Kingdom of Salt and Sirens

by J. A. Armitage

  He pulled the sheath of his short spear to the front of his chest. "Look, just wait here for me, and then we can go home, all right?"

  "Wait for you?" I said, finally realizing what he was planning. "Do you think I'm just going to let you walk back onto that boat to kill him?"

  He narrowed his eyes at me, genuinely lost. "I kissed you to take that burden from you, Cora, but it will only last if that captain's blood hits the water after I kill him. I should have told you that in the first place, but I just—look…do you want to die here, stranded once Mama Luz changes us back to Undines? I'm taking you home." Reed pulled his short spear from its sheath and started for the boat.

  "Stop!" I jumped to my feet and stepped in front of him. "There are things you don’t know about Mama Luz! Can't you see this isn’t right?"

  He narrowed his eyes at me, confused and almost pleading as he shook his head. “What I see is you putting one human's life before your own. Before mine. Before all the Undines'. You’re the one who called his kind monsters. Now get out of my way so I can end this before we have a civil war on our hands.”

  "No!" I shouted again. "The humans are not what I thought. Not all of them anyway. None of this is the way we thought, Reed. The humans never wanted us to be their slaves. To them, we're the monsters, and it’s all because of Mama Luz!" I pressed my hands flat against his chest and pushed him back.

  "Even if that’s true, we don't have time right now to fix any of it, all right? Get out of my way, Cora! We’re running out of time!"

  I turned and ran for the boat. Reed was strong, but I knew he was still far from agile on his new legs. I didn't risk looking back to see if he was gaining on me, I just boarded the boat and pulled the stairs up behind me so he couldn't follow.

  The sun was starting to come up, and in the dim light, I saw the broken pieces of one of Mama Luz's creations. His limbs cracked, his body shattered to pieces like a crushed shell. I ran past it all toward the upper deck where I saw the other two slaves restraining Nicholas, one of them desperately trying to wrap a rope around his neck. I dove for that one’s legs, but he only stumbled as a jolt of pain ran through my shoulders.

  Nicholas flipped the slave behind him over his shoulder and tossed him into the one I’d tried to tackle. Both tumbled to the decking, and Nicholas wove the rope quickly around them. He hit something that looked like a small wheel, and the rope jerked them overboard as it brought up the dragnet. He quickly cut the rope, making Mama Luz's slaves drop to the water below.

  "Let's go!" Nicholas shouted as we moved back into the small control room. He started the ship engine, which screeched and rattled everything around us.

  "It didn't sound like that before!" I shouted over the noise.

  "It's the anchor. It must be caught on something.” Nicholas shook his head and pushed down on a lever next to the wheel. The engine screamed again, and with an abrupt jerk, we were moving freely.

  Fear lodged in my chest for Reed. I could only hope he was still too unfamiliar with his legs to have made his way back into the water so soon after I boarded the boat.

  "What happened?" I asked after a pause.

  "We either lost the anchor or that reef lost a branch," Nicholas answered, pushing the ship to full speed. The small island fell away in the distance, and with it, Reed.

  The sun broke over the horizon, and in the same instant, the last water marks on my throat started to burn.

  “What’s happening?” I yelled, my hands flying to them. Like the others, they, too, seemed to sink until there was nothing remaining but smooth skin, and I was terrified of what might happen next.

  "Are you all right!? Cora!" Nicholas reached for me with one hand while the other held fast to the wheel. I grabbed his hand, and he pulled me to him. "Can you talk!?"

  "Yes," I answered, the reality of my voice somehow calming the panic that just ripped through me. "It's gone…" I said to myself, trying to piece together what Reed had said back on the shore.

  "What's gone?" Nicholas shouted over the roaring engine. We were going so fast, the spray of the water hit the windows like it might break through, and the noise was almost deafening. I stretched to show him my throat, sure I wouldn't be able to speak loudly enough to explain. His hold around my waist loosened as his eyes widened, the blue igniting in the sunrise. He let me go, risking a glance at my legs, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing. I was out of time, and it was still two hours to Mama Luz's barge.

