Kingdom of Salt and Sirens

by J. A. Armitage

  "Are you all right?" he asked.

  I pulled in a deep breath, which still ached a little to do. "Yes, thank you. Just a little anxious about someone taking us away from this place," I said, which wasn’t entirely untrue.

  "I won’t let that happen." He stood next to me for another few seconds, then bent to catch my eyes. "I promise."

  I smiled at him. "Nicholas… Why did you help me? Not just on your ship, but at the Weigh Station. You even stayed in line with me."

  He let his eyes fall to the sea underneath us. "I suppose I wanted more time," he finally said, then seemed to be searching for something in my expression. "More time just to be sure."

  "Of what?"

  "Well, that's the funny part." He laughed. "When you asked me earlier if I had been traveling when I was gone… My ship was attacked a few days before. My whole crew, lost, except for me."

  "I'm so sorry," I said, not as a general gesture the way someone might, but because I felt responsible even though I’d tried to stop the Lawless from attacking.

  He leaned on the railing, dripping as he gazed out again on the water. "The Citadel thought I was in shock when I told them what really happened. When I stuck to my story, they wanted to send me to some psychiatric hospital," he added, laughing again and shaking his head. "I wasn't about to do that, so I told them what they wanted to hear."

  "What did you tell them?" I asked.

  "That some of the men fell asleep on their watch, and a prisoner set off a bomb in the stockade transport below deck. The boat sank, and then the sharks came."

  "No, I mean about what really happened. What was it they wouldn't believe?"

  He looked up me, studying me as if to gauge if he could trust me.

  No…to gauge if I would believe him.

  "There are stories sailors tell. I've been Captain of the Guard for eight years. Been a sailor since I was sixteen. I always just thought they were stories until I saw them with my own eyes."

  "What did you see?" I asked, holding his guarded gaze.

  "Mermaids," he finally said with the last of a breath. "But they weren't like the storybooks, or even the sailor stories. They were…vicious." He pulled in a deep breath and blew it out over the sea. "My men were stupid," he said, shaking his head again. "It's like they were possessed or something, actually climbing over each other to get down to the water. And when they did..." He trailed off. "Well, they just didn't come back."

  "I'm so sorry," I repeated, wishing I could find a way to reverse the whole thing.

  "Two of the mermaids seemed to be caught in the crossfire of it all. A child—if that's what you even call it—and an older one, my age, it seemed. That one looked at me like she would only kill me if I hurt the child." He spoke absently to the water, lost in memory.

  "How could you tell?" I risked asking.

  “It was a look in her eyes," he answered. "I've only ever seen it in other soldiers. It was a look that said she would die before she'd surrender." He turned to me then, his eyes fixed on mine, but softer. Searching. "I guess I helped you at the Weigh Station because I saw the same look in your eyes when the medic told you that you weren't like the others—when it seemed she would take you away."

  “I didn’t want to go to the prison island,” I said too quickly.

  “And your tattoos,” he added, moving his hands lightly over my shoulders. “She had some that were similar, right here, in the same place you do.”

  He leaned in, his black hair dripping over his chest as he raised his hand to my cheek. I felt his warm breath on my lips, felt his other hand slide around to the small of my back and pull me closer. His thumb moved over my bottom lip, and all at once it was like a bolt of lightning flashed in my mind. The feeling of Mama Luz's fingers pressing the white powder over my mouth…I felt it all over again—saw her all over again sprinkle the jar of it into the sea.

  I pulled away abruptly, confused. I'd ruined the chance to save Reed, to go home, and who knew if there would be another opportunity now before my time was up?

  "I’m…so sorry." Nicholas pushed his hands through his dark hair and reached for his white shirt, which stuck to his wet skin when he put it on.

  "No, don't be. I'm sorry," I stammered, unsure of what to say next until I saw a fluttering in the water several lengths out. "That startled me," I lied. "Do you see that?"

  But even more intriguing was the sound of singing Undine just beneath the skim. It started like a breeze through the dense foliage, wispy and blended until it evolved into a stronger, deeper, thrum. They were hunting.

