Siren Daughter

by Cassie Day

  “I surrender.”

  Her voice is not in my head. She spoke aloud. Loud enough for my ruined ears to hear. My stare drops to her throat. Has she been able to all along? Or has she adapted?

  My throat aches with tears. I rub a hand across it, hoping to ease the sting, only for my hand to hit warmed metal. The necklace.

  “Sotiria,” I say. “Can you do me a favor? I’ll owe you one in return.”

  “What sort of favor?”

  Unclasping the necklace, I dangle it from my fingertips. The black jewel winks. Then I drop it before the hearth. “Burn this.”

  “I agree.”

  She charges her fire, then breathes a thin bit of flame. The necklace dissolves into a pool of liquid silver against the hearthstone. The jewel winks once more before shattering into dust.

  Grimacing, she shakes her head, ears flicking down.

  Dawn hits her fur in a slant of sunlight from the higher-up windows. One beam. Another. Until she’s covered. She lifts her head, nostrils flaring, and breathes deep.

  I shift my gaze upward. Night retreats until sunlight, the sweet scent of grass, and gull cries surround Kyma. A hint of stars remain, twinkling from the depths of the sky.

  Thunder booms in the distance. Zeus is coming for us. I have moments with Sotiria before she’s taken away like an item to be possessed.

  Unease crawls across my spine in a slow shudder.

  Something is wrong.

  I look back down. A woman cloaked in writhing shadows stands beside Sotiria. Winks of starlight glimmer from her trailing dress and indigo skin.

  Her voice is Chaos. A black sky stretched above the Akri Sea. Not low or high but a shifting in between. “I’ve come to congratulate you, Agathe of the sirens.”

  “Nyx,” I say.

  She grins. “Yes. Goddess of night. The true queen.”

  “Why are you here?”

  She slinks closer, resting a hand a hair’s breadth from the top of Sotiria’s head. “You thought I wouldn’t know my necklace burned?”

  At my silence, she releases a laugh of twinkling starlight. “You think yourself so clever, don’t you?” A smirk in place, she continues. “But I see everything.”

  Sotiria growls.

  I shake my head. “You don’t.”

  “I do. Your mother’s decline, time in Nekros, and Zeus’ attention. Hera’s madness, Molpe’s death, and even your lover.” She ticks each one off on her fingers. “A shame you’re slumming it with a deity like Charon. You could do better, my dear.”

  I used her necklace as a comfort. A soothing balm during my worst moments. But this entire journey, she’s been using me as a spy. How many times have her words guided me? How many times did I let her change my mind?

  “You gods are no better,” I grit out. “You married Erebus, didn’t you?”

  Her face ripples with fury. She locks it behind a mask of calm. Then sighs, hand landing in Sotiria’s fur and pulling.

  “I could kill you both.” Her lashes flutter. “But I have uses for you yet.”

  Sotiria flinches away. Nyx doesn’t release her hold. Instead, she twists. Sotiria screeches, mouth transforming into a hooked beak, and spears it backward. Her tail rises, venom leaking from the snake’s bared mouth.

  Nyx laughs. A golden collar materializes in her palm, as large around as Sotiria’s neck. “I saw this, too, in that hallway of blank doors. How fortunate that Zeus keeps a spare!”

  I lunge forward.

  She raises a hand. With a flick, shadows shove me back. They pin me against the wall next to the hearth, bruising tight against my ribs and throat.

  She grips Sotiria by the scruff of her neck. The rest of Sotiria flits between shapes around her hand.

  Venom, spit, and teeth mash into Nyx’s arm. She doesn’t let go, pushing until Sotiria is forced into a crouch.

  “Don’t hurt her!” I rasp.

  The collar locks into place with a neat snick.

  Sotiria roars, fire building at the corners of her mouth. Yet it snuffs within a moment. Her neck thins to a sliver of itself. The collar follows, snug against her throat, and gleams in the light.

  Claws and venom, talons and spit, she attacks her own neck. Though the skin around it burns, smolders, then heals, the collar doesn’t budge. It sinks tighter into her skin until her roars become gasps.

  “None of that,” Nyx says, patting Sotiria’s snout.

