Evie saw a flash of movement, far above her head.
She peered upward, narrowing her eyes, and realized there was a circular opening in the side of the rock; something that looked like a curved doorway. A form leaned out of that opening, with head and shoulders visible, and long hair hanging down, obscuring the faraway face. Then another head popped out of what had seemed to be solid rock. Then another and another, until dozens of pairs of distant eyes were staring down at her out of a vast number of openings in the rock-face that she hadn’t even seen before.
Then there was a burst of air pressure. The sound of leathery wings slapping against the air.
Suddenly, the sky was full of Sirens.
For a minute, Evie forgot to feel afraid. The sight of them, huge wings spread, spiraling down toward her, was too strange—and too beautiful—to feel anything but awe.
The first one that came close enough for her to see it clearly was a female with wings the color of red wine, and wild, burgundy hair that matched the color of her wings exactly. The next had black wings like Roman, but his skin was deeply tanned, his build the slight, wiry build of a gymnast. He wore a long, thin sword strapped to his side. They hovered above the pavilion, the flap of their wings throwing bits of dirt and twigs up and into Evie’s face.
There were more than Evie could count, a roiling cloud of rainbow colors and curling claws, hovering just above her head.
She threw her head back, staring, with her heart pounding, her hair flying wildly in the wind their wings created. Her eyes darted from one creature to the next. She was fascinated, eager to take in as much detail as she could, trying frantically to commit everything to memory, and at the same time, she felt her knees bend, as though her body was instinctively preparing to flee. She had read hundreds of descriptions of these creatures, had scraped every last detail she could find from old scrolls and translations of ancient documents that no longer existed any place but memory, but none of them had been quite right. Despite the danger she was in, a part of her heart swelled with the realization that no human record had ever come close to describing what she was seeing right now.
Roman moved to stand in front of her, trying to shield her behind his broad back. He signed frantically to the other Sirens, his hands cutting big, anxious slices through the air, his wings tense on either side of Evie, as though he could wrap her in them to protect her.
At least they were using sign, she thought to herself, and protecting her from the overwhelming and irreversible effects of hearing their voices. She tried to follow Roman’s signs, but the system of signs the Sirens used in her presence had never been taught in any human school. She couldn’t understand a word. She didn’t need a translator, though, to understand the expressions of shock and outrage that spread across the Sirens’ faces as they took in what Roman was saying.
Their wild eyes flashed with raw anger. Claws, already impossibly long, seemed to extend even farther from their hands.
The second that Roman’s hands stilled, they turned to each other and, still hovering in the air, began to argue heatedly. Their hands flew with dizzying speed. Their wings beat faster and faster, till Evie felt like a small windstorm was swirling around her. She had to throw her hands up to shield her eyes from the sand and pebbles that flew through the air.
Then, with no warning, most of the Sirens flocking above them turned and soared away, shooting off at incredible speeds and disappearing back into the mountain. Only two remained: the woman with red wings and the black-winged male with a sword at his side.
The flap of their wings slowed, and they descended to the ground like birds of prey landing lightly, so as not to startle their prey into flight, one on either side of Evie. They towered over her, their broad wings held up in the air, their pupils dilated and black as they tilted their heads to the side and studied her.
The male reached up and wrapped his hand around Evie’s arm, pulling her toward the stairs.
Roman bristled, stepping forward with his chest swelling, bringing up a hand to knock away the Siren’s hold.
“It’s alright,” Evie told him quickly, reaching up to still his hand. With the tension that seethed in the air around them, she had no doubt that it would take very little for the situation to explode into violence. “I’m fine. I don’t mind.”
Roman stilled, watching her eyes closely for a minute before stepping back. He stretched his neck and flapped his wings, letting out a deep breath he must have been holding. He gave Evie a small nod, and understanding passed between him. He didn’t want this to turn into a fight any more than she did.
Evie turned to the male Siren whose hand was still wrapped around her wrist. “I’ll go with you,” she assured him.
She saw the shock ripple across the Siren’s face. He and the female exchanged looks of confusion, and they began signing again, first to each other and then turning to Roman with expressions of disbelief. Roman rolled his eyes, and with the air of someone who feels he is being forced to repeat himself endlessly, lifted his hands back into the air and began signing to them again.
Now Evie could at least guess what they were saying. She should have realized it would happen; that as soon as she spoke, the other Siren’s would hear the lack in her voice. They knew more about her now than she would have chosen to tell them: that she had been born a Legacy, with a portion of their own Siren blood coursing through her veins. But they also knew that the promise of that power had never materialized. She was, as her mother had coldly explained to her, a cripple. Her genes had cheated her. The power coded deep inside her DNA had never risen to the surface. No matter what cruel methods Steele and her parents had tried to use to wake it, the power inside her refused to wake, and she stood, as weak as any full-fledged human, in the deepest heart of the Sirens’ secret home.
