The fourth and final paper made my sinking stomach twist and flip, heavy and sick. Three small, rougher sketches of faces—the first a man I didn’t know with strong features and fiery eyes, and the second Tobin. I knew the first had to be Lenairen: they weren’t identical, but the resemblance was unmistakable. The third was my own face, anger in my eyes and the set of my mouth. I recognized Raeth’s handwriting below, sharper and cleaner than whoever had labelled the other drawings.
Undeniably kin of Lenairen. The boy’s no use anymore, but the girl—she could shake the Court to the core if she wanted.
She could break them all.
My hands shook as I hurried to fold the papers and close the drawer. I didn’t want to see them anymore.
She could break them all.
What did that mean? Who did Raeth want me to break, and why? Was all of this preparation for that? For me to play Raeth’s champion in whatever terrible game he was running?
The same Raeth who’d looked at me with that raw pain and horror and exhaustion last night. Like his soul had been worn ragged sitting beside the Queen and watching those people be killed.
Who could look like that one day and return to cold and unreadable the next.
I’d made it to the chair, seconds away from returning the knife to its place, when the doors opened. My heart stopped. I didn’t look up but I knew the pace of Raeth’s footsteps, and they stopped feet from me.
“And what do you plan to do with that, darling?” he asked in that same silky drawl he’d used when we’d first met. The one that made goosebumps rush across my skin.
I dropped it and turned to face him, forcing myself to stand straight. To look him in the eye. “Nothing to you. I was putting it back.”
“I would have thought you’d have returned to the Nest by now.”
“I didn’t want to go back to the Nest.” That wasn’t a lie; I hadn’t before I’d looked in that drawer. Now, it felt a hundred times safer and more welcome than here. I saw the reply forming on his tongue but spoke before he could. “Who am I supposed to break, Raeth?”
His eyes flashed past me to the desk and then to the knife. “As clever as I thought,” he murmured.
“It was a test, wasn’t it? The lock? Leaving me alone?”
The coldness in his expression melted into the relaxed humor I preferred, but all I felt was the burn of anger in my chest. “You passed as well as you’ve passed every other test, you’ll be happy to hear.” And that was all I got before he stepped past me. I followed him.
“Why are you testing me? What do you need me for?”
“You’re a descendant of Lenairen. You’re worth a fortune in this world.”
“That’s not an answer. Tobin is, too, and you said he’s no use to you. Why me?”
“Tobin is damaged. You’re stronger than him.”
The burn in my chest spread through me and I worked to keep from shouting. “He’s not, and what do you need me for? You don’t just want to boast that you own someone with Lenairen’s blood.”
“It’s not a story you need to worry about.”
I moved to stand in front of him and he stopped. “You said you’d tell me. Explain.”
“Hania,” he sighed.
“Tiraethsi.”
He watched me for a tense moment and then passed me to the desk. “You sound like someone else when you say that.”
“Someone you listen to?”
“Oh, I listen to her,” he answered with a soft scoff. “She makes me regret it when I don’t.”
“Azali?”
For a second he was silent, then he glanced to me. “Why Azali?”
That tone wasn’t the dangerous, you’re treading into sensitive territory one. It was genuinely confused. I shifted, uncomfortable. “I know what’s between you two.”
“Azali and I—” He broke off and shook his head. “Yes, we’re close, and always have been, but anything more she may feel, I don’t. And she knows that. Leave it at that.”
I almost asked him why he’d kept the letters in the box, but thought better of it. “That doesn’t tell me why you need me.”
He kept quiet and then looked at me again. “Do you know what I am here, Hania?”
“Tiraethsi, Lord of Sirens,” I answered, a knee-jerk response.
He gave a bitter laugh. “A slave. No different than you, or your brother, or half of this damn, sorry excuse for a Court. A slave with a lovely-sounding title and comfortable quarters, but a slave still.”
I didn’t understand. “What does that mean?”