  "I do see it," Nicholas whispered as he reached for the fishing rod. "When it’s agitated like that, it’s called nervous water. There’s a school of bonefish feeding right there," he added, checking the fly at the end of the line, then cocking an eyebrow at me. "Let’s give them what they want."

  Everything inside me wanted to pull the rod from his hands and throw it across the deck, but I wasn’t afraid for the Undine that I knew were below. I was afraid for him—for us—and it was the realization that I was now aligned with him instead of the Undine that paralyzed me.

  He held the rod high over our heads and whipped it forward. The fly sailed far into the distance and landed in the center of the agitation—in the center of the unsuspecting fray that I knew would vanish as quickly as it had appeared not because the fish had been feeding, but because they had been surrounded and driven into the shallow waters. There, the Undine hid in the refractions of light, closing around the fish until there was nowhere left for them to go. A few seconds later, it was over.

  "Why do you call it nervous water?" I asked when the agitation abruptly stopped. "Why do you call it a feeling?"

  Nicholas pulled in his line with an audible sigh of disappointment. "I haven't really thought about it before," he said, casting the line again. "I suppose part of it just looks like it's trembling from up here. Like it's afraid." He laughed. "I don't know. It's just an expression."

  I nodded, watching the skim for flashes of silver or slices of smooth, glassy black, but I didn't see or hear another trace of the Undine.

  "It is afraid," I whispered to myself. "And it should be."

  12

  I wrestled with my thoughts the whole way back to the marina.

  We were far from Mama Luz’s barge, I was sure. The Undine I’d just heard couldn't have been from Mara’s clan, nor could they have known about the Gnome Queen’s demands of me. They must have known the boat was occupied when the fly hit the water, but they didn’t attack.

  They didn’t attack, I thought. And maybe that meant Mama Luz’s pending war with the humans wasn’t as widely spread as Mara had made it seem.

  Nicholas had caught four large bonefish by the time we returned to the marina, where Doctor Zee was ashore waiting for us in the thinning grass with a large crate and a bag.

  "Anything biting out there?" he called to us. Nicholas held the string of fish out the window, the engine sputtering as it turned off. Doctor Zee beamed at us as he lit the wood he’d apparently built up while he waited for us to return to shore.

  "Look at all this! I didn’t realize we were gone that long," Nicholas said as we approached. He nodded to the crate and the fire.

  "I may be old," Doctor Zee chuckled. "But I’m efficient."

  "Thank you for helping us," I said, noticing that the items in the crate were different instruments, but not like the ones I’d seen back in the infirmary—these looked like they were used to fix machines, not people. The bag was also nearly spilling over with colorful vegetables.

  "I should be thanking you," Doctor Zee said. "We’ve had good rains this year, and my garden has developed a mind of its own, but I can only eat so many salads."

  Nicholas gave a casual smile. "Well, it’s very generous of you."

  "De nada." Doctor Zee patted Nicholas's hand, then turned abruptly to greet two older women approaching from the clearing of grass behind the marina where the old green car was parked. Something about them
made my skin prickle.

  One of the women was pale, tall, and thin with silver flowing hair and eyes like the sky with a storm on the horizon. She wore a long black sweater over a faded gray dress, embroidered in two columns down the front like Doctor Zee’s shirt.

  The other woman was darker-complected, her smoke-black hair swept up and pinned into a bun that peeked over the top of her head. Her green eyes flashed against her skin, and her painted red lips were tacked in a smile to one side. She removed a thin, yellow shawl from her shoulders and extended her hand to Doctor Zee.

  "Damas…que placer," he said, bending to kiss it.

  "The pleasure is ours, Alonzo," the first woman said, her accent sharp where the doctor's was smooth—harsh and abrupt where his was rich and rolling.

  The darker woman's eyes flashed when she saw the fire, and she quickly moved to the seat Nicholas was unfolding for her.

  "Well, now it's a pleasure," she said, her accent a strange blend of the other two.

  "Djin…" Doctor Zee held her hand as he turned to us. "Nicholas, Cora, may I present my dear friends, Djin and Paralda."

  "Gin? Like the drink?" Nicholas asked.

