Kingdom of Salt and Sirens

by J. A. Armitage

  Broad-chested, hulking princes.

  Mother always said her prince was the same, that when she met him in his armor and laurels, it seemed her nursemaids’ stories had come to life. A reward for her life of piety—taking on the strict morals of a single, jealous god who forbade her to use her natural gift over the elements. Morals insisted upon to be fit to be a bride for Solis and the greater peninsula. Morals she found the prince did not keep himself. She caught him lying with her handmaiden the same night she and her escorts reached his city.

  He broke his word, so she broke hers, calling a hailstorm and stabbing him with ice. She placed his heart on the altar she built to one of the old gods. Like the wind and water, the God of the Deep heard her cry and granted her even more power. She became a siren, punished men for their infinite crimes, and cursed her old nursemaids for spinning tales of princes.

  If she had known about my book, it would have been destroyed years ago.

  But Mother hadn’t visited my garden in years. She did what she had to, raising my elder sisters, but as they grew old enough to watch their younger siblings—as they grew old enough to take their own hearts, and we grew old enough to watch ourselves—the less she came.

  I spent the last three of my fifteen years—the years after the twins left together—mostly alone. The sun rose and set in an endless cycle, but I always knew this day would come. Just as my curves formed or my hair lengthened, I would be expected to take this final step from girl to woman.

  To siren.

  I flipped another page of my storybook. The vellum codex showed another pair of princes—one light, one dark, but equally strong. A woman stood in the center. Though breathtakingly beautiful and desired by both men, she was shown alone in the next page. Chin raised. Wind in her hair. Embracing her own power and spurring them both.

  I wanted so badly to be the same majestic figure, the same unshakeable force my mother and all my sisters became, but I knew I wasn’t. The images blurred in my eyes until all I saw were tails instead of feet. Water instead of grass. I considered my family to be beautiful, but I couldn’t picture it on myself. Instead of the mighty conqueror of men and magic my mother was, I would be overcome by the sting of the salt, the force of the waves.

  I tossed the book aside, too restless to remain seated. I walked, but I didn’t pay attention to where my feet went. I already knew every piece of the island. My frequent explorations as a young child were the only reason I had found my secret book in the first place. I loved to run barefoot in the grass, I loved to dance to the music of the birds, and I loved the glorious sun.

  To join my family, I would have to leave it all behind. Still, I remembered a time when I was young, before my sisters had changed. The games we would play. The joy of holding each other close. I went from living in a happy bunch to having nothing but my garden.

  Did I really want to stay this way, forever alone?

  My feet led me to the shallows, an open-crested lagoon my sisters often used to sun themselves. Movement caught my eye. I ran forward.

  Perhaps one of my sisters would provide a distraction.

  A shadowed silhouette crouched behind some rocks where the water reached the shore. Disappointment came over me as the shadows fled and the figure grew in size.

  Serena was wrapped around her most current victim. Blood stained his neck and her fangs, but it wasn’t the blood they craved, my sisters often explained. Once they had the man in their thrall, once they made the first cut, they fed on the blood only to drain the man’s essence—his soul. And it was better, richer, if the man was at ease while they drained it.

  So my sister sang, running her fingers over his chest. Her words promised more pleasure by her hands if he would only relax, submitting his will to hers. The man went limp in her grasp, a vague smile on his face as he gave in to her spell and allowed my sister to continue her feast.

  I stood there torn. I didn’t want to see this, but I didn’t want to be alone either. His skin would wither; his heart would still. My sister would feed and leave his mangled corpse to the waves, allowing other creatures to feed. The thought churned my stomach.

  The prince’s corpse wouldn’t be drained—it would have to settle for whatever common form of murder I could muster—but it would also be thrown to the waves after I took the heart.

  Assuming I could ever manage to kill a man myself.

  Serena looked up and grasped at her chest. “Ari, you gave me a fright. You could have made some more noise coming up.”

  “Sorry.”