“This Court didn’t exist until a century ago, did you know that?” I shook my head. “We sirens had our own, as did the others. Separate but at peace together.” He pushed off the desk and crossed to the windows. His voice turned soft, wistful, and I couldn’t look away. “The waters of our Court used to glow golden under the moon. The stars came out beneath your feet, like you were walking through the night sky. During storms the ocean danced for us. Sometimes we’d dance with it, dance to thunder and sirensong, and when the storm broke, watch the sunrise. The most spectacular sunrises.”
I was afraid to ask and it made my voice hushed. “What happened to it?”
He let the curtain drop and turned away. “Marassa. As she happened to the other Courts. Weaseled her way in, wreaked havoc, and gave us a choice—slavery or death. Gave me a choice. I sent a hundred of my people to her for slaughter as payment to be a Lord here, with the hope it’d let me one day end her. And the rest of my people…all slaves to her. Every siren you see here, even the ones playing noble.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and dared to step closer to him. “Why you, Raeth?”
The light flickered in his eyes, turning them green and gold and amber, like I imagined the waters and halls and magic of his lost Court had been. He caught my gaze and held it. “I thought you would have heard the rumors,” he murmured. “Of the siren king who betrayed everyone.”
I hadn’t. Even for all of Kieras’s gossiping, I’d never heard mention of a siren king. But now that I thought about it, there was a certain hush at times. “You were the king, and you handed Marassa your people,” I whispered. Not a question but he nodded.
“It was that or let them all be killed. I couldn’t put them through a war we’d lose. But there’s a reason most sirens in this Court won’t look me in the eye unless they’re afraid not to.”
“But…don’t they know you did it to save them in the long run? Don’t they have any faith in you?”
“To them, I sent their friends, their lovers, their children to be killed to save myself and then sentenced them to work under the woman who held the knife. Tell me, Hania, if you were in their position would you have faith in a king who did that? I wouldn’t.”
I didn’t think I would, either. I looked away, searching for an answer. “I’m sorry, Raeth,” I managed.
He shook his head and turned away from me again. “It’s done. I’ll end her one day and take them home, but I can’t change what’s happened because of my choice.”
“The choice you made to give them a chance to win,” I reminded him.
“A choice that’s killed plenty of them nonetheless.” He started for the desk and sat, pulling a stack of papers to him. A wordless dismissal. I didn’t leave; I stared at him, working up the courage to ask another question.
“Your song is about that, isn’t it? About your Court and how you want to go back.”
Raeth paused but didn’t look at me. “You understood my song?”
“I miss my home, too.”
He laughed again, short and tired. “I thought you liked it because it was a sirensong.”
“I’ve heard sirensongs before. That one had no magic in it. It was…you. Different than when you enchant.”
“We have hundreds of songs. Hunting songs, death songs, songs of celebration. But a sirensong is different. It’s a siren’s soul laid bare. And it’s not often understood that easily.”
“An
d you let me hear it?”
“Go back to the Nest, Hania.”
It was a real dismissal this time, flat and quiet but no less clear. He was done talking. I swallowed the little thoughts pushing at me and turned and left without another word. One of the guards waiting outside escorted me back to the Nest, and when I entered, all eyes turned to me. I ignored them.
The Dragon Court hadn’t existed a century ago. For tidespeople that was next to nothing; I didn’t know how old Raeth and Aven were, but they both remembered the war. Raeth was here out of necessity, trying to save his people from a Queen who had taken them.
Which meant Aven was, too. My heart tore apart a little at the thought. He’d kept it to himself all this time.
A few murmurs followed me to my bed, and I knew what they were about, but they were distant. I pushed past the curtain to find Kieras waiting, arms crossed.
“What happened?”
I blinked back the sting in my eyes and passed her to the bed. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” She sat beside me, dark eyes worried and determined. “I know you’re not really one of us, not like he wants everyone to think you are. I know something else is going on. And I saw your face last night, and I know he asked you to his room. And you smell like him. It’s all over you. So what is going on?”
