***
Ren, Shasa, Zeke, Solomus, and Ayso break out from the trees toward the sirens. Jomeini follows last, her hands wrapped around a small flame.
At their appearance, several sirens break for the sky, their wings flapping air toward them in a rush.
I run down the path, pushing through low branches and slipping once on the dirt before slapping the ground hard on my backside.
“They’re with us!” I call, wishing, but knowing the sirens won’t hear me. This is madness. They should have come talk to me—why didn’t they just come talk to me?
I push myself up, tiptoeing through growth to see Jomeini’s hands explode into flame much larger than before. She projects it, not toward the soldiers, but at the oncoming winged women.
“No—they’re with us!” I call again, pushing down the mountain, not sure who I’m talking to this time. I have to slow my steps at the risk of tripping again, but I finally break from the mountain’s growth, back on level ground.
Ren and Ayso fight two soldiers near one of the vehicles. Another soldier whips back as though struck by something invisible. Jomeini stands before them all, stalking forward with a detached, determined expression.
“Jomeini!” I call. “The soldiers, Jo, the soldiers!”
She was in the room—she knows who the enemy is. Why is Jomeini attacking the sirens?
Talon barrels through from behind me, carving into the soldiers with ease. I ignore everyone else until I reach Jomeini. Despite the fire lapping up her arms, I pull on her shoulder, jerking her.
Clarity rings through her eyes at my touch, and she blinks as if just remembering where she is.
“The tears,” I tell her, winded.
Jomeini’s eyes boggle at the fighting around us, and she stares at her hands, open-mouthed. “The tears,” she repeats.
I pause for a moment to be sure she’s back on board with us before turning.
I scan the skirmish, searching for the flowing red hair and emerald green wings—if any of the sirens have the tears, it will be Estelle. She’s hovering, confronted by a gaggle of soldiers. She flaps her wings at them, the force of air knocking a few back. One launches a spear at her. Another soldier hits a siren behind Estelle right in the chest, knocking her from the sky.
A small flash runs through soldiers, jarring them from side to side. Cadie flickers in and out of sight, blending with her surroundings, now sky and cloud, now grass and dirt. The invisible force punts a soldier to the ground, and she flickers back into sight for an instant before stabbing her finger into the soldier’s chest. The soldier lets out a gargled groan, folding in half before his life is siphoned out.
I rush toward Estelle, shoving a soldier out of the way, less concerned with fighting and more concerned with getting there before the siren flies away once more. A pair of hands grips my waist from behind, lifting me from the ground.
“What are you doing?” I shout, but the pixie-haired siren rises, the pump of her wings projecting us up, away from the skirmish.
“Let me go!” I screech.
“You were told to stay out of it,” she says in my ear, her wings flapping, lifting me higher and higher, toward the mountain. The trees, the people, the vehicles all shrink. “I’m only following orders. We can’t protect you if you go running right into battle.”
“Protect me? Let me go, put me down!”
I glance down, eyes desperate to capture what’s happening. And then I spot Gwynn kneeling to the ground just behind the vehicle she hasn’t dared to stray far from since she arrived.
The siren drops me roughly at the cliff below their meadow. I stumble to the rock face, scraping my palms against the stone.
“Take me back. Hey!”
I barely catch sight of her brown hair and dainty toes before she launches herself back toward the fighting.
I gasp, horrified to find Gwynn yanking Elodia’s chain, dragging the crippled siren across the dirt and away from everyone else.
“What have you done?” I say, rushing back down the mountainside. I’ll never get there in time. Never. So instead I pause, too caught up with Gwynn to be able to move.
Gwynn tears a knife away from a fallen soldier and yanks Elodia’s chain again, knocking the weakened siren to the ground. Gwynn shoves her forward with a boot on her back, takes a moth-ridden wing in hand, and begins sawing it from the girl’s shoulder.
The scream is astounding.
It plucks the air, wrenching between every creature below. Soldiers cover their ears. Sirens freeze, some in mid-air, some on the ground.
“Stop!” Estelle cries, and the word carries such power the soldiers halt as well. Everyone—Ren, Ayso, Solomus, they all stay their hands. I push down the path, hurrying, panting.