  She shrugged, pushing her man away, leaving him sprawled in the shallow water and dampened sand. “I was almost done anyway.”

  “Where did he come from?”

  The thin man only had a small cloth wrapped around his waist. Dark hair covered his back, but it didn’t hide the bruises on his pale skin. He stared out with dull eyes, lying completely still.

  Serena shrugged again. “Missed the ship.”

  I shook my head. There was no reason to lie to me. “Before or after you called to him?”

  “After.” A small drop of blood pooled in the crease of her smile. “Mother said to leave them be, but he’s just a deckhand, so I doubt anyone will notice. I don’t mind sharing with you though, if you want.”

  I winced. My stomach already felt sick. I was not a sea creature hungry for his corpse. Not yet anyway. “You know it isn’t allowed. Mother says that I have to fast. I can’t even eat fish.”

  “Oh, yes, to feast on the blood of the Sun Prince.”

  Water splashed. Serena’s man staggered to his hands and feet, stumbling a few steps away in a half-crawl. Blood stained his hand as he held the fresh wound on his neck.

  No longer smiling, fear and horror overtook his thinly bearded face.

  Serena frowned, but didn’t move. Really, where could he run to?

  “Oops,” she said. “See what happens when you distract me? What did you need then?”

  “I just was thinking about . . . What if the prince won’t come to me?”

  “What are you talking about? They always come.” Serena sang a few notes. Her man’s dark eyes turned vacant again, and he lunged in her direction, slipping in the shallows.

  “Yes, but I don’t have the gift yet.” And with my failure to call for the elements, it seemed unlikely I would ever have it.

  “The handmaid in Mother’s story had no gift either. No power at all but her looks.” Serena ran her hands down her full figure and repositioned herself over her man with a flap of her tail. “Trust me, you have everything you need.”

  “But, I was thinking . . .” I sat with my knees together to tell her my new fear in a rush. “No man has ever contacted us before. Perhaps it is a plan to lure us out. Perhaps they found a way to stand against us. Just because he said he was Cypari doesn’t mean we can trust him.”

  Serena laughed. “Listen to yourself. I don’t trust him either, but if they had found a way to fight us, why wouldn’t they have used it here? Especially before I took one of his men?”

  “But what if—”

  “Ari,” Serena cut through the rest of my excuses and fears with a sigh, “don’t you want to make the change?” She leaned away from her man into deeper water, honey curls fanning her head like a fallen cherub. “We would have so much fun together. Just like old times, but more. You don’t know what it is like, to be one with the sea. The freedom, the excitement.” Perfect bliss touched her bloodstained lips.

  “I want to be with you. It is just . . . what if I can’t?”

  “We’ll all be with you. The final kill will be your own, and we won’t rob you of it, but we’ll help with everything else. Then you will join the sea and be one of us forever.”

  I fell silent. The final kill was what worried me. Even if I got my prince as weak and helpless as my sisters preferred when they fed, could I take the heart?

  Another splash. Serena still faced my direction, but her eyes narrowed as her man found his feet and stumbled through th
e surf again behind her.

  “Serena . . .” I stopped, unable to continue. I knew that look. The first time I had seen it, Titera had just made the change. She showed us how she fished without a rod or bait, staring into the shallows. A fish swam near, and her eyes turned lustful with something greater than hunger. Then she struck.

  The crunch of the bone beneath her fingers still haunted my thoughts.

  After watching Titera fish, I never joined in again. I told them I preferred vegetables from my garden. It wasn’t true though. I ate fish. I just didn’t want to hear that sound again.

  Serena had that same look now. Just because they preferred their men alive and smiling, did not mean they would not snap necks and take whatever remained if their patience waned.

  “Serena, could you . . .” I tried again. I wanted to ask her to wait to kill him until I left, but I couldn’t admit to the weakness. She wouldn’t scold like Titera, scowl like Vi, or laugh like the twins, but her eyes would fill with pity. Somehow that seemed worse.