I closed my eyes again. Isla’s pleading face. The blood. The screams. “Kieras,” I choked out. “I can’t—”
“You knew them, didn’t you?”
“I don’t want to talk about them.” I’d start crying if I did. That broken piece inside of me would come back.
She sighed. “Alright. We won’t talk about them. What about Raeth?”
I dragged my head up to look at her, and my question came out in a whisper. “Why didn’t you tell me about the Court?”
“What about the Court?” Her voice was nonchalant, but there was a shadow in her face that betrayed her.
“He told me where you come from. What Marassa did. What he did.”
For a moment, there was silence and I couldn’t read her expression. She pressed her lips together and stood, pushing heavy locks of hair off her shoulders like she needed to be polished and presentable. “Our Court is dead and gone, Hania,” she said. “And I understand he fought for it, and is fighting for it, but he lost. Everybody lost. There’s no use in thinking about it anymore. All we can do is survive here.”
“Don’t you want to go back?”
“There’s no going back. This is my Court now, as much as I wish it wasn’t. And it’s yours, too, so I wouldn’t worry about the past if I were you.”
I shook my head, gaze wandering toward the rest of the Nest. The rest of the Court, all gold and marble and blood. Aven was here. Moray was here. Raeth. Kieras. But it wasn’t my Court. “It’s not mine. I’m not staying here. My brother and I are leaving. I just need to figure out how.”
I felt Kieras’s eyes on me. Felt her surprise. “Your brother?”
“Tobin.”
Another cautious step toward me. “He’s your brother?” I nodded. “That means you’re…”
“Blood of Lenairen. I know. He was protecting me and they took him for it. It’s my turn to protect him.”
“And all this time I thought you were losing your head over some foolish choice of lover.”
I braced my elbows on my knees and laced my fingers through my hair. I was, but it wasn’t Tobin. I was losing my head over both of them, and a certain siren who liked to play hot and cold so much it made my head spin. “No,” I murmured. “That’s—”
I broke off before I let his name slip out but Kieras wasn’t having it. “Who?”
“Nobody.”
“You don’t start that sentence and not finish it, Hania. Who?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Because you’ll get one or both of you into trouble?” I nodded. “A lot of trouble.” Another nod. “Not Raeth?” I shook my head. “Another siren?”
No.
“A selkie?” I paused long enough that she knew my answer. “A servant? Guard?” I shook my head again. “A nobleman, then? Little minx,” she said with a grin, pushing at my shoulder. “How did you meet a nobleman here? We’re under watch every second we’re out of the Nest.”
I met her eyes. “I didn’t meet him here.”
Her smile vanished and she dropped onto the bed beside me. I hadn’t known if she was aware of how I’d made it to the Court, but that reaction said the answer was yes. “Oh. Yes, that’s worse than the Queen’s pet.”
I nodded again. “He’s supposed to be helping us but sometimes I wonder. I know he’s doing what he can and he’s so close to the Queen he has to be careful. I trust him. I do. But I know I can’t have him and my brother both. I have to save my brother. But Aven…”
“Best you not say his name aloud,” Kieras murmured.
I let my head fall, closing my eyes against the weight of it like that would help. “I don’t know how I let myself get tangled in this.”
Her slender arm settled across my shoulders. “You’re lucky I’m the one you befriended here.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because anybody else would tell you it’s impossible to get it all. You’ll have to choose, on the slim chance you’ll be allowed to choose at all and not continue down this path right to the executioner.”
I fought down a shudder. “And you’ll tell me what?”
I could hear the little smile in her voice. “That the only way you’ll have any kind of chance with your selkie is to fight for him. His marriage is a matter of names and power. Prove yourself worthy of competing for it. And play it right and your brother’s freedom may end up on the table, as well.”