Sirens move to block my small band of rebels, trapping them in their wings and singing low on the air. Talon slinks down, even Jomeini crumbles under their song.
Gwynn doesn’t stop though. Her mouth puckers in glee. Her magic flares into the chain so the siren at its end gives out another shriek. Pink blood drips from her hands as she works the knife on the final few strands.
“No!” cries the caramel-skinned siren holding Solomus.
“Give me the tears!” Gwynn demands, ripping Elodia’s wing off the rest of the way.
The ground lurches beneath my feet, and I gasp. Ren’s words—even Talon’s—sear through at the sight. It’s not Gwynn, I tell myself. I have to talk to her. To make her see reason.
Estelle dives toward Gwynn. I wait for the blow, half dreading it, half praying she takes Gwynn out as swiftly as possible. I’ll meet her; she’ll let me talk to Gwynn. Maybe together we can convince her how badly she’s being fooled.
Instead, Estelle gives me one last glance before tucking into the folds of her cleavage and removing a tiny jar, an intricate curve in its glass, filled with glistening blue liquid.
The moment the tears meet the open air, their cry slits through me. It’s nothing to be caught by the casual ear. Instead, it pesters its way from my chest up to its usual place at my neck, hammering into my spine. My feet fall from beneath me, my palms smacking the dirt. The pressure is overwhelming. Maybe more so because I haven’t heard it this hard in so long.
“Ambry!” Ren cries, his voice faint from the distance.
“I’m coming!” I tell them, pushing myself to my feet.
In one greedy snatch, Gwynn nabs the vial, dropping the severed wing.
“No!” I shout. My mind is a flurry. Estelle and the other sirens rise to their feet. Ren, Solomus and Jomeini, along with the Black Vaulters bolt for the fray. Fire froths at Jomeini’s hands, glittering with streaks of fiery stars, but the sirens release their shrieking battle-cry-song, instantly knocking everyone to the ground.
“Stop it!” I shout, hoping to be heard over the din. All they’re doing is taking out those who’ve come to help!
Gwynn drops the chain, shoving Elodia toward Estelle to give herself time to duck into the backseat of her vehicle. Its wheels roar to life with flashes of purple electricity crossing along the rims.
The vehicle peels out as sirens flock around their fallen sister. Two rise into the sky with Elodia in their clutches while the other sirens follow after the screeching vehicles, floating just over them. Shasa thrusts a throwing knife at one of the abandoned soldiers, hitting him in the throat.
Three sirens congregate to one side, knocking into the moving cars in succession. The vehicle tips up, driving on only two wheels, until it crashes over, rolling to land in a plume of flames.
“Was that the one Gwynn was in?” I ask, coming to Ren’s side and helping him to his feet. He’s disheveled and dirty. Blood drips down his chin. He grips the sides of his head. I was affected by siren song once—enough to knock me woozy and render me basically unconscious. I can only imagine the impact it has on a man, especially the shrieks.
“Didn’t look like it,” Talon says, coming to my side. He’s panting hard, hands pumping at his sides. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I snap, harsher than I intend to, though it’s not him I’m upset with. My anger quickly fades at the sight of Ayso and Zeke bent over Cadie’s fallen, blackened body. The nymph looks more childlike than ever, small, frail and unmoving.
“What happened?” I ask, hurrying over to them.
“Jomeini,” Zeke says. “She...”
Cadie’s eyelids flicker. She’s still alive, but just barely. Her fingers twitch, and steam rises from her, giving off the smell of charred flesh. I don’t know the nymph all that well. But the sight of her injury fills me with both revulsion and sadness all the same.
“Jomeini!” Ayso calls, jerking the small girl toward the nymph’s lifeless form. Ayso’s hand startles the smaller of the two girls. Jomeini’s eyes widen at her.
“I didn’t mean to,” Jomeini says, plunging her face in her hands. “I didn’t mean to.” Her knees buckle, but Ayso shakes her out of it.
“I know you didn’t hurt her on purpose,” Ayso says. “But can you heal her? We need you to try.”