  She waited for me to finish, but before I found the words that would halt my sister and retain my dignity, the man’s shadow played over the water.

  He stood, and our gazes held for an instant. A challenge? A plea?

  I didn’t know what it was, but the depths of his emotions held me spellbound. He might not have the majesty of my storybook characters, but he seemed more sympathetic than Naman. More than a fish. I didn’t want to see his bones crack. I still couldn’t voice all that I wanted, but perhaps, if I just stayed silent and held Serena’s attention while he ran, I wouldn’t have to.

  I could let him live one more hour, one more day in the sun.

  But could I really betray my sister like that? Even just by staying silent?

  As I pursed my lips together, undecided, the man nodded like we already reached an accord. He pulled a knife I didn’t know he had, raised and ready to hit Serena.

  At once, everything slowed. I heard every soft lap of the water against his ankles, the wind breaking around his wrist. Light glittered on the blade, gliding closer.

  Horror drained the blood from my face. The tingling liquid rushed into my fingers and toes, but I couldn’t move them. I opened my mouth, but couldn’t speak.

  Serena turned to followed my gaze. Then everything happened at once.

  “Beast!” Her shriek reached a painful register.

  The man dropped the knife, covering his ears. Blood seeped around his fingers.

  My sister struck him with such force, they both tumbled under the surf. Splash.

  Their wake rushed over my feet. I actually got my wish. His death blow happened beneath the waves. I never saw or heard it. A trail of scarlet trickled to the surface, but soon faded to white foam and dark waves.

  An eerie stillness blanketed the shore, leaving only a small light still glittering near the surface. Retrieving the dead man’s knife from the shallows, I realized how close I had come to betraying everything, betraying one of my sisters to a murderous man.

  I had been thinking about my mother’s command the wrong way. The man I had been asked to kill wasn’t a snared fish or a character from my storybook. He was the Sun Prince. The villain of my mother’s story brought back to life. He was a beast like Naman, like all men.

  Killing him would be an act of justice, striking out before he could prey on a woman unable to access our gift. Though I might still dread the moment, there was no other path forward. I might never achieve the full power and confidence of a storybook heroine, but I would no longer hesitate. Stumbling and groaning, I would still reach upward toward my goal. I would use the knife and strike. The horror would be gone in a second, quickly replaced by the freedom of the sea and the thrill of rejoining my family. Their strength would cover any of my remaining weaknesses, and I would never be alone again.

  At least that is what I hoped.

  3

  Days—a fortnight—passed in an instant. The time spun and whirled around me, and then, so did the waves. My sisters towed me through the sea to meet my prince, one of the twins holding each of my arms. My stomach churned, but the days of fasting, drinking only a mixture of honey and water Mother said was pleasing to the gods, left it mostly empty.

  Even when the twins stopped in the shallows of the designated island cove, my feet slipped under me. Sputtering water from my mouth, I tried to stand. My arms ached, and salt blinded my stinging eyes.

  “You should help her,” Corva said.

  “I helped her last time,” Catra said. “You go.”

  The two scuffled until one grabbed me about the waist and dragged me the rest of the way to the dry land. I buried my hands in the sand and blinked until my vision returned.

  “Thank you, Catra.”

  The tattooed girl fled across the beach on tiptoes. She dove into the water, and her tan legs melted together to reform her tail. She heaved a sigh, fanning out her gray-blue fins behind her.

  “It’s as if I’ve gone blind. How do you stand it?” When they weren’t connected to the water, my family of sirens were almost as human as they were before, except now they knew how hopeless they were.

  “Well, I haven’t made the change yet, have I?” I wiped more water from my face. “Why do I have to be here? I can’t call the prince.” The knife I had taken from the dead man hung belted behind my back, hidden by the sopping bulges of my tunic, but nothing compared to the powers of a siren. They should have no trouble capturing the prince themselves and bringing him to our island.

  Corva shrugged, bouncing her shoulders. “Yes, but don’t you want to watch? Savor it? Our change happened far too quickly. We didn’t get to play at all.”