  Sotiria snaps at Nyx’s hand with a croak. Within moments, her eyes roll back in their sockets. She falls to the dirt. Her tongue lolls from her mouth.

  “Sotiria!” I try to writhe free. The coils tighten. My lungs ache with each breath.

  “How cute, you named her!” Nyx grins.

  Thunder booms close.

  True fear warps Nyx’s features. The coils around me loosen. I fall free, groaning when I slam to the dirt. One painful pull at a time, I crawl toward Sotiria’s prone form. Reach for her lax paw.

  A coil spikes between us. One glance in and I’m at the edge of the world: endless shadow. Chaos.

  The Chaos slinks across Sotiria’s body. Then across Nyx. I reach but a wall of shadow enshrouds them. My hands hit it and bounce off. Pulling myself to my knees, I claw at the dome surrounding them until my fingernails crack. Until they break.

  It spreads, covering them both. All I can see are Nyx’s silver eyes. She winks.

  “NO!”

  The Chaos folds in on itself. Vanishes. Nothing is left except faint grooves in the dirt.

  They’re gone.

  Wetness seeps down my cheeks. I touch my face. My hand comes back wet. Tears. I’m crying.

  I won Zeus’ trial. At what cost?

  Hands grasp my shoulders. A muffled voice filters in. I know those hands and this voice. Charon. I look at his face, still too pale. Try to croak his name. A wailing sob leaves.

  He wraps me tight in his arms. Cocoons me in his warmth. One word at a time, I choke out what’s happened.

  “I won’t promise everything will be all right, because it won't be,” he mumbles into my hair.

  I strain to hear over the ringing in my ears.

  “But you will have your immortality. Your family will survive.” He shakes me by my shoulders. “You’re alive. Do you understand? You’re alive. And if I know Nyx, Sotiria will be alive for many years to come. Nyx needs her. She doesn’t kill or maim those she needs.”

  Thunder strikes, lighting Bion’s home in ethereal light. It surrounds us on all sides, raising every fine hair on the back of my neck. Zeus’ transport back to the palace.

  “The collar,” I say or maybe whimper.

  “We’ll find her.” His thumbs swipe across my tear-stained jaw. “And we’ll free her. Together.”

  Chapter 41

  THE THRONE ROOM CRACKLES with tension. Though the huge space is cold and foreboding, Charon’s and Desma’s presence on each of my sides warms me from within.

  Zeus’ mouth twists into a strained smile. “The siren,” he says, voice booming. “Has won all three of her trials.”

  A smattering of tame applause follows his statement. Dionysus outright grins, all casual drunkenness, and whoops aloud. Zeus twitches but does nothing.

  Hera sits frozen on her throne, hands clenched tight on the armrests.

  Zeus waves toward me. “Her and her family are awarded their wings returned and cups of ambrosia.”

  Ambrosia. Immortality.

  Servants trail from behind each pillar, their white clothes rendering them near invisible against the pristine stone. I count them one by one until the number is over a hundred. One for each of my family.

  Like my thoughts summoned them, bursts of lightning touch down from the false sky above. My family staggers out from the bolts. Each of them is without a tail and naked. He transformed them, then, yet deemed them unfit for clothing.

  His stare lingers on my older cousins. I grit my teeth.

  Aphrodite rises in a flutter of peach silk. She summons dresses from seemingly n
owhere, tugging them over their heads one by one. By the time they fall into place, the servants are organized into neat rows with cups.

  Wide-eyed, my family accepts the cups, cradling them in shaking hands. The burgundy liquid sloshing is the only noise; the whole court waits with bated breath.

  I’m given one last. Stepping forward, I raise my cup. A toast for my family. For our birthright returned.

  The ambrosia is sweeter than wine. Warmth fills every part of me. When I’m done, my skin glows a faint gold. Pain sears beneath my shoulder blades. While the glow fades, wings tear from my skin in a slick, bloodied mass. I gasp, clenching my teeth together until my jaw aches. But in truth, it’s no worse than growing legs from a fishtail, and the pain numbs soon enough.

  Some of our youngest wail, clutching tight to their mothers. Our oldest grin through the ordeal. Eudoxia winks, using the cover of our family to pour her cup into a pouch.

