I thumb the seashell. Pressing it to my ear brings nothing but unbearable silence. I’ve been trying ever since Elian left me in the marketplace. On the walk to the waterfall, I held it against me desperately, hoping that with time it would speak to me again. There were a few moments when I almost tricked myself into thinking that I could hear the echo of a wave. The rumble of a sea storm. My mother’s bubbling laughter. Really, the only sound was the ringing of my ears. All of that power, gone. A tease of my own self dangled in front of me just long enough for the thirst to return. I wonder if it’s another one of my mother’s tricks. Let me keep the shell so she can taunt me with the echoes of my destroyed legacy.

I grip it tighter. I want to feel it splinter into my skin. Crack and crumble to nothing. But when I open my hand, it’s intact, undamaged, and all that remains is an indent in my palm. With a scream, I raise my arm high above my head and throw the shell into the water. It lands with an anticlimactic plop and then sinks leisurely to the bottom. I can see every moment of its slow descent until it finally settles against the water bed.

Then there is a glow. Faint at first, but it soon scatters into orbs and embers. I inch back. In all the time I’ve used the seashells to communicate with sirens, or even as a compass to my kingdom, I’ve rarely seen this. It calls out as though it can sense my desperation, reaching into the waters to search for another of my kind. Instead of a map, it’s acting as a beacon.

And then, in almost no time at all, Kahlia appears. My cousin’s blond hair is swiped across the water, falling into her face so that her eyes fail to meet mine.

I jump to my feet. “Kahlia,” I say with astonishment. “You’re here.”

She nods and holds out her hand. Resting against her long, spiny fingers is my seashell. She throws it onto the grass by my feet. “I heard your call,” she says quietly. “Do you have the prince’s heart yet?”

I frown as her head stays bowed. “What’s the matter?” I ask. “Can’t you look at me now?”

When Kahlia does nothing but shake her head, I feel a pang. She once admired me so venomously that it drove my mother to hate her. My entire life Kahlia remained the only one in our kingdom who I thought to care about and now she can’t even look me in the eye.

“It’s not that,” Kahlia says, like she senses my thoughts.

She lifts her head and there’s a tenuous smile on her thin pink lips as she fiddles uncharacteristically with the seaweed bodice around her chest. She takes in my human form and rather than look scared or disgusted, she only looks curious. She cocks her head. Her milk-yellow eye is wide and glistening. But her other eye, the one that matches my own so perfectly, is shut and bruised black.

I grit my teeth, grinding bone on bone. “What happened?”

“There had to be a punishment,” she says.

“For what?”

“For helping you kill the Adékarosin prince.”

I take an outraged step forward, feet teetering on the edge of the lagoon. “I took that punishment.”

“The brunt of it,” Kahlia says. “Which is why I’m still alive.”

A chill runs through me. I should have known my mother couldn’t be satiated with punishing one siren when she could have two. Why make me suffer alone? It’s a lesson she’s taught me so often before. First with Crestell and now with her daughter.

“The Sea Queen is entirely too merciful,” I say.

Kahlia offers me a meek smile. “Does the prince still have his heart?” she asks. “If you bring it back, this will be over. You can come home.”

The desperate hope in her voice makes me flinch. She’s scared to return to the Diávolos Sea without me, because if I’m not there, then nobody will protect her from my mother.

“When we first met, I was too weak from almost drowning to kill him.”

Kahlia grins. “What is he like?” she asks. “Compared to the others?”