“There is a fundamental difference between our power and the power of full-blooded Sirens.” Andrew shrugged. “Maybe it's better this way. For you to learn for yourself so that you could really understand why things have to change.” He leaned in closer to her. “We have only half the power that we ought to have. As Echoes, the power of our voices is limited to physical control. We can make a person's body do anything we want . . . if the speaker's voice is strong enough, it will happen. But that is where our power ends. When it comes to emotions, our abilities hit a brick wall. We can make a person do things, but we can never control how they feel about doing them. Or, in Jake’s case, you can physically stop him from taking the drugs. But you can’t uproot the craving that he has for them.”
Molly shook her head. “You’re saying that I can’t help him,” she said, and now she let the anger that had been stirring inside her leak into her voice. “I can’t accept that. I won’t.”
“And you shouldn’t.” Andrew nodded, the fierceness in his voice rising to match the anger in Molly’s. “It isn’t right. We’ve been denied our birthright for too long. The Watchers are jealous guardians of a power that they refuse to even make use of. They leave us to be slaughtered by the Legacies, refusing to step in and stop the violence. And yet, at the same time, refusing to grant us access to the one thing that would make us safe forever.” He pointed at the drawings of the goblet again, and for the first time, Molly really looked at the image that Andrew was so clearly obsessed with. The goblet didn’t look like much: pale white stone, no discernible markings.
“You’re saying that, somehow, the goblet could change that?”
Andrew nodded. “The goblet couldn’t give just anyone power. If a regular human were to drink out of it, it would destroy them. But for us—for anyone with a trace of Siren blood running in their veins who drinks from that goblet . . .” For a moment, words seemed to fail him. He leaned back against the cushions, exhaling a heavy breath. “It would make our voices just as powerful as a full-blooded Siren’s. Just as powerful, Molly! Imagine that! If just a few of us were that strong, it would change everything. We would be able to fight them. Really fight them. We'd be able to throw off their yoke, once and for all. We’d be able to truly fight back against the Legacies.” He looked at Molly, and his eyes gleamed. “You could cure Jake. With a single sentence.”
Molly swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry.
“You’re sure?” she asked. She wanted him to promise her, to swear right then and there that it was really possible. That she could really make Jake be okay.
Andrew’s face lit up. “Don't you understand what I’m trying to tell you? The Sirens can do what we can't . . . their voices have power over more than the physical. Their voices go right to the core . . . to the soul, the heart. It is possible, Molly. And we are very, very close.”
For a long moment, Molly stared at Andrew. She wanted to believe what he was saying. And there was no risk that she wouldn’t take for Jake.
“Then why are we waiting?” she asked, pretending that her stomach wasn’t twisting with nerves and that the tips of her fingers hadn’t gone cold. “Let’s go get it.”
Andrew shook his head. “It isn’t so easy. Thanks to Evie, we at least know where it’s hidden. But the Sirens have it heavily guarded. According to Evie’s research, each Siren has to 'donate' one of his human servants . . . the strongest and fiercest one, to stand constant guard around the goblet. There are hundreds of them.”
Molly nodded slowly to herself. One by one, the pieces started to come together in her mind. “That’s why you were so excited when you learned that my voice can control whole groups of people at once.You need me to get past the guards.”
“It’s a very rare gift,” Andrew agreed. “And I think your ability is the key in the lock that will get us to the goblet. The Sirens are used to going unchallenged,” Andrew went on “They've held all of the households, through fear and intimidation, for generations. It is probably unthinkable to them that we would try to resist them now. Their over-confidence makes them weak. All we need is that goblet. And the longer we wait, the greater the risk that Steele will get there first. And you don’t even want to imagine what will happen, to all of us, if Steele manages to get that kind of power.” Andrew leaned in closer to Molly, his breath warm on her cheek. “But we need you,” he said, his voice urgent. “We need your voice to get us past the guards.”
Molly’s heart beat so quickly that she could hear its beating faintly in her ears.
“And if we get it, I can cure Jake?” she asked, needing to hear the words again.
Andrew smiled at her, and the warmth of his expression was like the sun rising.
“Yes,” he promised, without a moment's hesitation. “He'll never want drugs again.”
Molly’s heart swelled.
“Then what are we waiting for?” she asked, her hands balling into fists on her knees. “Let’s got get the goblet.”
Andrew grinned at her, his expression almost child-like in its pure excitement. “Okay.” Andrew sat up a little straighter and ran a hand through his rumpled hair. “I have to contact someone. He’s a partner of sorts. He’s the one who first told me about the goblet, and he’s been helping me to search for it all these years. He’ll want to come with us. And then . . .” Andrew took a deep breath. “We’ll go after the goblet. Together.”
