Kingdom of Salt and Sirens

by J. A. Armitage

  Helene’s chin rose. “Ari wouldn’t want to be a part of something so undignified.”

  Arm wrestling? I could arm wrestle. I didn’t need the princess to defend me; I wanted to do something to show I had my own mind. She couldn’t be my voice in everything.

  I ground my teeth and pushed at Erys’s hand to show my determination.

  Erys laughed, and I was certain I had made the right choice. He might not be as brash as his father, but he wanted to laugh. He wanted to play. He didn’t want some sour, formal princess hanging about his neck like an anchor. He wanted me.

  The emperor waved his arms to call in the rest of the table to watch.

  I felt their eyes and heard their shouts, but focused solely on the prince’s eyes. My muscles hurtled into action. I pushed and strained. Our hands wavered back and forth over the table in a way that seemed too regular to be natural. My eyes narrowed at Erys.

  He smiled. He had to be controlling our movements, pushing and retreating on purpose. The prince was toying with me, playing for the crowd, and now I had to win.

  I reached up my other hand and slammed down his hand in one deft blow.

  Erys and his father mirrored each other, both banging the table in unrestrained laughter. “Cheating viper!”

  Not really. I had used both hands to pull Erys from the sea.

  Someone cheered, and another man slapped my shoulder.

  My heart sped from my chest. As I jerked around, the chair dropped and hit the ground with an answering thunderclap from outside.

  An awkward silence fell for one beat, but then the emperor and several of the other men laughed. Erys reached his hand across the table again. “Hey, Ari. It’s all right. Everyone loved it.”

  I knew that, even before he said the words and I got to stare into the depths of his eyes, but my body still didn’t. It reflexively wanted to hide from the men even when they were smiling.

  I nodded, trying to right my chair and slow my breath.

  Really, despite my fumbling at the end, wrestling the prince had been a sound victory. I had to do something to recover my grit, but even if I were strong enough to beat the prince without cheating—without keeping it a game—Erys might have really been embarrassed in front of his father, which wasn’t what I wanted either.

  I wanted him to love me and I was certain to be well on my way.

  “You have to get that girl talking,” the emperor said. “She would entertain us all for weeks.”

  Helene was standing, also leaning in over the table after I had stumbled. She looked down at the emperor and the prince with a new fire in her eyes. “You shouldn’t make a mockery of Ari.”

  Erys shook his head. “We weren’t. She was having fun.”

  “You pressured her into it! You saw how nervous she was,” Helene said before I could even try to nod and agree with Erys. “She is a shy and delicate creature with a sacred oath or a disability. She shouldn’t have to be your fool.”

  They both were frowning at each other now—not even looking at me.

  Erys pulled back his hand and mumbled into his plate, giving up. “Sorry, Ari. I thought you were having fun.” He looked so young beside her, even when she sat down.

  Would the men still laugh if I tore out all her hair?

  My family hardly ever killed girls—deliberately—but maybe I would, once we had taken back the empire.

  “Look! Food!” The emperor called in the distraction with all the grace of a beached seal, pointing as the slaves carried in a new table dressed with roasted boar. Then the man continued to fill the silent, awkward space by talking to the servers, praising them, and teasing them in the same breath. He ravished the young girls with the same attention he had given Helene, but they giggled and pranced around with wide smiles and tilted hips as if it were a game of cat and mouse that they all enjoyed. Something that ended in shared laughter instead of the cat violently pouncing or the so-called mouse biting back, let alone taking the man’s head off like my mother would.

  A few of the girls even teased the emperor back, pretending to hide the wine or threatening to cut him off from pork if he didn’t behave better.

  They threatened to cut him off from other favors too, and he whined in an overdramatic stunt, but he didn’t bother me or Helene again. He accepted the other girls’ boundaries as they were voiced. Bending his large frame and larger voice to their smaller ones. Longing for their equal affection and approval. So much like Cerberus I could no longer separate them in my mind and almost felt the same fondness. Almost.

