Kingdom of Salt and Sirens

by J. A. Armitage

  To be with a man, see his strength, and still feel at ease—I didn’t know how to describe it. But I liked it.

  I liked it a lot.

  Guilt passed through me. I was in love with the prince. I loved him still. Finding another kind male, feeling the spark of the same emotions, confused me.

  Maybe I should have expected this. Of course it would be different now with more men than just the boy washed up on my island, but maybe it wasn’t even that. Perhaps I only felt this way again because I knew the trouble Erys went through to find a good teacher for me.

  Then everything came crashing back into focus when Jonas signed another question. “How did you lose your voice?”

  My mouth opened. My hands fell. I should have expected that too. He had just shared his story; now he wanted me to share mine. I frowned like I didn’t understand or know the signs I would need to answer. It was almost true. It was still much easier to read Jonas’s signs than to pick my own out of the air, but that could only last so long.

  Erys wouldn’t hold off from asking much longer either.

  Jonas shrugged. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  I saw the words form and I hated them. I wished I had a story I could share and continue to bond with him, but there was nothing I could say, nothing I could sign. All the merriment was gone, and we walked back to the palace with the formality of a lady and her guard.

  Erys found me in the palace, eager to make up with me after leaving me for the temples. He looked at me with wide puppy-dog eyes. “It wasn’t so bad being with Jonas, was it?”

  I shook my head, wishing I could sign more to say how much I loved it and how badly I had bungled everything. How I longed for the prince’s touch and then Jonas all at once. Even though that part of my confusion involved Erys himself, I was certain he would understand if only I could put everything in my head into proper words. But the signs I learned could only do so much.

  I let out a silent sigh.

  “It’s all right,” Erys said, like he thought his absence was still the only thing upsetting me. “We’ll spend the rest of the night together.”

  “Together” meant we would be eating dinner with the princess and the emperor, but it was as I expected and I soon lost myself to their usual conversations and merriment. After the food was cleared, we played a new game with stones moving across a checkered board that I soon became the master of, winning coins from both the prince and the emperor. And when Erys moved to sit with the stupid, proper princess who refused to play, Jonas sat across from me to take his place.

  His smile said he had forgiven me for my previous blunder. “I know how you lost your voice,” he signed.

  He was still smiling, but my breath hitched. What could he have possibly learned?

  “You earned your keep at the local tavern. You won so much of their gold and told so many fantastical stories, that some brigand cornered you and cut your tongue out.”

  He had to be joking. He was.

  I scrunched my face and stuck my perfectly formed tongue out at him.

  Jonas tried to look disappointed, but he was smiling too much. “Seems I will have to guess again.” He signed to the board. “Are you going to play?”

  I would enjoy that very much. I took my turn, and it seemed at that moment, I loved everything in this city. I loved Erys. I loved Jonas. I even had learned to tolerate the emperor and Helene from a distance. But when Naman joined some of the other guards behind us, Jonas made the same signs he had when seeing Naman before, except this time I recognized them.

  “Bad man.”

  17

  That night, Naman was one of the guards standing outside of the princess’s room. I knew he was out there and it drove me into a frenzy. After the other girls and I had helped the princess to bed and lay down on the floor mats ourselves, I tossed and fidgeted until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  I rose from my mat and slipped out the door.

  The two guards rolled dice between them with their spears resting against the wall. They instantly straightened when I appeared. The guard with Naman hit his chest and bowed his head. “Do you need something? Or does the princess need something?”

  Naman gave me a knowing smile. “You want to go see the prince, don’t you?”

  What? Why would I want to see the prince so late at night?

  The men laughed, and my confusion vanished. They thought I was just like the traitor handmaiden from my mother’s story who slept with her betrothed. Naman was telling them I was. And without Erys or Jonas or even Helene here, none of the guards would understand if I claimed my innocence through signing.

  My fists tightened as my face burned in rage. I would never sell myself so cheaply, and if I had my knife back, I would carve them up for saying so.

  I was a princess, and I would be Erys’s sole wife and lover or nothing at all.

  “Don’t worry.” Naman’s smile mocked me even as he inclined his head. “It isn’t a secret that you fancy each other, but it wouldn’t be our business to tell the princess that. In fact, if the prince called for you, it would be our hides if we delayed you. Come with me, and I’ll take you to him.” He took his spear and walked down the hall to turn a corner, leaving me with the other guard.

  I remained there in shock of his words, but the other guard was looking at me with the same smug eyes. Even if I could speak, there was nothing I could do to change his opinion of my foolishness. I clenched my fists and went after Naman in a silent fury—not because he told me to, but because I wanted to try my best to beat him senseless.

  I wanted to confront Naman alone, and this seemed like my best chance.

  I turned the same corner Naman had but was met by a winged creature. The imp. Lilthe made my voice firm as she looked down on me from the air. “Where have you been?”

  Where had I been? She threw me at a vile man and abandoned me.

  She landed on an empty torch bracket with a shrug of her wings. “You had to know what men were like before you tossed your family away for one. I held the man while you ran, but then you entered that . . . that . . .”