  Nicholas shifted a lever after a quick look behind us, and the boat slowed. There wasn’t much light yet, but there was enough to see that the island was barely visible now. The waters below us would be teeming with Lawless Undines, but as long as we didn’t slow down significantly, they couldn’t take the boat. At least, I didn’t think I would be susceptible to their echoes, which is what caused ships’ crews to stop monitoring their controls in the first place.

  "Are you all right?" he asked, scanning me.

  "I think so. The burning stopped, and I feel…the same," I answered, darting a glance at my legs.

  Nicholas let out a deep breath. "All right, good… Do you know why they attacked us now? We were supposed to have one more day."

  "Because Mama Luz knows I’m not going to kill you. Reed said a wave hit her ship, and she just started ranting about it."

  "Reed? Your lieutenant? The prisoner?"

  "Yes… He saw an opportunity when he heard her shouting about how she couldn’t actually kill anyone. It’s a long story, but Mama Luz can only kill others with the help of the Undines…” I trailed off, trying to decide how to say the rest carefully. “He came to kill you because I wouldn’t. That’s the only way Mama Luz can guarantee she’ll have control of our Guard. Mara, the Undine I saved you from that night, wants you dead."

  Nicholas’s dark eyebrows jumped. He pulled a hand down over his face and nodded. ”All right. But he’s your lieutenant. Why wouldn’t he just go rally your Guard himself against Mara and Mama Luz? Why wouldn’t he just take charge and stop all this?"

  I took a deep breath, feeling a wave of guilt rising in my stomach. "Because he came to find me…" I shook my head, remembering how he lost his promotion to squadron captain all because he came to find me for the ceremony. "He has this bad habit of doing that.”

  Nicholas was quiet at first but seemed to decide something after a minute.

  "Why didn’t you go with him?" he asked, glancing at me quickly. "This all could have been over for you."

  "Mama Luz is putting together an army of ferals on land, you heard Djin. There will be war above, and if Luz manages to take the Undines in the water, we’ll have a civil war below. There’s no way out of this for me."

  "All the more reason for you to go back. Your people need you, Cora."

  "And I need them. But I think I also need you," I blurted before I could second guess myself. It’s what I felt, and I was tired of just pushing that aside to keep up with what I was supposed to do.

  Nicholas threw another lever, and the engine noise finally subsided as we began to coast.

  He started to reach for me, but was pulled backward, grabbed from behind by Reed, who pinned his arms and brought his short spear to Nicholas's throat.

  "Reed!" I gasped, scanning the small control room for how he could have gotten in. It was then that I realized the window behind us was broken—he must have caught enough of the dragnet to climb aboard and break the window when the engine was roaring at full speed.

  "You need him?" Reed asked, his green eyes fiery as he glared at me and pushed the spear into Nicholas's throat until it drew blood. "He's human, Cora! How long have you preached to everyone about what monsters they are!?"

  "I didn't know," I said, trying so hard to keep my voice level. "It was all a mistake—just listen to me." I took a step toward him, but stopped when he pressed his blade into Nicholas's throat again, now drawing a steady trickle of blood. I held up my palms. "There are others out there, Reed. Other Elementals. Sylphs from the air a
nd Salamanders from fire. I met their queens. Mama Luz wants the world for herself. She tricked my mother once, and she's trying to do it all again. She will just betray us. Please! Let him go."

  "I don't care about her, Cora! I don't care what she did centuries ago!" Reed shouted so loudly the vein in his neck jumped. "She can track you now, do you know that? It wasn't a human that bit you. It was one of her new monsters. Halfbreeds. She has men making them, Cora."

  Nicholas grabbed Reed’s arm and bent forward, freeing himself enough to drive Reed back against the wall with his own short spear angled at his ribs.

  “No!” I shouted. Nicholas looked up for just a second—enough for Reed to land a blow to the back of his head, which knocked him unconscious.

  “Nicholas!“ I started to run to his side, but Reed got there first, grabbing a fistful of Nicholas’s hair as he repositioned his short spear at his throat.

