Kingdom of Salt and Sirens

by J. A. Armitage

  "There’s only one now," I said under my breath. "There’s only one line." I looked up at Djin and Paralda. "Does that mean I only have one day left now?"

  Doctor Zee picked up a fistful of sand and let it spill from his fingers. Paralda held out her hand, slowing the sand until it finally stopped, frozen in the shape of an Undine held above the water. But the sand above this did not stop. It expanded into a circle…a sun that kept expanding until it consumed the suspended Undine. Afterward, all the sand fell at once to the ground.

  Nicholas scooped up the fallen sand and let it slip through his fingers. "That was you, wasn’t it?" he asked quietly. "That was a message…I did this to you."

  …de earth will see ya, water child. It will see you and de fishy-man…I heard Mama Luz’s voice faintly on the water, washed away only by the sound of a slow, rolling laugh that blew over us on the breeze.

  "No," I said, beginning to shiver. "It was Reed. She was showing me what she would do to Reed."

  Paralda gripped my arm and lifted me to my feet with a strength I wouldn’t have anticipated given her long, delicate build. "It’s not safe for you here anymore, Cora. Or for your son of Eve."

  "What do you mean?" Nicholas asked, getting to his feet.

  "Consider it a warning," Djin said. "One day instead of two before she sends the hidden ones for you. For both of you now."

  "How do we stop them?" I asked, trying to keep my teeth from chattering.

  Nicholas didn’t give them a chance to answer. "How do you kill an immortal queen?"

  Doctor Zee helped us load the ship with the supplies he brought: food, clothes, some tools. If we were going to save Reed, we would need to sail back to the sandbar, back to the island where the Lawless first attacked Nicholas's ship. It was suicide with the Lawless Undine there just below the surface, but Paralda promised she would call up Sylphs in the form of winds to toss the sea once we were close enough, and Djin promised to call down Salamanders in the form of lightning.

  These ambassadors would help us sink Mama Luz’s barge, scattering everyone aboard beneath the waves. If it worked, the Lawless Undine would be helpless to resist their natures. We only had to trust that the Elemental queens would be watching and would know when we needed them most.

  But if they didn’t do their part, we would be lost.

  "We need a backup plan to sink that boat,” I said as we hit the open water.

  Nicholas chuckled. "Exactly what I was thinking. I’m not counting on a magical thunderstorm to just appear when we need it."

  "I could do sink it… after I changed back," I said, my mind racing.

  He turned the steering wheel, making us arc away from Snake Island toward the darkening horizon. "Djin said the Gnomes would be coming. That the earth would see you."

  "But she also said I would turn back into an Undine when my last watermark disappeared," I added, remembering the flames dancing in the campfire as she described it to us. "The Gnomes don't know that I know this—they'll be expecting to find me on land, stranded and helpless."

  He shook his head adamantly at the horizon. "You would be alone in the water surrounded by the Lawless. It’s too much of a risk—unless…" He trailed off, then turned to me. "Unless I ram this boat into Luz’s barge and sink them both."

  "You think it’s better for you to be alone in the water, surrounded by the Lawless?" I asked, incredulous.

  "No…we can set the collision course and jump into a life raft in the opposite direction."

  "And then I can swim toward the wreckage…" I said, imagining. "The Lawless will be too busy attacking Luz and her minions to notice me as an Undine. I can free Reed…"

  "And I’ll row to the island," Nicholas nodded. "It would be over…" His eyes fixed on the horizon. "Where would you go then, Cora?"

  I wasn’t sure how to answer him. Nothing would be the same, even if everything went perfectly. There would be too many Lawless to subdue, especially in the long term. Even if we were able to get them to kill Mama Luz, the seeds of war had already been planted, and it would only be a matter of time before the conflict found us in the Southern Depths.

  How did this happened? I thought. How did the Undines drift so far apart…?