  Monastery? Was it so hard to say the word? Lilthe might have stopped the fisherman. There was no other explanation for the way the thunder appeared at just the right time. But I had to learn to be human all on my own.

  “Not the kind of human your mother wished you to be. Did you forget your mission?”

  No. But I was making progress. I was in the palace now.

  “As a chamber maid. In what world would a chamber maid marry the prince?”

  I was a princess. I just had to make the others see it. Erys would marry me if I could make it acceptable to his father and the rest of his court.

  If I could just prove myself to be a better princess than Helene.

  “And how do you propose to do that?” She lowered her tail and I saw the shell necklace wrapped around it. She laughed. “Yes, I could speak for you now, but what would you say that they would believe?”

  Probably nothing. My shoulders slumped, and I bit my lip. I had told Erys I was a princess before, and it hadn’t changed anything. And now I would have to somehow explain how I went from no voice to a voice in a matter of moments.

  My voice laughed at me through the imp. “I thought so. You are nothing without my help. While you were wasting time, I made an important contact that will allow us to make our claim.”

  How?

  “Speak to him and see.” The imp spread her wings to point me the rest of the way down the hall.

  Naman. He waited for me like he and the imp had planned this meeting from the first.

  Well, I wasn’t about to back down. I retrieved the necklace and tied the broken cord around my neck. The imp twisted back into her shell and spoke for me as she had before.

  “How are you still alive?” I had to ask, though part of me wanted to skip right to the part where we fought and I exposed him. Working with him couldn’t be a real option no matter what Lilthe said.

  He hit
his chest. “The same way your witch of a mother lives. I offered the hearts of the rest of the crew and pledged myself to the sea. Now it answers me.”

  “You’re a siren?” That didn’t seem right. I didn’t know men could make a pledge like that, but here he was.

  “Not exactly, but I am stronger and can shout to control the water as they can.” But we weren’t in the water now. My family was weaker on land, and he would be too.

  He could still die just like any other man.

  “I can tell Erys all about you.” I couldn’t before, but with Lilthe’s help I could now. Even without her help if I kept learning signs and symbols for speech. And maybe if I did another heroic deed to prove myself, they would all believe I was a princess.

  Maybe killing Naman after exposing him would be enough.

  Naman shrugged. “Why don’t I tell him myself? That you are the lost heir of Princess Miranda and have a higher claim for his hand than Princess Helene.”

  I stared. “Why would you do that?”

  “So you can marry the prince, of course,” he said, and I felt his smugness. “I told you from the beginning: I wanted the prince killed to prevent him from marrying Princess Helene. If he marries you and your family wrecks the providence, then I still will have achieved my goal.”

  “And why don’t you want him to marry Helene?”

  “Do you care? You’ll get your prince with my help.”

  He was so certain he had me. I hated him to be right, but what else could I do?

  He turned away. “There is a test of blood. A spell. Could you pass it? You are the daughter of Miranda?”

  Of course I was.

  18

  The next day, I watched the sun climb higher in the sky with a sigh. I hated days when the prince didn’t visit. The princess didn’t seem to know what to do with herself, either. She combed my hair and tied it up in different patterns like I was a dress-up doll.

  Finally, Helene handed me the mirror so I could see the long braids piled on my head. “Here, do you like it?”

  Sure. It was fine. I thought the words, but remained silent. I had my shell necklace with Lilthe now, but I didn’t ask her to speak for me since I still didn’t know how to explain how I suddenly regained my voice.

  “When will the boys be here?” I asked with my hands. I craved their company more than the women. Even when they weren’t trying to be spiteful, the women so often gossiped—conversations I couldn’t fully participate in. Men didn’t care that I was silent. Not that they ignored me, on the contrary, men always seemed to watch and smile when I or one of the other young maids were around. I’m sure my mother would have found some way to assign the looks ill-intent, but there was something about the extra attention I craved—a new hunger I didn’t know I had.

  Helene laughed. “Oh, they wouldn’t come today. The games are today.”

  They were playing games without us? I thought of the board with stones.

  The princess had refused to play.

  “We should be able to find something to do here.” She turned to the other handmaidens scattered about the room. “What should we try? Singing? Needle point?”

  The girls called out their suggestions, but I moved to the back wall and slipped through the door, ready to find the boys on my own. Their games had to be more exciting than anything the so-called princess could dream of.

  I didn’t need instructions to find the games. All I had to do was follow the thick crowd to the large marble gates of the colosseum. I smiled as I moved among the men, no longer the frightened creature I had been when I first arrived at the city. Holding my chin up high, it seemed I had always belonged there and no one challenged me. Some guards I recognized from the palace even helped me climb the stands to find the royal family, like they thought I had been summoned.

  But the prince shook his head when he saw me. “Ari, you shouldn’t be here.”

  I frowned. Sure, Erys took Helene’s arm instead of mine when we walked, but he had never acted unhappy to see me before.