  “Come back with me, Cora.” Reed’s expression was equal parts fury and pleading. “We can figure out what to do next like we've always done, but this isn't our problem. I know you think it is, but the humans did this to themselves. It's their war, and if Luz wants to take the Lawless down with her, so be it.”

  "I can't let that happen."

  "It's already happening, Cora!" Reed laughed, exasperated. "There are thousands of Lawless who are loyal to Luz now even without the Guard. Once Mara gives her that, there will be no hope. Bring the Guard back to the Southern Depths with me, where we can regroup."

  "I just need to talk to the Lawless. I just need a little time. We have a plan!"

  Reed laughed again, this time cynically. "Luz will spend the rest of eternity keeping you one breath away from dying if I don’t kill him and put his blood in the water. That’s an easy choice for me, Cora.” Reed shook his head, his nearly white brows darting together as he jabbed the blade into Nicholas’s throat and pulled it out quickly. “I thought it would have been an easy one for you too.”

  17

  “Nicholas!” I shouted, falling to his side when Reed stood up. There was so much blood pouring through my fingers as I tried to cover the wound. I pulled what was left of my tank top over my head and pressed it to his throat. “It’s all right… You’re going to be all right…” I tried to keep my voice level. Tried to keep the tears from blinding me. “What have you done!?” I screamed at Reed as time screeched to a halt.

  He sheathed the bloody blade and pulled the cork from what I thought was a glass bead hooked to his spear strap. He quickly drank whatever was inside, then jerked me up and pinned me against his body. I pushed against him, but he kissed me hard, forcing the thick and bitter liquid into my mouth until I couldn’t help but swallow it.

  My throat started burning inside and out. “What…did you…do to me?” I coughed, struggling to pull in a full breath.

  He loosened his grip enough to bring one of his hands to my face. “I’m sorry. It was the only way—I have to bring you back.”

  I spit in his face, then tried to kick him. Had he been only human, even a trained human, I would have been able to overpower him, but there was nothing I could do when he wrapped his other arm around my hips and pinned my arms against his stomach again, and again, I could barely breathe, let alone move.

  “I will never forgive you for this!” I yelled. He flinched, but quickly reset his hard expression and lifted me off my feet. A breath later, he’d launched us both through the door, over the railing, and back into the sea.

  The water burned everything from the outside of my body in—not frigid this time, but a searing, stabbing pain down my back, my arms, my hips, and legs. My chest and throat tightened as I tried to scramble back to the surface, but Reed's hold was impossible to break.

  I heard my muffled screams in the water, pressed and trapped under the weight of the sea that was drowning them. Forcing them to die in my throat. To change.

  I tried to pull in a breath but instead felt the water rush through my gills. The burning faded. The tightness in my chest loosened, and finally, so did Reed's arms. He shimmered in front of me, the armored scales over his stomach and torso catching the morning light. He drew his short spear, and I watched Nicholas’s blood dissipate in the water.

  “Cora,” he echoed, the sound rich and full in my ears, in my chest… His voice moved through me, and it wasn’t until this moment that I understood the feeling I’d been missing since Mama Luz took my echo.

  The fins on my arms had returned, as had the armored scales over my chest and stomach. I saw all of this, but it was only when the fins of my tail rolled out in the gentle current that I fully realized what had happened.

  “You killed him…” I echoed to Reed, the image playing out in my mind again. My shock turned to outrage. “You killed him so you could change me!” He started to respond, but I shook my head at him and darted for the surface. I broke through the skim, but I couldn’t see the boat in any direction anymore. It had been coasting. How could it have disappeared in so little time?

  Unless this all took longer than it seemed? How long was I under? How long had it taken to change back into an Undine?

  I felt like I was losing my mind and screamed as loudly as I could. It sounded like a screeching bird, just like Reed’s airborne voice aboard Mama Luz’s boat.

  Reed…

  I dove back through the skim and rammed his chest with my shoulder. He didn’t have enough time to completely brace for the blow, and flipped backward a few times trying to right himself.

  “Cora! Listen to me!” he echoed, swimming toward me, but I didn’t want to listen to him. I wanted to hurt him.

