To Kill a Kingdom(97)

And beside that, a dream.

The ocean glitters as though crystallized, and a human ship stops halfway through its journey, no land in sight for miles. The tired and bedraggled crew leaps off the edge of their vessel, feeling the soft wind butterfly on their skin before they hit the water. Sirens hover nearby but don’t attack. They aren’t hunting or assessing, but watching in a haphazard kind of harmony.

Peace.

“Give me the eye,” the Sea Queen demands, breaking me from my trance.

I close my hand around it. “I’d rather kill you instead.”

Elian lets out a breath, amusement and surprise and something far too close to pride. I shoot him a look and then turn back to the Sea Queen, as resolute as this new strength allows.

“You don’t have that kind of power,” she says.

“Oh, but you’re wrong.” I give her a smile to start wars. Or maybe to end them. “You see, it wasn’t the prince who freed the eye from its chamber, Mother. It was me.”

When she screams, the mountain shakes.

I’m her worst nightmare come true. The daughter she was always so reluctant to let take her crown, primed to usurp her. It hits me now that she has no power over me. For the first time, we’re on even footing. Each with the eye of a goddess, and each with the somewhat wavering loyalty of our kin. There’s an army in these waters, but their allegiance could pass between us so easily. They could choose my side as readily as hers.

The Sea Queen snarls a glance to her left and lets out a vicious roar of Psáriin. Her throat strains and throbs, and in moments a slice of gray swipes across my vision.

It takes me a moment to realize that Elian is gone.

I whip my head to face the vast body of water behind me, scanning with my hunter’s eyes. There’s a blinding flash of movements, so swift and barbaric that even I have to pause to narrow in on the sight.

Elian is in the center of the moat, surrounded by sirens who foam at the mouth when his scent salts the water. They drift toward him, but when they get too close, he’s jerked violently to the side. Pulled farther into the distance by the scruff of his shirt.

My breath shudders through me as I stare at his attacker.

The Flesh-Eater.

His shark tail is thick, gray, ribbed and spotted like a virus slowly devouring him. Every bit the demon I remember, with the face of a true killer. His features lie flat, eyes like gaping holes in his head and lips a mere slice across his face. They are marked by crusted orange, from whoever he has eaten in battle.

The Flesh-Eater grins, saliva clinging between the lines of his shark teeth, cutlass tail primed by my prince’s heart.





41


Lira


I’M PINNED IN PLACE by half a dozen arms. The sirens flank me, nails braced on my skin. The Flesh-Eater is deadly enough in the wilderness of the ocean with the mermen who live in brutal solitude, but he’s most dangerous here. Under the Sea Queen’s command.

I pant, fighting the sirens, but it’s no use against so many, and with Elian’s crew meandering hypnotically to the side, he’ll be torn apart by the Flesh-Eater in minutes.

The eye sparks in my palm. The dark magic calls, begging for me to surrender to it. Obliterate every enemy in my way. It sings with the same vengeful lust that my mother has. But to give into it would mean following my mother’s path, and I can’t allow that. It’d only prove to the others that I’m just like her and every queen who came before. If they’re going to swear their allegiance to me, then it has to be because of something other than fear.

“Let me save him,” I say.

I half-turn to see the Sea Queen slither closer to me, tentacles weaving through her soldiers. “You really think I would allow you to rescue him?”

“I’m not talking to you,” I hiss.

Her deadly face tightens. “The sirens don’t follow you,” she says. “I am their queen.”

“Not by choice,” I tell her. I look back at the sirens who trap me. “Is this how you want to continue on? Fighting and dying whenever she tells you to, knowing your lives mean nothing if they don’t help her in some way?”

“Shut your mouth!”

The Sea Queen thrashes a tentacle out toward me. My neck cracks to the side as she strikes, drawing a thin red line on my cheekbone. I feel the sirens loosen their grip, shocked by her outburst.

“This is your chance,” I continue on, more fearless than I have the right to be. “If you follow me, I’ll put an end to this once and for all. You can be free.”

The Sea Queen raises another tentacle. “You little bitch,” she says.

And then—

“Free?”

One of the sirens drops my wrist and combs a heap of deep blue hair from her face. “How would we be free?”

“Be quiet!” the Sea Queen barks.

“What would change?” another asks, her hold on me faltering.

“The world,” I answer honestly. “There could be peace.”

“Peace?” the Sea Queen arches an eyebrow. “With those filthy humans?”

The eye burns in my hand with every word she speaks. Just one movement and I could send a wave strong enough to knock her back half a mile. I could make her bleed right here, in front of them all.

“What does the Princes’ Bane care about peace?” a siren asks.