  Then it’s done. I unfurl my wings. The feathers shine dark brown speckled with bronze. I flap them once, testing. Again. I’m not flying, not yet, but with the lightness filling my chest I might as well be.

  Waves of gold, chestnut, black, and orange-red feathers fill the room. Blood drips to the floor. Even our youngest don’t care.

  Though I lost Sotiria, I gained our freedom from the sea.

  Zeus hums. “Now to discuss your new role.”

  “Role?” one of the children asks before being hushed by her mother.

  Zeus’ grin turns real. “Did you think you could regain your status without also regaining your service to the court?”

  My family huddles close, the oldest on the outside and the youngest shrouded tight within their mass. But there’s no protection from Zeus.

  Except one.

  “What do you have in mind?” I ask.

  “Each of you will be given a job.” He licks his lips. “Most as servants. Some may be offered something better if you play your cards right.”

  Hera’s hands clench tighter.

  “And our children?” Aunt asks, teeth glinting when she bares her teeth.

  He sighs, running a hand over his face. “I’m sure we can find a use for them until they’re grown and fit for traditional service.”

  “You mean to enslave us,” Aunt says, snarling.

  The group tightens into a dizzying mass. Aunts around cousins, cousins around children, and children hidden by spread wings.

  I clear my throat. Aunt glances back, a question on her face.

  I smile. “Service to Olympus won’t be possible.”

  Zeus leans forward, brows pulled low. “Why?”

  Persephone stands, shaking off Demeter’s hands. Approaching us, her sandals click against the floor. She grins, simmering fury nestled in her flushed cheeks. “She’s already bargained away her family’s services.”

  Zeus leans back. Sweat beads on his forehead.

  Hera lowers her head, shooting him a venomous expression beneath her lashes.

  “Darling,” Demeter says.

  “No, Mother,” Persephone says, beginning to pace.

  Demeter trails after her. “Sit and be a good girl.”

  “No!” She wrenches away from Demeter’s grasping hands. “Don’t you see? I can’t be your daughter anymore. I can’t. You tear me from my husband, let this hellish court rule our lives, and watch my every move.”

  “Darling.”

  She pivots, pointing to my family. “They never should have fallen! Molpe, Thelxinoe, Aglaope—all three let me go. They let me be happy with Hades. So why can’t you?”

  “Please.”

  “You don’t control me anymore.”

  Demeter falls back onto a couch, mouth falling open. No words leave. Tendrils of ice ripple across her skin. Snowflakes form, then melt, in her dark hair.

  Dionysus claps from his spot sprawled half-on half-off one of the couches. At Persephone’s glare, he grimaces. Then slides all the way off his couch and hides beneath the frame. Only the scarlet hem of his tunic remains visible.

  “Well!” Hera covers a giggle with her hand. “What a turn of events.”

  “You bargained with the siren,” Zeus says.

  Persephone stands straighter, lifting her chin. “Yes. For the price of a willing selection of her family working as soul gatherers in my realm, Nekros, all will be granted safety and homes in Prasinos wherever they please.”

  Zeus bares his teeth. “And the rest? Surely you could spare a few.”

  “Afraid not. The remainder will be secondary workers should there be famine or another war.” She pauses before continuing in a mocking voice. “We’ll need more soul gatherers then, you see.”

  My family exchange looks. Cousins whisper among themselves. My eldest cousin, the one who led my hunting party so long ago, works through the tightened coils of our family. She gathers others as she moves. When she stops on the outskirts, thirty women from ages fifteen to sixty stand with her.

  “Queen Persephone.” She bows low. The others join her, awkward on their new-found legs. “Will this be enough?”

  She hums. “More than enough. Are all of you willing?”

  They burst into agreements.

  She smiles, beckoning them closer. Desma follows, hand freeing itself from mine. I shake my head, grinning, and grasp it again. When she stops in front of Persephone, I’m at her side.

  Zeus growls. “You’ll be exiled.”

  We exchange looks, each more uncaring as the next. We’ve been exiles all these years after Thelxiope fell. What’s a few more years outside of Athansi and its courtly politics?