Jomeini bends around them, muttering feeble apologies. Closing her eyes, she fans out her hands over the nymph, and I turn away.
Smoke fills the air from the wrecked vehicle. The bodies of several soldiers lie on the ground, their blood pooling and darkening the dirt. I’m hollow inside. The tears are gone. We failed.
How could Gwynn have done it? Sawed the siren’s wing off, drunk her blood? Both Ren’s insistence and Talon’s suggestion that she truly has changed begin to ring clearer than I’d like. The same stubborn streak I’ve felt for her breaks through their arguments. If she really is doing these terrible things of her own volition, I have to help her see sense. Because if the tables were turned, I’d want her to do the same for me.
The sky is clear of sirens, save two, and I offset my feet, waiting for them to land. The small band of people around me gawk, but I’m so livid I can hardly breathe. Estelle’s beauty is violent and burdensome to anyone who looks at her. Just one glance into those pink diamond eyes will mesmerize anyone. But instead of admiration my blood boils.
“Ambry Csille,” says Estelle, chin high, “I warned you to stay out of it.”
“What have you done?” I ask.
Estelle folds her arms. “We granted you friendship and sisterhood. You should know we come to the aid of our sisters. Including you.”
“Not at the risk of the world!” I argue, hating the fact that they took me away right when I could have helped.
“Watch yourself, Ambry,” Solomus warns from somewhere to my left. The reprimand chides me. I remember a time where Talon gave me a similar warning, and I lost my temper. I argued with the wizard and acted like a petulant child, and it got me nowhere.
I take a mental step backward. The wizard is right. I can’t go around losing my temper the way I did before.
Estelle ruffles her wings. “Would you rather I abandon Elodia and allow the torture to continue? They drank her blood. They removed her wings. Nothing worse can befall a siren.”
The loss in her voice softens me. “I wish you had told me,” I say, the fight draining out. There was a time I would have argued, the way I did with Solomus. But after what I’ve witnessed, I can’t discount her despair. “I could have helped you! I was in the palace, Estelle, I could have found her. Gotten her out. And now you’ve just handed the Arcaians their most dangerous weapon.”
Estelle raises her chin. A hint of regret, of worry, streaks across her eyes.
I place a hand on her shoulder. After seeing Jomeini so pained, even seeing Shasa’s hurt, I can’t blame Estelle for this.
“We all have our own battles, Estelle,” I say. “That doesn’t mean we have to fight them alone.” And I walk away, fully aware that I’m abandoning my friends to be alone with a siren. But for some reason I know Estelle won’t do anything to them this time.
Talon carries Cadie back toward the van, hidden deep in the brush of the forest. Jomeini walks behind, wringing her hands and muttering under her breath.
“I hope it was enough,” she keeps saying.
I jog to catch up and put my arm around her. Jomeini jerks at the touch, shrinking away and hugging her arms around herself. Sunlight spears through gaps in the branches, but Jomeini meanders to avoid them, sticking to the shadows.
“You okay?” I ask.
She wrings her hands and continues walking, not looking at me. “I tried. I tried to help—I got—”
I touch her shoulder, pulling her to a stop. This time she doesn’t draw back. Her eyes are wounded, as though worried I’m about to strike her.
“It’s okay,” I say.
She shudders. “I froze up. I—I destroy, I burn everything I touch.”
“You tried,” I say, the depths of me aching for the sorrow in her voice. I reach to put my arm around her again and then think better of it. “You agreed to help us. That means more than anything.”
”Everything I do is wrong. I kept you from getting the tears.”
“No, you didn’t,” I insist, meeting the void in her black eyes. “The sirens wouldn’t have given the tears back to us anyway, not with their wounded sister there. You did what you could.”
Jomeini dips her chin. “A lot of good it did.”
I sigh, lacking the strength to argue with her.
Zeke opens the van’s door and climbs in, offering his hands. Talon passes Cadie over. The nymph’s weak chest rises and falls. Her eyes remain closed, her clothes dull and dirty, but at least her skin is back to its normal appearance, no longer blackened and charred.