  “You killed him!” I echoed, the sound already thinning. “You don’t get to decide what I am, Reed! Nobody gets to decide what I am!”

  Reed wrapped his arms around me. I pounded on his chest and tried to push him away, but he only held me more tightly.

  “I’m sorry. Cora, I had to kill him,” he kept saying. “I couldn’t let her hunt you. I wasn’t going to let Mama Luz torture you too, do you understand? I’m not sorry for that, Cora.” His echo was heavy and wide-reaching. It surrounded us, folded in on us, and I wouldn’t let it. I jerked my tail up and into his side, breaking his hold on me.

  “He was innocent! Even if I couldn’t do it—if I wouldn’t… I wanted to save you both, can’t you see that?” I explained, trying to find my way through it, to find the logic that would make it all clear, but there were too many blurred lines. There was only one clear answer. “Mara was right about me,” I echoed. “My mother was right…I’m not a warrior.”

  Reed took my hands. “Cora, stop. You’re Captain of the Guard. This isn’t over.”

  “I can’t lead! You would have died because of me—because I couldn’t kill him, Reed!” I echoed a piercing, shrill wail that shot through the water. “But I didn't want him to die, and I hate you for killing him!” I pulled away, shaking my head. “And I don’t even know what that means now because I couldn’t have lived with myself if the price of his life would’ve been yours…” I babbled, delirious with rage and grief.

  “I know,” Reed echoed, low and gentle. He closed his arms around me. “I know, Cora.”

  Everything inside me felt like it was tearing loose and falling away, floating free and lost, desperate to find its way back again.

  “I’m sorry,” I echoed to Reed, to Nicholas, to everyone I’d failed. “I couldn’t…I just couldn’t…” I trailed off because it was too painful to think. It was too heavy to carry.

  Reed tried to hold me more tightly, echoing that it was all OK and that he understood, but he didn’t understand. Nobody could understand.

  I pushed away from him and darted into the deep. Lightning lit the world above, and the resounding crash of thunder drilled down through the water until it rattled my bones. Another flash, another crash drove me deeper until I couldn’t see Nicholas’s blood rushing over my hands, until I couldn’t see anything but the darkness. I swam deeper until I couldn’t hear Reed’s echo, until I
couldn’t hear anything but the sound of my own heartbeat in the stillness of the abyss pressing in all around me. No up, no down. Only nothingness, everywhere.

  A pain in my chest started dull and low, but it began growing and spreading until it made its way to my throat. It pushed up and up until it pushed out, a single bubble that seemed to glow.

  It grew slowly and positioned itself under me. I moved off it, dove down again, but it chased me and again, buoyed me up. This happened over and over until I thought I would collapse with the effort of one more evasive dive, so I stopped. I let it carry me just long enough, I told myself, until I could regroup to fight my way back down again.

  But I couldn’t muster that much strength. Slowly, the light returned, the flashes, the sun rays, and so did the thunder. So did Reed’s desperate, haunting location echoes.

  I floated to the skim, which was being pummeled by rain. Dark clouds churned in the sky above as I lay on my back, my arms drifting away from me at my sides. Lightning bolts shot across the sky like a charging army, disappearing as quickly as they came leaving a fiery imprint in their wake like a memory.

  “Water child,” I heard in the gale—the low, resounding hum of wind through the rain. “Cora of The Shallows…”

  The bubble that brought me to the surface popped next to me, and from it, Paralda rose over me and extended her long, slim hand. I reached for it this time, but she just drifted into the sky. In her place, three tornadoes tore away from the roiling clouds and made their way down to me, lightening and thinning the closer they got.

  They each changed into a figure—two men and a woman. They were pale, silver like the Undine, but translucent instead of iridescent.

  “Who are you?” I whispered, my airborne voice like a whistle on the wind.

  “Sylphs,” the woman said, her white hair billowing behind her, making her look like a mirage against the bruised sky.

  The men faded in and out of swirls, only for seconds at a time reforming into the thin, sharply featured bodies and faces they had been. I looked past them at the clouds, the tiny tornadoes breaking off—thousands of them—all heading away from me now.