  "If you must make the comparison, yes. The D is silent." Djin glowered at him. "You call this a tropical island, Alonzo?" she asked, moving her seat even closer to the fire than it already was.

  "I think the breeze is lovely," Paralda said, her silver hair blowing off her shoulders and streaming behind her as if she had somehow called up the wind for just that effect. She took a seat and met my eyes. "Alonzo has told us so much about you."

  "He has?" Now I was confused. We’d only just met him today.

  Doctor Zee cleared his throat and gestured to the line of fish Nicholas had hung from the side of the empty chair that was waiting for him. "It looks like the waters were generous."

  "For a little while." Nicholas nodded. "Until every fish in the area seemed to disappear." He took the fish off the line and arranged them on a thin piece of wood that Doctor Zee passed to him along with a small bucket of water, which he used to begin cleaning the fish. "Do you ladies live here on Snake Island?"

  Djin and Paralda exchanged glances, both looking like they were trying to restrain their laughter.

  "We were just visiting," Paralda said, her silver hair still seeming to blow behind her, even though the breeze had died down. "Alonzo was kind enough to ask us to dinner on our last evening here. We'll be leaving tonight."

  "Where are you from?" Nicholas asked as he folded the fillets in a metallic wrapping and placed them in the fire, one of them slipping down between two pieces of wood.

  "Sometimes here, sometimes there," Djin said, reaching into the fire with her bare hand to retrieve the fish. A piece of flaming wood buckled over her wrist, but no one seemed to have noticed, even though they'd been looking directly at her.

  "Cora?" Nicholas asked, startling me. "Cora, what’s wrong?"

  "You didn’t see that? You didn't see her…" I didn’t need to finish the question when I saw the look on his face. The only thing that had surprised him was my reaction. I glanced at Doctor Zee and the two women to find all three of them looking at me…studying me.

  "Didn’t see what?" Nicholas asked. "Cora, are you all right?”

  I turned back to him. "I’m fine… It’s nothing—just the shadows from the firelight," I lied, the feeling to get away from Djin and Paralda nearly overwhelming. "I think I’m just tired."

  "You’ve barely eaten anything today. Here," he said, taking the wrapped fish from the fire with a metal tool. He placed it on another flat piece of wood and handed it to me. "Be careful. It’s still hot," he added, opening the wrapping with a series of quick tugs along the edges.

  Steam rose from the fish, blurring my vision of it for a few seconds.

  Paralda leaned closer to me and began waving her hand over the steam. "What a catch, don’t you think, Djin?" she said, leaning back in her seat. I jumped out of mine and fell backward at the sight of the fish, only it wasn’t fish. It was the severed forearm of an Undine—the webbed fingers, the razor-edged fin running along the outer bone. I gasped for breath as my throat started to close.

  "Cora!" Nicholas rushed to my side and lifted me back to my feet. "What happened?"

  My chest burned with the effort to regulate my breaths. My throat and chest ached with the instinct to pull in water—I needed to relax. I had to focus.

  "I'm all right." I managed to choke out the words. Paralda smirked at me, and Djin raised an inky eyebrow and picked up the fish I had dropped from the sand. It was a fish… I thought. But it hadn’t been. "The steam just burned my eyes."

  "Tsk, tsk. Be careful, child," Doctor Zee said, crossing to get a better look at my face. "You can never be too careful around fire."

  Djin laughed quietly under her breath. "Or apparently, air," she said, nodding to Paralda, who almost seemed...proud?

  "Can you see all right?" Nicholas asked as Doctor Zee examined my face. I stepped back, out of everyone's reach.

  "Yes, like I said I'm fine," I said, too curtly. Everyone was staring at me.

  "What are you doing so far from your people, water child?" Djin asked, and I nearly fell down again in shock.

  "What?" I shook my head at her.

  "Water child?" Nicholas asked, looking just as confused as I felt.

  "It doesn’t matter. She was bitten by a feral. It's begun," Doctor Zee said, then turned to me. "That bite you had on your arm…where did you get it?"

  "I told you—the water."