  I wouldn’t have joined in myself—even if I did have my voice—but I sat next to him and ate my meal without trembling my fingers, becoming more thoughtful. The man might still be a beast, but if the women here enjoyed and encouraged it, I couldn’t put the blame on him alone.

  I had made a few lists now of the people I wished to die with my mother’s reign. Why did I never think of putting the emperor among them? Before Helene at least? I wasn’t even inclined to correct the mistake now, though he would certainly make my mother’s list without me. He was the Emperor of Solis—he looked and, in some ways, acted in the same crude and dominating fashion I had expected from the Emperor of Solis.

  But if Mother killed him, I might be . . . sorry.

  And what would Erys think? The prince didn’t tease the female slaves, but things I knew and had grown to love about the prince now seemed nothing more than the slightly disordered reflection of all the men around him. The way he laughed, smiled. His endless cleverness and wit. Even the way he spoke and moved too quickly at times.

  It had been so easy to picture us together and forget the rest of the world when we were alone on my island, but would he really like that? Even if he loved me?

  His world was so much fuller than mine had ever been.

  Though right now, Erys looked more uncomfortable with the princess than I was with his father. As promised, theirs was a proper banquet. An awful, formal banquet where the princess tied her napkin into knots, and Erys spilled his cup. She never relaxed her straight back and wary gaze, no matter how much Erys tried to shield and please her. He became much too quiet and dutiful in return. The princess had said the prince was quiet, and I finally believed it.

  They both could faint at any moment.

  Erys excused himself from the feast early. I didn’t know if he expected me to follow, but I didn’t want to stay in that room without him. I only hesitated when we reached the outer balcony and his shadowing guardsman turned to stare at me. But Erys smiled and waved me over at once.

  “You found me. Well, come on.” He moved so I could stand beside him over the crashing waves. I searched the water, seeing a flash of color I thought might belong to a finned tail.

  My heart soared then fell again, as steady as the waves on the sand. Thoughts of my sisters, my home, and my mission put me at rest and on guard again all at once.

  I turned away, so I could only hear the water. Soak in the good and forget the rest.

  Erys leaned against the banister with me, a more relaxed smile on his face. “I thought you would like it. It’s my favorite spot. I like the water and the quiet.”

  I squinted back. I thought I loved the prince, but there were more layers to him than I had discovered in our previous meetings. He liked the quiet? Or maybe he just preferred it to the awful banquet. My eyes went back toward the continued but distant sounds of revelry.

  “That was terrible, wasn’t it?” He sighed, like I had given him a full lecture on proper banquet behavior. “There’s just so much pressure. Helene and I have to find some way to get along, or the war between our people will never end. Promise me when you marry, you’ll do it for love.”

  I intended to. Erys had to love me.

  More war was coming. Nothing could stop that. Mother would kill as she always did. Erys and the rest of his providence had always been a target, but that wasn’t my fault. I had come here to save him, and shield us both from the coming storm by ingratiating myself t
o Mother and Valadern. I had done everything for Erys, and he was sure to see that. I could even try to save someone else for him if he wanted—not Helene and not the emperor since I knew how Mother would feel about that, but someone else. Just enough for him to see I loved him.

  He gave me a wry smile. “We’ll find you a man like the ones in your book, some gentle giant who never yells. I could help you find one . . . you do want to get married, don’t you? Or are you really trying to be a sister? It’s fine if you are, but if you would like to stay here . . . or do something different . . .” He kept starting and stopping—waiting for me to speak, then filling in the silence himself, never giving me a clear question I could answer with a movement of my head.

  I even tried to open my mouth myself a few times, but it didn’t help.

  This would never work. I couldn’t talk to him.

  I stomped my foot, just to make a sound.

  His eyes narrowed. “It isn’t just a vow. Something happened after I left. I knew I shouldn’t have.” He reached for my hand. “Ari, look at me.”