  15

  We sailed for the better part of the night, finally stopping on the far side of Scrapper Island, as Nicholas called it, although he said its real name was Samana Cay. In all the times I hid along the sandbar in The Shallows and watched the guards unload the prisoners, I never saw them come to the shore again. They just made their way into the forest as the soldiers instructed... No campfires, no one walking on the beach, I never even saw anyone fishing.

  "This is the eastern chip—the little cay," Nicholas explained as he let the boat drift toward the shore. "We'll anchor here for the night. Scrapper Island is a few hours that way on the other side of the straight, but I don't want to try to navigate that in the dark."

  He didn't explain, but he didn’t have to. Even if he were talking about avoiding the thickets of high-reaching coral beds between the islands, I couldn't help but think he must be feeling some hesitation at approaching this island again. The shallow waters here were my home, and all I could see was the carnage of the Lawless attacking his ship every time I closed my eyes.

  "How much farther is it to your land?" I asked, trying to clear my mind as we made our way to the ship's railing.

  He looked out on the black water. "Oh, we’re a good distance from The Grind."

  "That’s the name of your land? The Grind?"

  "Not officially." He laughed a little. "It’s just another way to say that it’s hard to get ahead there…to be successful. Maine isn’t what it used to be."

  "What’s Maine?"

  "I keep forgetting you’re…different," he said, still smiling. "Maine is a state—a piece of land—pretty far north. It would take about three months to sail there from here." He crossed to sit in the net strung up behind us and held out his arm to me. "Come on. It’s called a hammock. It's like a bed."

  "You sleep in that?"

  "Sure, come on."

  I made my way inside the netting, nearly falling out twice. "What's months?" I asked, finally still again.

  His dark eyebrows jumped. "Months? All right, months..." He nodded decidedly. "Months are time, you know? I guess three of them would be like ninety sunsets, if that makes sense?"

  I shook my head, confused, but not about how long he meant. "Ninety? But you were already in...Maine when the guard put me on your boat, and it hadn't been that many sunsets since…" I trailed off, not wanting to bring up the unfortunate circumstances surrounding our first meeting.

  He took in a deep breath and turned his eyes toward the sea. "I’d sent a distress signal before the attack got out of hand," he said evenly. "Two, helicopters—um...flying ships with long blades on top. They were at Scrapper Island the next day to take my crew back to Maine."

  "I've seen…helicopters before. There are several beyond the boundary waters," I added, intending to offset the heaviness, but only wound up adding to it.

  He nodded. "This area is known for that," he said seriously. "It's one corner of the Bermuda Triangle. Planes, helicopters, ships—something just...swallows them." He turned to me, his eyes full of questions he wasn't asking, but it was clear what he wanted to know.

  "The Lawless brought down several ships in my lifetime alone, both from the water and from the skies," I confessed to him. "It's the song they sing."

  He narrowed his eyes, but not in anger. "Planes?"

  "It would take a school of Undines for the sound to reach it, but it could, depending on the size of the school. It could travel the length of several hundred whales."

  "Maybe through the water, but…” Nicholas started, then shook his head and seemed to abandon the thought. He pushed his free hand through his dark hair and closed his eyes. "Anyway…” He sighed. "Since Maine is a three-month trip, how did you appear on the Weigh Station barge a few days after you saved me? You co
uldn’t have swum that fast."

  I didn't answer him right away. Instead, I just listened to him breathe until I could think of the simplest thing to tell him. At this point, it wound up being the truth.

  "I wish I knew," I said, not sure if it was even loud enough for him to hear me. "Mama Luz put me in a rowboat with one of her minions. He rowed into a fog, and we came out the other side on the shore of your…Maine Grind land."

  He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "So much doesn't make any sense. I keep wondering what else is out there now. What else has been there the whole time, and I never even knew."

  I nodded because I felt the same way.

  "I didn't even know the Sylph and Salamander Elementals existed, let alone that the queens were immortal. I thought my mother was just telling stories of our past about the Gnomes, but she was actually there. She was part of them." I said, one thought crashing into the next like a wave that was starting to fall. "I don't know what that means for me—if I'm like them, immortal...or if I'm something else. What if there are no others like me?" I thought out loud.