  "That bite doesn't come from anything in the water," he said, looking down his long, broad nose at me.

  "What's all this about? Did you say feral?" Nicholas asked, moving to my side again.

  Doctor Zee went back to his seat. "You got yourself mixed up in a mess, muchacho." He sighed.

  Nicholas took a step toward him. "There have been attacks back home. The news reports are calling them feral attacks."

  "Who put you on land, child?" Paralda asked before Doctor Zee could answer.

  Djin rolled her eyes. "It was Ghob, of course! Why waste any more time asking these questions?"

  "She insists we call her Luz," Doctor Zee said with a smirk. "It’s been near to a century now.”

  "Luz?" Djin’s angular face pinched and tightened like she’d just eaten something rotten. "As in light?"

  The doctor nodded. "Mother Light, actually."

  Djin and Paralda exchanged incredulous looks and nearly fell out of their chairs laughing. They forcibly had to stop themselves so they could catch their breath.

  "Are you…the only of her clan left…who knows her true name then?" Djin asked between sputters of laughter.

  Alonzo snorted. "Why do you think I’m banished to this island?"

  The two women erupted in laughter again, and Nicholas grabbed a stick from the fire. He held it at them like a blade.

  "Who are you?" he asked, turning from the women to brandish the charred stick at Doctor Zee. "And who are you really?"

  Djin coughed on the remains of her laughter, then pulled the smoldering stick from Nicholas’s grasp and started eating the glowing end of it.

  "Alonzo, tell this son of Eve to respect his elders," Paralda said as she returned to her folding chair.

  The doctor heaved another sigh and turned to her. "Do you know how tiresome it is to always be right?" he asked. "I warned you. Did I not warn you? I said she would do it on her own."

  "I must confess, I'm shocked that Necksa would have aligned with her."

  "My mother has nothing to do with Luz!" I shouted instinctively, but regretted it when Nicholas turned to me, his surprise making me realize what I'd just said.

  He held up his palms and took a few steps back from all of us. "Someone better start explaining."

  I stood between Nicholas and the others, unsure what to say or do next. You had one job, Cora…I heard Reed's words echoing in my mind.

  "Necksa has an heir?" Paralda asked the others. "How
did she manage an heir? Who's your father, child?" she asked me, but I was tired of this game.

  "How do you know me? How do you know about us!?" I shouted.

  The fire flared high into the air, and Paralda's voice rang in every direction like the roar of a wave. "Who is your father!?"

  "He died in the Gnome War!" I answered, but I had no control over the words. It was like they were just pulled directly from me.

  "The Gnome War!?" Djin laughed out loud as the fire receded. "Do you know of the Sylphs? The Salamanders?"

  I shook my head hesitantly, and Djin laughed again.

  "Outrage," Paralda hissed. "Did you know about this, Alonzo? Did you know Necksa told her Undines nothing of the Dawning?"

  "How would I have known such a thing?" Doctor Zee answered.

  Nicholas turned abruptly and walked toward the ship. "That’s it. The shrinks were right. I’m going back," he rambled. "I’m telling them to put me in that psych ward like they should have insisted on doing in the first place. What kind of fool believes a prisoner could have brought a bomb on my ship? They’re all fools! I’m a fool!" he continued ranting until he boarded the boat, and I couldn’t hear him anymore.

  I turned back to the women and Doctor Zee, unsure of what to do next—I was caught in the between place of coming and going, frozen.

  Furious.

  Terrified.

  Djin groaned and waved two fingers in the air, then met my eyes again. "Your son of Eve will find the engine overheated. Don’t worry, water child," she sighed, then narrowed her eyes at me. "Now, tell us why you’re here."

  13

  I ran after Nicholas, leaving Djin, Paralda, and Doctor Zee around the campfire. My head was spinning with everything they’d said…they called Mama Luz Ghob? What were the Sylphs and Salamanders? I had so many questions, but they would have to wait.

  I ran onto the boat after Nicholas, but didn’t see him at first. He wasn’t behind the controls, so I turned to go below deck. I didn’t get two steps down before running directly into him, nearly knocking him backward. He caught my waist and fell against the wall.