Memories rose, unbidden and unwelcome, tumbling to the forefront of her mind. Pain rang deep inside her as she waited for the Sirens’ eyes to fill with the same scorn she had become almost used to at home. She had been treated as less than trash by other Legacies. Her own parents had sold her for “breeding” to the highest bidder they could find, and not caring that the one who won her was Troy, a man well known for his cruelty. Her parents had only hoped to make up some of their losses. Perhaps Troy could sire a child from her. One that wouldn’t be a cripple, and that they could take as their own.
Evie forced away the tightness in her throat. She threw back her shoulders and raised her chin. She wouldn’t let her memories, or derision of these Sirens, get to her. They would look at her with scorn, now that they knew what she was. But the low opinions of others didn’t change what she had to do. She had a role to play, and she knew it. There were things she knew that no one else did, pieces of an ancient puzzle that she would put together, no matter what.
Even if it cost her freedom and, eventually, her life.
But when the female Siren turned and looked back at Evie, her expression was thoughtful. Her eyes probed Evie’s, as though searching for answers to a litany of questions that Evie couldn’t begin to imagine.
The male’s grip loosened, and his hand fell from Evie’s arm.
She glanced over at him, startled, and he looked back at her. For a second, she thought she saw something almost admiring in his gaze, but the expression was gone so quickly that she couldn’t really process it. Then, with an uncertain gesture, he motioned down the stairs, inviting her, rather than dragging her, down the steps.
Evie swallowed hard against a sudden catch in her throat, and nodded her agreement hastily, nearly tripping over her own feet in her hurry to move forward. They all walked, together, down the stairs and along the long, curving path.
As they got closer to the mountain’s rocky inner wall, its shadow fell over her. Goosebumps rose on Evie’s skin as they paced deeper into the shadow, right up to the face of the stone. Now she could see what had seemed to be mere shadows on the face of the rock were really curved doorways. Hundreds of them, spiraling up and around the side
s of the hollow mountain, offering entry at every possible height so the winged Sirens could enter their home from almost any angle.
Evie and her escorts walked in, and Evie blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to the sudden, semi-darkness. The heavy air lay thick and moist on her skin. The cave smelled like mud and still water. Moss grew in long, green streaks across the stone walls. The silence there was so deep and still that Evie cringed at the sound her own feet made against the sand and gravel, the sound echoing off the walls, seeming to announce in louder and louder reverberations that a stranger had entered these forbidden realms.
A wooden walkway was built close against the cave wall, its wood stained green and gray from moss and mud. The Sirens led her to it, and they walked, single file, deeper and deeper into the darkness until Evie had to extend a hand in front of her, for fear of crashing into Roman from behind.
The walkway curved up and then down, till Evie’s legs ached and her neck was wet with sweat despite the drop in the temperature. Then, slowly, the quality of the darkness changed. Evie could see Roman’s wings in front of her. When she looked down, she could see her feet. They were no longer walking on the wooden walkway or on a rough mixture of sand and gravel. The ground beneath them was perfectly smooth stone. They rounded a corner, and Evie gasped.
It wasn’t just the sudden light from a procession of bright burning torches lining the walls that surprised her. They had entered a beautiful corridor, carved from the stone. The ceiling above arched delicately. The walls sparkled in the torches’ lights. Evie turned her head from side to side, trying to keep up with her escorts while still taking in every detail.
The walls were inlaid with hundreds—no, thousands—of pearls. Some silver or gray, others so perfectly white that they shone like diamonds, the pearls curled up and over every inch of the walls in seemingly endlessly intricate patterns. Images of octopi, of huge sea serpents, their heads raised high above the waves, sea stars with legs stretched open as they floated in endless, pearly oceans.
Every inch of the wall was a work of priceless art, and Evie felt something spark deep inside her chest, a light that was a twin of the torches flaring along the corridor walls.
The Sirens had made this place; this art was their own. They might be wild, even savage creatures, but she had been right: they weren’t monsters. No monster could have made such works of intricate beauty.
Evie heard the claws clicking on stone long before she saw them, but still, as they rounded the corner and entered an expansive chamber, she was not prepared for the sheer number of Sirens that had gathered in a crowd, clearly waiting for her arrival. There were so many of them, even more than she had seen before, a churning chaos of colored wings and flashing eyes.
They had all gathered in front of a pair of towering, white stone doors.
Two armed Siren guards stood on either side of the door. Evie’s heart stuttered then tripled the speed of its beat. She knew, with a stone-cold certainty, deep in her heart, that the Siren King waited on the other side of that door, and for a second her knees felt weak. Her head swam.
For good or for bad, her destiny would be decided on the other side of those doors. Chances were, that if she lived to walk back out of that room, it would be as a slave, her freedom and her will ripped from her forever.
The two Sirens who had escorted them led them up to the door, and the crowd parted around them, like a stream around a stone. The two guards reached up and began to pull the doors open.
Evie glanced up at Roman’s face. His eyes were fastened on the light that streamed through the opening doors, his eyes wide, his face pale. His clawed hands trembled at his side.
Oh, that’s just perfect, Evie thought to herself wryly. My supernatural protector is scared out of his mind.
But she couldn’t blame him. She had known for a long time that there was a world of trouble headed her way. Roman had dived deep into all of this for her sake and was about to face the consequences of breaking his people’s most sacred laws.