  He stroked my cheek, the moonlit water reflecting in his eyes when I turned to him. He smiled slowly and lowered his forehead to mine. "No one could be like you, Cora. I couldn't have imagined you if I'd tried."

  I forced myself to be still because I knew if I even thought about moving, maybe if I even breathed, it would be the end of everything.

  I hadn't realized I'd fallen asleep until I heard a whale echo, but it was so distant I wondered if I'd only dreamed it. I opened my eyes to a smoke-colored sky, not quite morning, but no longer the pitch of night. The echo came again, and this time, I was sure I was awake.

  I raised my head to scan the deck, and carefully stood up when Nicholas turned to his side. I walked toward the railing, pulled by the whale song, which wasn't a distress call. It was an announcement. Something to say, I'm coming.

  I gripped the railing and peered into the dark water below, but I didn’t hear the echo again. Instead, a hand wrapped around my mouth from behind as another wrapped around my arms, pinning them to my sides.

  "Don’t scream!" a voice whisper-yelled in my ear. "It’s all right. It’s all right now…"

  I struggled against the vise closing around me, but the arms just lifted me off my feet. I instinctively tried to sweep my captor’s legs out with my tail but only wound up flailing my own legs backward. I bent forward as hard and as quickly as I could, which flipped the man over my shoulder and against the railing.

  "Nicholas!" I shouted as I ran back toward the hammock, but three of Mama Luz’s Gnomes were already struggling to bind his arms.

  "Cora! Get off the boat!" he shouted, but there was no way I was going to abandon him. I started to run toward the Gnomes. If I could knock one of them down, it would give Nicholas a chance to see what he was fighting. I only got about two or three strides when I was pulled off my feet by a strong arm that almost crushed my ribs as it squeezed the air from my chest.

  I struggled again, but in the process, we fell over the railing and into the water. We hit hard, the skim feeling like the decking of a ship against my face and arms. My ears rang, and nausea bloomed in my chest as water rushed down my throat.

  The freezing burn of the water ignited all over my skin again, a hundred thousand little stabbing sensations all at once, and we just kept sinking farther and farther down until I felt the scraping of a coral bed against my thigh.

  I screamed involuntarily, losing any remaining air I had as the arm around my waist tightened again, jerking me up and up and up until I broke through the skim. I coughed, gasping for breath, but there was no chance to get my bearings as I was pulled to the shoreline with the same force as if I’d been caught in a net. I tried to twist again, but found my legs and hips pinned over a someone’s shoulder. My arms were free, so I clenched my hands into fists and began beating at the body that was apparently carrying me. It was like hitting a rock wall and did about the same amount of damage to it. I tried to push against it, to launch myself back into the sea, but even with the slippery water, there was no breaking free of the arms closed over the backs of my legs.

  "Nicholas!" I shouted, hoping I would hear him reply. Hoping the Gnomes hadn’t managed to subdue him, but I didn’t hear anything but my own shouting.

  The man carrying me fell onto the beach, and whatever wind I had left was knocked out of me when I fell hard on the sand. I coughed violently, gasping for air that wouldn’t enter my lungs. My throat burned. Everything burned.

  "Cora…listen.” I heard my name, breathless from the man hovering over me, pinning my arms to the ground.

  I gasped again, trying to summon enough air to shout in his face, but nothing came. Partly out of panic, I drove my knees up and into his side, knocking him free of me. I scrambled to my feet and turned back toward the water, hoping I could find my way in the dark…hoping there was a dragnet on the side of the boat. I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember anything.

  I was almost to the water when I was pulled off my feet again, this time, backward onto the sand. The man crawled over me, his weight pinning my hips to the ground. He pressed my shoulders into the sand so hard it felt like rods had been driven through them straight into the earth.

  "No!" I shouted because it was the only word I had enough breath left to form.