  The screech of his teeth gritting together is audible in the pure silence. He leans back in his throne, legs sprawling open. With a wave of his hand, he shoos us from his throne room. “Then your exile will continue. Leave!”

  Everyone stares.

  “Now! Or I’ll execute you all.”

  “You can’t kill them.” Persephone dips her head. “I promised safety at my end of the bargain.”

  She might be beholden to his tyranny, but bargains are above his rule, and she can’t be left without her newest workers per the terms anyway.

  Zeus knows so, face pinched and red with fury. He storms from the room, lightning crackling in his wake. Hera looks almost pleased, strutting at the front of the court procession following him out of the room.

  Aphrodite kisses my cheek, then Persephone’s, before she goes. “I knew you could do it! Both of you.”

  Dionysus sighs, following her with a bowed back and hands dangling toward the floor. “Now where will we get our entertainment?”

  Demeter pauses to glance at Persephone. She opens her mouth. Snaps it closed. Then she’s gone, snowflakes melting on the floor behind her.

  We walk out of the room as a group. As a family. The children leap, flapping their wings, uncaring when they fall to the stone in bruised heaps.

  “We’re free.” Aunt stops in the middle of the wide hallway. Her voice cracks from disuse. “We’re free!”

  She grabs me around my waist and swings, twirling us around while our family laughs. The world spins. I grin through it. And when Charon takes over from her to spin me, hands gentle against my waist, I laugh.

  We’re free.

  Epilogue

  THIS IS NOT GOODBYE.

  I remind myself each time one more of my family flies free of the Nekros entrance I trekked through what seems like so long ago. Exactly thirty-three of us remain, Desma our leader and Persephone our queen.

  With a handful of flaps, I lift myself into the air, swinging wide out of the entrance. Intangible orbs fill my hands while I glide over Prasinos’ rolling hills and nestled villages. The Pomria orchards stretch wide with sweet-smelling fruit.

  Desma waves from ahead, her bright hair untamed in the wind. Iris and Meda flap to each side of me, playing games among themselves as souls collect in their hands.

  Kyma beckons on the horizon. I swing from formation to fly over the town. My shadow flits over the stone ro
ads. Cats scatter away from a single boy.

  Bion lifts his head, shielding his face from the sun with a hand, and waves. His grin is bright enough to see from the sky.

  I wave in return, then swing back into the group at the edge of the Akri Sea.

  We return to Nekros at dusk, when the night is a blanket of silence across the realms and our arms are close to overflowing.

  Desma pauses before we reach the river Styx, wings lazy in the cool air.

  I stop beside her. “Any new information on Sotiria or Nyx?”

  “No.” She frowns. “Wherever Nyx is hiding with your friend, she’s hiding well. No one has seen a thing.”

  The night sky above Nekros glimmers. A star twinkles from the indigo gloom, taunting. Nyx, wherever she might be, watches.

  “We’ll find her,” Desma says.

  I nod, throat too tight to speak.

  “Did you ever think we would be here?” She gestures at the smooth walls. Some of our family fly past, bringing souls to the river.

  “Honestly? Not really.” I smile, letting the troubles fall away.

  We’ll find Nyx. No one can hide forever.

  I grab Desma’s neck, clutching her between my arm and torso, and rub a hand across her wild hair. “But is there anywhere else you’d rather be, cousin?”

  She squirms, huffing. When I let go, she puts on a show of straightening her dress.

  Persephone used Aphrodite’s creations and their included holes for wings to create a wide array of clothing for us, thankfully. Soul gathering is a surprisingly messy business with Iris and Meda around.

  Desma flashes a grin. She shoots higher in the cavern on her fiery wings. “No. Now, where’s that lover of yours? Aren’t you two scheduled to be disgustingly together right about now?”

  I snarl at her but my heart isn’t in it. She flies off with a shrill laugh, handing her souls to Hermes as she passes him. He takes them without complaint and goes to follow.

  Eudoxia snatches him by his tunic and shoves him toward Charon’s boat. She’s heavy with child now, only occasionally venturing from her lover in Nisos to help. I asked her about the bag. Turns out she gave half her ambrosia to her now-husband.

  I don’t wait in line for Charon’s boat. No, I cut straight in front.