  He stared at me, just as he had on the shore when I thought our hearts had become one.

  “I know you can’t tell me what happened, but I’m going to fix it. I promise. I’ll find a way.” He hugged me then, his lips brushing the top of my head. “You’re our sister now, and you are going to love it here, just like I said.”

  He had no idea what he was talking about, but I believed him just the same.

  14

  Erys came to the princess’s room early the next morning, but he was calling for me. He opened the door without knocking, causing the other handmaidens to glare as they still hadn’t gathered up all their night things. “Little sister!” he said without looking at them. He pushed another young man in front of him. “Look what I found for you! This is Jonas. He’s been dumb for years, but he speaks. See?”

  The new man seemed near the same age as the prince, but twice his size in the shoulders. His dark hair was trimmed short like the other guards. His fingers danced around in a purposeful pattern before he made the same salute all the armored men did.

  I only wondered how Jonas became dumb for a second. Then I saw the notch of a thick white scar across his neck that his olive skin and thin beard couldn’t hide.

  He had been mute for years? He was a young man! Who would do that to a child?

  The thought came back to me in all its absurdity. I knew several who would do that to a boy and worse. Child or not. It wouldn’t even had been a question a month ago.

  Erys looked between the two of us. “I thought—perhaps we could learn some signs together.”

  Helene smiled like Erys had made the gesture for her. “Oh, that would be so much fun! Ari has such serious eyes. I wonder all the time what she must be thinking.”

  She did not want to know what I was thinking.

  “Then come on. We’ll all learn.” Erys knelt on the floor, patting the spots next to him for us to follow. “So, what should we learn first? If she was thirsty, what would she do?”

  Jonas put his thumb and forefinger close together forming an open circle then brought it to his mouth like a cup.

  Erys made the sign. “Of course.”

  Helene made the sign too.

  Even Sister Leah and I had figured that one out. Same with the sign for hunger and tiredness and half a dozen other basic needs. “And her name?” Erys asked, finally regaining my interest.

  Jonas tilted his head. He didn’t know what my name was. Did Erys even tell him? Or did the prince just drag Jonas up here at the crack of dawn without so much as a by your leave?

  Erys was exactly like his father when he got excited—just as bull-headed. He was lucky Jonas wasn’t cursing his name in whatever silent language he knew.

  I hit the prince’s shoulder. He was such a strange creature. A boy. But the word hardly held any horror when I thought of it now. It just made me laugh.

  Like I knew Erys would laugh even before I thought to hit him for his impulsive crime.

  “Oh, sorry, Jonas,” he said. “Her name is Ari. You don’t have a special sign for every name, do you?”

  Jonas shook his head and his fist.

  “Then what do you do?”

  Jonas frowned, then made three different symbols with his hands.

  Erys stared for a moment before catching on. “You’re spelling it out. You have an alphabet? For words that don’t have their own symbol?”

  Jonas nodded.

  “Could we try to fit them with the written alphabet? It would help me keep track anyway. Can you write?”

  Jonas shook his head again, but Erys had already turned away like he expected that answer. He yelled for one of the guards at the door to fetch him a stylus and used it to write out three different symbols on a piece of stretched cloth.

  Erys could write! Just like the priests!

  “So this is A-R-I. And your symbols are . . .”

  Jonas made them again with his hands—a fist in the air, then two fingers up with the first overlapping the second, and then just his pinky finger sticking up.

  Erys turned back to me. “Got that? So no one calls you Sister Anne again?”

  I nodded. I practiced spelling the three letters in the air while Erys wrote out a full line of symbols and the two boys argued—Erys talking and Jonas making faces and hand signs—until they seemed to agree that every sound was accounted for with both a sign and a written symbol.

  Then Erys pushed the paper over so I could try writing them too.

  Helene backed away, now horror-struck. “Are you sure she should be doing all of that?”