  "Cora! Cora, it’s all right! Please, just listen!”

  I stopped struggling. He’d said my name. He’d said it on the ship, I realized, but I hadn’t really heard him then. Mama Luz’s minions didn’t talk. They never talked. They were strong like this man, but they didn’t speak.

  "Who are you?" I choked. "Get off me!"

  I bucked under him with the last remnant of strength I could find. It wasn’t enough to have moved him, but he moved anyway and sat at my side. He pushed his light hair from his face and gripped my shoulders.

  I saw the shape of him before I recognized him. His angular face, his fair skin—his nearly white hair and eyebrows and long, sharp nose. His wide mouth was held open, panting for breath with no trace of the smirk I’d come to know. He didn’t wear a shirt, and his broad chest, his arms, every part of him seemed carved and fixed in stone there on the beach.

  Moonlight glinted off a small glass bead of some kind that was hooked to the spear strap across his chest. His torn half-pants were bunched and wrinkled in the folds of his hips, and his legs—his legs—were rounded with woven muscles that flexed and hardened as I watched them pull under his body when he leaned toward me. He shook my shoulders and met my eyes. His, piercing and bright green as he searched my face.

  "Cora…" he said, this time softly.

  I blinked, and then I blinked again. "Reed?" I whispered.

  "Yes, yes…" he laughed, his deep voice breaking as he pulled me into him, crushing my ribs again. He loosened his grip when he felt the air rush out of me, then brought his hands to my face. "Sorry… It’s just different…moving like this. Are you all right?"

  I didn’t know what to say. There were so many questions that I couldn’t even extract one from the churning mangle of them in my brain. I shook my head at him in wild disbelief. "Reed…?" I said, still not sure anything in front of me was real.

  "It’s me, Cora. It’s me. I’m here." I stared at him, touched his face. His hand covered mine and pressed my palm flat against his cheek. "We can go home now," he said, moving his other hand into my hair. “Do you trust me?” I nodded, and he leaned in, drawing me to him until his lips pressed gently to mine.

  16

  Reed pulled back slowly, and I wasn’t sure what was happening. I didn’t even know what to ask him because we were only…friends, soldiers…weren’t we?

  “Sorry,” he whispered, his hand still in my hair. His other hand folded around mine and brought it to his chest. "I had to do that to start everything over—I mean…not like I wouldn't have… It was just…"

  I shook my head to stop his babbling. He was here. Here. And he was aliv
e.

  "What are you talking about?” I asked, still a little dizzy. “Start what over?" I asked, trying to get my bearings again. “Are you all right? How are you here?"

  He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. "Mama Luz knows where you are, Cora. Earlier today, a wave came from nowhere and hit her ship. It gave me my strength back, and I’d almost cut myself free, but then she started ranting about how she was going to find a way to kill you—she said you’d cost her the Undine Guard if Mara found out that you were helping the captain now," he rambled, then looked down at the sand. "I pretended to be angry about it," he added, but from the tone of his voice, I didn't completely believe he had pretended anything. "I didn’t know where to find you, so I told her to send me to kill him. That’s all Mara wanted, right?”

  “You were with the Gnomes just now? Where did they take him, Reed?"

  He shook his head at me like he was struggling to understand, but then he abandoned trying. "They’re holding him on the boat. Cora, are you listening to me?"

  "Why would Mama Luz have agreed to this after Mara insisted on sending me? Mama Luz could have killed him herself if his death is all that mattered."

  "No, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. She can’t kill anything and neither can her Gnomes. She was screaming at the sky about it after the wave hit—she needs the Undines, Cora. We’re hunters, the Gnomes are farmers. They’re not able to kill."

  "She never could have killed you?" I whispered.

  "Apparently not, but she can make us suffer. I don’t know the whole story, but she was desperate to end all this before Mara brought back the Guard from the Southern Depths. I don't think Mama Luz plans to tell her how it all went down."

  "How all what went down? You're not making any sense!"