  I remembered. We had been woken in the dead of night. Mother and my elder sisters led two entranced sailors onto our island. They had the men kneel next to the twins, two daggers flashed in unison, and that was it. No long buildup. No question of worthiness.

  They were so lucky.

  White sails rippled beside the clouds, catching my gaze. A ship moored in a narrow cove. On the opposite shore, hairy and foul men hefted barrels and large trunks over the rocks and sand toward the ship—men so similar to Naman’s crew they could have been the same men, though I had no way of knowing.

  Maybe all men looked exactly the same.

  Their grunts mingled with the sound of gulls as I inspected each man in turn, from the larger ones working to a smaller one fishing on the other end of the cove.

  “Which one do you think it is?” I asked.

  My sisters shaded their eyes. “That one?” Corva pointed to a pretty, almost feminine-looking man with a slick mustache. He yelled out instructions to the others, carrying a long scroll.

  Catra stuck her arm out. “Or perhaps that one? Doesn’t he just look the part?” This one had a large stomach and hair covering almost every inch of his bare chest. My sisters laughed, but I scrunched my nose like I already smelled the sweat dripping off his back.

  “Not that one.” He would have to be a monster, but I hoped he wasn’t ugly.

  My sisters laughed harder.

  Mother surfaced beside the twins. Her wet hair cascaded over her torso. “Are you ready, girls? They’ve already started to pack.”

  “Which one is the prince?” Catra flipped her tail at the far shore.

  Mother narrowed her gray eyes and pointed behind the twins. “That one. You see, Ari? You have nothing to worry about. Now come along, girls.”

  They dove.

  I stared.

  The prince sat on rocks shaded by the tall grass, so I had barely noticed him before. Even now, I scarcely believed it. Instead of the broad-shouldered men of my storybook, the curly-headed prince seemed skinnier than me and hardly any older with just the soft hint of a beard coming in. He sat on the edge of the water in a tunic only slightly better than the other men, fishing with a long pole.

  His scowl told me he hadn’t had much luck.

  Perhaps I could handle this. He didn’t seem that tough at all!
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br />   I had to get a closer look. I held onto the rocks, slipping through the shallows. I willed myself to be as silent as a shade until I reached the shadow of a larger boulder. Crouching down, I paused to listen. A voice echoed through the cove as another figure sat near the prince. The blurred colors of their reflections swirled in the water beside me.

  “Nothing is happening.” The prince’s voice jumped in pitch, uncertain where to land.

  “Patience.” This voice was just as coarse as Naman. Did all grown men sound like that when they weren’t screaming out their death throes? “Did you expect a fish to come leaping into your net?”

  “No, but I would like to know what I’m doing wrong. The people of Cypari are said to be expert fishers, and I am to be their prince.” The long line of the pole’s shadow tensed as the prince shifted his grip.

  The older man laughed. “The Cypari peasants fish, and many of them starve.”

  “And I must be the one who feeds them.”

  “I think they would be happy enough if your father stops scaring the fish with your warships. You don’t have to impress anyone.”

  The prince sighed. “Then why did you agree to teach me?”

  “To keep you from getting in the way of the crew . . .”

  The pole’s shadow jerked forward. “I got something.” The prince laughed. The light sound seemed more from shock than triumph. Silence filled the cove, thick with tension.

  A sloppy plop told of the fish’s arrival on the shore.

  I tensed, waiting for the snap.

  Water splashed out. A gray-scaled fish darted past my submerged arm toward freedom.

  “You let it go?” the older man asked.

  “It was small anyway,” the prince said.

  I released a long breath. He had let the fish go, and I hated him for it.

  His small size had seemed a relief before, but coupled with his speech and actions, it had become too much to bear. He was to be a beast. He was certain to be a beast. Why couldn’t he just act like a beast long enough for me to strike?

  My family’s voices echoed through the cliffs. My time was coming. I buried my head into my arms. All the men would be ensnared, and I—