Pushing aside her fear of him, she reached over and touched him gently on the arm; smiling when he looked over at her.
“Don’t worry,” she told him softly, ignoring the stir that ran through the crowd behind them at the sound of her voice. “We’ll be okay. We can do this.”
He gave a small jerk of his head, a movement not so much of agreement, but of acknowledgment. Then the doors were opened, and Roman and Evie crossed the threshold into the King’s throne room alone.
Evie blinked rapidly as the doors clanked shut behind them. The room was so bright that her eyes needed a few seconds to adjust. The huge chamber of stone-white walls illuminated from end to end with a seemingly endless array of torches. Evie’s eyes swam and watered. The walls were bare, and the only thing in the room was a flight of steps, leading up to a throne that glittered as though carved from ice. The room was breathtaking, but Evie couldn't study it . . . she was too busy staring at the creature who sat above them, staring down at them with blazing eyes.
All of her childhood, she had been taught to fear the Watchers. To hate them. She had been taught that they were monsters, cold-blooded and eternally hungry. She had long suspected that those tales weren’t true but, still, nothing had prepared her for this.
He was beautiful.
Piercing blue eyes set in an ancient, ageless face. Deep lines that edged his mouth, suggesting that his mouth, currently set in a cold scowl, was no stranger to laughter. Gray hair fell in soft curls just to his shoulders. Thick framed and long-legged, he sat perfectly still. Watching them. But, more than anything else, it was his wings that shook Evie to the core, making her question everything that she learned about these creatures. Because his wings were not thick black leather like Roman’s, or even shimmery blue or deep red.
He had angel’s wings.
Thick, soft feathers covered every inch of the wings that stretched behind him, majestic and broad. His wings fluttered ever so slightly, the only part of him that moved.
Roman stood for a moment, frozen at Evie’s side, staring up at his king. Then he crumpled, falling prostrate and pressing his face against the floor.
Evie couldn’t move. Suddenly she felt terribly alone and very, very insignificant. What was she supposed to do now? She wondered, panic building inside her. She licked her lips, trying to force words to rise in her throat. She was standing in front of the Siren King. There was so much that she needed to tell him! But her voice was locked deep inside her. No words would come. She glanced over at Roman, but he couldn’t help her now. He lay with his face pressed against the floor. Did the King expect her to prostrate herself? To kneel? Was she giving grave offense, just by standing in his presence? With a tremendous amount of effort, she tore her eyes away from the King and dropped her gaze to the floor. But she could not bring herself to kneel. All of her life, people had tried to control her. Troy had wanted nothing less than to own her; body and soul. Evie knew perfectly well that, almost certainly, she was only moments away from being permanently enthralled to a Siren.
She had the rest of her life to live on her knees.
She would speak her piece, would do what she had come here to do while standing on her own two feet. Determination flooded her, and Evie looked up, ready to meet the King’s distant gaze.
Except that the King’s gaze wasn’t distant anymore.
He was standing right in front of her, mere inches of air between them.
Evie gasped and stumbled backward, thrown off balance by surprise.
A warm hand caught her arm. Steadying her. Powerful fingers curled around her chin, tugging her face up. And Evie found herself staring into the eyes of the King.
He studied her.
She felt as though he were looking down into her very core, running his eyes calmly over her most hidden parts, her most guarded secrets. She couldn’t pull away. Time froze, her bones locked down. The moment stretched on and on. Evie couldn't breathe.
“There are . . . things . . . th
at I need to tell you,” she finally managed to say. Her voice was strangely loud in the silent chamber, her voice making strange echoes against the walls. Each word that she forced from her lips took tremendous effort, as though the raw power the King was exuding created direct pressure on her nervous system. “The Legacies are doing something. Dangerous.”
She saw his lips beginning to move. Desperation and panic surged in her chest.
“Wait,” she cried. “Let me explain! There’s a good reason why Roman brought me here today, and . . .”
“Silence,” the King commanded, his voice like thunder, filling the room with its force.
Evie shied away. It had happened . . . she had heard a Siren’s voice. She clenched her eyes shut, and waited for the oblivion to wash over her.
Except it did not come.
The fear gripped her and then lessened. Wonder came quickly in its wake.
“Do you understand now?” the King asked her, his voice softer than it had been. “My voice will do you no harm. I am different from the rest of my kind.”
It was impossible. Evie had known her whole life what it meant to walk among the Watchers. But now she stood, having heard the King's voice . . . and she still knew herself. Numbly, Evie nodded.
Satisfied, the King turned from her. His face darkened as he walked over to stand in front of Roman's still prostrate form.
“Rise,” he said after a moment of terrible silence.
Roman straightened slowly, his wings clapped firmly to his back, his eyes downcast. The moment he was on his feet, the King's hand flew out, striking him full force across the face. Roman stumbled backward. Evie saw shock on his face as blood trickled from his lip. He kept his eyes still fastened on the floor. He raised one hand and held it in front of his face, shielding himself, as though the King were the sun, shining on him too brightly.
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