  Why not? I had already taken the stylus. I might have been too nervous to learn with the priests in the monastery when everything was still too new, but I wasn’t going to let this chance slip by me again.

  “A proper lady never reads or writes,” Helene said. “Writing is a way of keeping secrets, and a proper wife never keeps secrets from her husband.”

  Erys couldn’t care about that. He wouldn’t have suggested it if he did.

  He laughed. “Ari doesn’t have a husband yet, and when she does, they can send all their ‘secret messages’ to each other. Don’t you want to send secret messages to me?”

  “Well, I . . .” Helene went red, too embarrassed and dim-witted to tease him back.

  I wanted to laugh at the stupid woman, but Erys ducked his head, like he blamed himself for making her uncomfortable, and it was the too-formal banquet all over again.

  The so-called princess wasn’t any competition at all. We would be rid of her once I could make my thoughts known. I went to work, ready to find my voice again.

  After a few more moments, Erys excused himself and Jonas, saying he had to settle some things with the other guards, now that Jonas would be joining them. I worked long after they left, writing the symbols of the full alphabet again and again. I was so lost to the exercise I didn’t even notice the murmurs of the other handmaidens until one tipped over my ink.

  The black smeared over the top of the page and on to the tile. “Oops. I’ll get you a rag, or is the little princess too high and mighty to clean with the rest of us?” She smirked.

  My face burned. I decided in a moment I didn’t want to be called a princess by this woman.

  Helene came from the window seat. “Ruth, why did you do that? Ari was working so hard.”

  The woman turned her back on me and bowed her head to Helene. “Pardon me, Your Ladyship. I just don’t think it is fitting for her to be shirking her chores and making calf-eyes at your betrothed.”

  Had they figured it out already? All the other girls were casting resentful glances in my direction. It had only been a matter of time that they learned I had no intention of staying their underling. I stared them down, ready to face the conflict. Even if I lost, I would love to see what happened when Erys found out. He was the one who wanted me to learn to write and he would protect me from the likes of them. A man would protect me from a pack of w
omen.

  Helene shook her head. “Ari is friends with Prince Erymanthus. She saved his life, and I can do nothing but thank her and call her sister as he does. If she can learn how to speak with us, she will be sure to bless us with more of her talents in time.” She ducked to the floor and righted the ink. “Keep working, Ari. If the girls need your help later, I’m sure they will find a kinder way to let you know.”

  I worked long into the night. Erys and Jonas came the next day and I instantly shot to my feet, showing off all my hard work. I had pages of the written alphabet and could sign them all.

  Erys grinned at my untidy scrawl. “That’s really good, Ari. Are you ready to learn some more?”

  I nodded.

  The boys were about to sit down when Helene came to my side with her own scroll. She offered it to the prince. “Would you look at mine too?”

  Erys blinked, and then he smiled. His brown eyes lit up under his curls in the same way they did for me. “You were practicing?”

  “Yes.” She bit her lip and twisted two fingers through her soft curls. “I mean, I don’t think I’ll ever be as good as Ari, but I wanted to try.” Three rows of looped writing filled one corner of her page. Her hair and stola were also prefect while I had neglected my own hygiene while writing.

  “Thank you, Helene.” He bowed his head. “I would love to help you with that, and Jonas can show more signs to Ari?”

  They all agreed while I stood with my mouth open. Helene couldn’t want to write, not after what she had said before. She was just trying to cut me off from the prince.

  And it had worked so easily I wanted to scream. Couldn’t Erys see through such a thinly veiled ruse?

  Jonas had to pull at my arm before I turned after him, but I really did want to learn more signs. I was sure to outlast and outperform Helene in no time if I kept working.

  Jonas pointed around the room and gave everything around us their silent name with his hands. Chair. Bed. Book. I shaped the words in the air after him.

  I signed a whole sentence about bugs being in the princess’s bed and laughed, turning to show Erys.