No one says much as the van of Black Vaulters drives off, or as Talon, Shasa, Ren and I make it back to the cycles.
I stew over it all the way back to the house, holding onto Ren’s shirt as he navigates our way back. Wind whips through my hair, but the ride passes in a blur. I thought Tyrus was the main contender, but here is my best friend on the front lines, calling the shots, making the bold moves.
Why send her? What is Tyrus up to?
Planning a war, that’s what. Training soldiers, traveling the country and garnering new recruits and subjugates. Not for the first time I wonder how the Arcaians think they can possibly manage ownership of that many people’s magic. It’s not like they can bring a caravan of people wherever they go just so they can use it. They can’t access the stolen magic unless its owner is near.
That’s just it, though. Once he finds a way into Angel’s Basin, he won’t need to drag subjugates along. If what Talon says is true, the water there will have the power to make the magic he’s stolen permanently his.
It doesn’t make sense that they still want the tears. If Tyrus is threatening Feihria with tears—tears that won’t let anyone drink them, what do they want with them?
Could the tears have some connection to Angel’s Basin? Something I don’t know about?
Ren steers down the dirt road much sooner than I remember it taking this morning. We crawl down the streets, pulling in at the safehouse with its blue siding and spotty landscape. Talon veers into the garage, and Ren follows. The white van is parked and empty of its passengers. Ayso and the others must have arrived minutes ago.
“There’s no way one vial of tears can help win a war,” I say as I dismount and slam the helmet to its hook on the wall.
“Tyrus seems to think it can,” says Talon.
Shasa makes for the door into the house, but at Talon’s words stops in place and leans against the door frame. Ren rests a foot on the cycle’s pedal, one hand on the handlebars.
“What’s different about Gwynn, Ren?” I ask, wanting to get to the bottom of this. “What made her be this way?”
“What do you mean?” Ren asks, his eyebrows tented.
“This goes deeper than just drinking some tears. Talon said it himself,” I say, thinking aloud. Talon rests his hand on the other handlebar opposite from Ren, his attention avid.
“Tyrus tried to make him do these horrible things,” I say. “But Talon refused to do
it. Now Tyrus is having Gwynn do them, but Talon said the desire had to be in her before she even drank the tears. You said it was already in the core of who she was.” Talon nods to affirm it. I shake my head. “I just can’t believe this is really Gwynn doing these things. This isn’t the core of her.”
“What are you saying?” Ren asks, unsettled.
“You saw her that night, Ren. She was alive, she was vibrant, she had no wicked intent toward anyone. I refuse to believe the same girl who climbed to my window for help after being misused would do what she just did to that siren of her own accord. I don’t think it was the tears that unlocked who she really is.”
“It was that dream she had right before it,” Ren finishes after a moment.
“Dreams were always the key to unlocking who people were beneath the wizard’s spell,” says Talon, cottoning on. Shasa moves from the step back to where the three of us stand.
“It’s not just about the tears. Dreams got Gwynn to buy the tears in the first place,” adds Ren.
Realization spills over every inch of me, filling me with both dread, urgency, and a renewed anticipation all at once.
“Where is Solomus?” I ask.
***
Cadie’s child-sized arms and legs contrast with her mature facial features. It’s been almost an hour since Jomeini healed the nymph’s extensive wounds, but her eyes haven’t opened since they brought her down here. And so Jomeini hasn’t left.
Though standing still, an outburst of instability rattles within her. Try as she might, she can’t help reliving the day’s previous events.
Darkness crept around her in the middle of the bright afternoon in the form of the blonde woman, Gwynn Hawkes. The sadistic pleasure crimping Gwynn’s mouth, the rigid intensity burning in her eyes when she shoved the siren prisoner down, the sight transferred Jomeini. When Gwynn’s boot struck the woman’s back, it was Craven all over again.
All at once the chain was back on Jomeini’s throat. A barrage of swords stung the innermost parts of her mind, stabbing Craven’s reminders of her own failures in, over and over. Jomeini froze in the midst of that battle, unable to take her eyes from Gwynn, not daring to move for fear of what might happen should she fight.
Such a Daring Endeavor Page 22