  His father, standing next to him and some other men from the palace, also seemed surprised to see such a somber expression on his son’s face. He slapped the prince on the back. “Come on, Erys. She’s no mere slip of a girl. She is a warrior who pulled you from the depths of the sea. Perhaps she would like to see that there is real strength in Solis.” He pumped his fist in the air and leaned over the guardrail to point toward the center of the arena.

  Following the length of the emperor’s arm, I looked down from the elevated stand to the field of dirt several stories below. Bare-chested men, covered with mud, stood in a line. They stretched and strained their muscles, grunting as each threw long javelins in turn.

  The crowd of men around us roared with dismay or pleasure with each throw.

  Erys looked back and forth between us, torn. “Are you sure you want to see this, Ari?”

  See what? Men throwing javelins? They wheeled out a large harpoon to demonstrate next. It wasn’t terribly exciting, but it wasn’t offensive. Were the other women so delicate that they couldn’t even stand to see the point of a blade?

  I smiled and pushed my way past the palace senators and magi to stand in between the prince and the emperor. I still didn’t know the finer points of this exercise, but I happily raised my hand when the others cheered, savoring the warmth and power of the bodies around me.

  Savoring every time Erys fidgeted, brushing my arm with no distraction from the princess.

  While the harpoon fired its last rounds, all the bare-chested men cleared off the field except for two—selected by some lottery I couldn’t understand. The men waved their spears to opposite sides of the roaring crowd, then faced each other, circling closer. And closer. They came within arm’s reach of each other and neither threw their weapon this time. I bit my lip when the first man charged. The bare blade just missed the other’s arm, but the watching crowd, including the emperor and his entourage, were still laughing and joking around me.

  I jumped, then smiled when Erys grabbed for my hand. A tingling, thrilling sort of fear baited my breath. It had to be another choregraphed demonstration. Another mock battle.

  The emperor even elbowed one of his men. “Two talents on the jumpy one,” he said, betting on one of the fighters like they had on the game of stones. It was only a game.

  The “jumpy” fighter pounced like a lion and time seemed to slow and quicken at the same time in a flurry of movement and sound. The blade struck. The man fell.

  Blood mixed with the mud on the ground.

  The laughter, the click of money, and the back-slapping revelry around me instantly became muffled as if I had dipped my head in a stream. Men on the sidelines came to carry out the still corpse on the ground. This wasn’t just a mock battle. And they weren’t done yet.

  The next bare-chested man to join the fight was . . . Jonas?

  I started after him in wide steps toward the railing. We were perched so high above the chasm that I didn’t know what I planned on doing, but my heart pounded in my ears. My mouth opened in a silent scream. Thunder sounded. I couldn’t let the fighting continue. I . . .

  A man’s arm came down in front of me.

  “Control your woman.” The emperor laughed and threw me to Erys like a sack of grain.

  The prince put me down, but held on tight to my wrist, pulling me away. I had never felt so degraded, but it wasn’t like I wanted to stay and see another death I couldn’t control.

  Erys pulled me toward the back steps, but we didn’t go far, the press of the crowded colosseum too much. I still heard the shouts of the crowd, the grunts of the fighters. One of those distant sounds could be Jonas falling to the ground. I winced.

  Erys forced his face into stone. “The women are not meant to watch.”

  How could he stand to watch? I reached for my necklace, and then dropped my hands again. Erys knew all the signs I did and this was not the time to let an imp speak for me.

  I tried for the first letter
of Jonas’s name, but I couldn’t get my shaking fists to obey.

  Erys was already trying to explain. “Jonas is a peasant, a common citizen. His family are farmers and shopkeepers. I can’t keep promoting him just because I like him. The other men would never follow a leader like that; they would stab him from behind long before he reached the front. This is how he rises in the ranks. This is how he earns his honor.”

  His honor? Would Jonas’s whole family of farmers and shopkeepers be able to live off Jonas’s “honor” if he died, no longer able to provide for them? No longer able to tease Julia and wrestle with Seth? No longer able to teach me and guard me and dance around when he spoke?

  Erys turned his head with another shout from the crowd. He was allowing this to happen, but he was nervous. He didn’t want Jonas to get hurt. I could tell. I remembered Jonas telling me that the other guards were sometimes resentful of the royal favoritism in the same way that the other handmaidens were. Was this really the only way?

  “Father stops it before too many lives are lost,” Erys said. “He doesn’t want to quarter his guard.”

  I pulled at his arm and carved my words in the air with hands like daggers. “You do this when you are emperor?”

  The answer should have been easy, but he hesitated. The hardness left his gaze as he slumped forward. “I don’t know. Solis has stood for thousands of years, conquered several nations in blood. We are strong, but the people love us too. Every time we take in a new nation, we don’t make them reject all their old ways. We add on what makes us stronger and become one. We took gods, arts, everything. You understand? In Solis, an emperor does not always get his way. He must know what the people want and what they will allow. That is how an emperor stays emperor.”

  He put his arms on my shoulders, his eyes searching mine. “My mother died when I was young. I was raised by nuns of the One God before my father set me on the other mystics and scholars and put a spear in my hand. There are things I know of love and gentleness, but there is a long history of blood in our country. It is our strength. I cannot banish it all at once, nor would I.”