How was I supposed to prove myself? I was a human in a Court of magic and monsters. Aven’s fiancée was the Queen—nothing would make any tidesperson believe I was equal to her. But I couldn’t stop the tiny, sliver thread of hope that snaked through me. There had to be something I could do. Stupid and dangerous as it would be, it might be better than sitting here waiting and wondering.
Aven and Moray could only do so much. I needed to take some things into my own hands.
“How would I do that?” I asked.
Kieras’s eyes gleamed like stars, and she held one hand out to me. I took it, and she hauled me to my feet. I fought down a smile of my own as she led me to the doors of the Nest, though my heart thudded against my ribs. Without pause, she pushed open the doors, and we were met with crossed staffs blocking our exit.
I flinched but she didn’t. She looked straight at the guards, chin lifted like she was a part of the High Court. “We’d like to attend the Queen’s court this afternoon.”
“Step back and let the doors close, girl,” the guard droned.
“Not before you agree to escort us. We’ll behave, I swear it.” She fixed them with her prettiest smile but they were sirens, too, her charms wouldn’t do much. The looks on their faces were flat threats.
I stepped up beside her, ignoring the way they shifted their stances, ready to strike me if I moved again. “Ask Lord Tiraethsi if he gives us permission to attend. And do be sure to mention that his human would love to see it.”
Their blades pushed closer, driving me back a step. “Last warning.”
Kieras huffed and turned away, and I dared to level a glare at them as I followed. The doors slammed closed, and we received a few whispered laughs as we crossed back through the center of the Nest.
“What did you hope to accomplish?” Azali asked from her place among a dice game, surrounded once again by the girls who worshipped the ground she walked on. I’d almost dared to hope the friendliness she’d shown before would be there, but there was only the usual fire in her eyes. “Don’t take Raeth’s attention as a sign you’re anything more than you’ve ever been, Hania.”
Kieras put a hand on my arm, a silent signal not to do anything stupid, but I wasn’t planning on it. I was done fighting like a human. I gave her the coolest sm
ile I could manage, back refusing to bend, and forced my tone to stay calm and even. “You’re right. I’m nothing more than the human who’s climbed even further than you fell. Best of luck in your game, Azali.” And I turned away, Kieras at my side.
She hid a grin behind her hand as we claimed seats by the window. “I didn’t think I could be gladder that Raeth claimed you.”
We chatted, but my mind wasn’t on it. Kieras knew and was happy to fill the silence with whatever idle talk came into her head. I thought, and thought, the same ideas circling my head before they were thrown out and then came back. How was I supposed to prove myself? How could I try without Marassa killing me on the spot, or worse? How did I work Tobin’s freedom into it?
What did I do about Raeth and the other sirens? They didn’t deserve this.
It was over an hour before the doors opened, startling us. I turned to see who the messenger was summoning this time but saw a pair of guards on the threshold. They didn’t step farther, but their gazes fell on Kieras and I. Without a word, one beckoned, his face stony and displeased.
I looked to Kieras, but she was bouncing to her feet, and I followed. The guards closed the doors behind us and faced forward, which made my stomach twist. Had Raeth gotten us into court, or something else?
“The Lord grants that you both attend and, should our Queen see fit, speak your business. And advises you both remember his generosity in allowing this.”
“We’ll remember well, thank you,” Kieras replied as we started down the hall. Her hand found mine and squeezed once before she dropped it, and my pulse slowed a little.
He was giving me a chance. He had to know what this was about. It was his permission to go ahead—he wouldn’t interrupt with his business. I hoped.
Unless I needed it. Which was a very distinct possibility. And if I was so valuable to his mission to take down Marassa and free his people, he’d step in to save me again. Wouldn’t he?
I’d never been to court, but I knew of it. I’d heard Kieras talk about its mind-numbing tediousness, how she couldn’t imagine being able to sit through it on the days it ran. Hours upon hours of people who had travelled from the rest of the Court arriving to request business from their Queen. But if it got me a chance to beat Marassa, I’d sit through anything.
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