“Give me a day or two to get everything ready,” Andrew told her, standing.
“Okay.” Molly was glad her voice sounded steady, and she rose, too.
Andrew walked her to the door. Patting her on the shoulder, he softly closed the door behind her.
But not before Molly caught a glimpse of the wild triumph on his face.
Evie
Evie and the King stared at each other in silence.
The King flicked his wings and settled them behind his back. He leaned his head to the side, stretching his neck.
“Roman says we have failed you,” he said, the words clipped by annoyance. Evie said nothing, stunned that Roman thought that. That he had dared to say such a thing to his king. She had never said a word of reproach to Roman. It was true that Roman frightened her, but she didn’t blame him for the lies he had told her or the decisions he had made. He had risked everything to try to help her. She was pretty sure that she knew who her monsters were, and between Troy and her parents, she had more than enough already.
She said nothing. The King narrowed his eyes.
“What are you?” the King demanded. “You are not human. But I hear no power in your voice.”
Evie blinked. This conversation had taken a turn she never expected it to take.
“I came to warn you,” she said, finally finding her voice. “The Legacies . . .”
But the King cut her words off with a sharp shake of his head. “I rule here! I will ask the questions, and you will answer them,” he thundered, and despite herself, Evie took a step back, away from him. “What are you?”
“I . . . I’m Evie,” she stammered. “My parents are Legacies. But the power never came to me.”
The King grimaced. “And what fault of mine could that possibly be?” he asked, his voice an outraged rumble. But something about Evie’s expression made him still. He watched her closely for a moment and then stepped closer. His voice dropped. Gentled. “What has happened to you, child?”
Evie felt the blood drain from her face. She felt suddenly as though the walls of the room were closing in around her, boxing her in. Her breath came faster, but she couldn’t quite fill her lungs.
Without even knowing that she did it, she shook her head once in a quick, desperate motion of refusal.
“I must know,” the King insisted. When Evie’s silence stretched on, his face darkened. “I will know the truth,” he told her. “Every bit of it. One way or another.”
The threat hung in the air between them. Either Evie would tell him of her own free will, or he would strip her freedom from her, and take the truth fr
om her that way.
She had no choice. But still, forcing the words out was almost impossible. She didn’t talk about it. Had never talked about it except for once, in a place where she felt safe, to someone she felt sure would understand. Now she felt as though the mere act of parting her lips would rip the barely healed wounds wide open. She hung her head. Clenched her eyes shut, as though she could speak of the memories, but still somehow hold them outside of her mind. Keep them at a distance.
The words were halting. Slow. She told the King about how her parents had taken her to Steele for “treatment,” to try to force her voice to surface. The pain. The experiments. The way she begged them to stop, while secretly hoping that something that he did to her, no matter how painful, would work. So that she could have her family back again. She told him about how, when nothing worked, and it became clear that she would always be a “cripple,” Steele suggested they sell her for breeding.
The words choked her as she spoke, and her eyes were still clamped shut, but she wasn’t sure she could have stopped the tears from flowing at this point, even if she wanted. She felt as though she was reliving everything that had happened, as though she were back in her room, at this very moment. Waking up, in the same bed where her mother had tucked her in and wished her sweet dreams every night, to Troy standing over her. She could almost hear his voice now, telling her that he wanted to “sample the goods he’d paid for.” She could hear the screams that ripped from her throat, the cries for help to her parents, just down the hall. They could hear her screaming
But no one came.
She didn’t cry when she was done talking. She felt tired and empty. She stood, her hands limp at her side, and opened her eyes slowly. Maybe she should have just let the King take her freedom. Maybe then telling the story wouldn’t have hurt her quite so much.
It took her a second to realize that the King was no longer standing over her. He had backed away and sat down on the steps leading up to his throne. He looked strangely vulnerable sitting there, with his fine robes dragging on the ground, and a hand resting over his mouth.
He didn’t speak to her, but stood and walked swiftly to the door of his throne room. He pulled the door open a crack and spoke to the sentry standing outside.
“Go to Roman’s chambers immediately,” he ordered the guard. “Tell him that he is released from house arrest.” He turned, his eyes locking with Evie, “He is more in the right than I am.”
He closed the door and, his steps slow, went back to sit on the steps again. Then he motioned to the spot beside him, inviting Evie to join him.
Moving slowly, and feeling as though she were dreaming, Evie went and sat beside the Siren King.
“Roman was right,” the King said, his lips quirking, as though the words left a bitter taste on his tongue. “We have failed you. It has been many generations since we ruled the Legacy households as we should. And now you say that they are mounting some kind of rebellion against us?”
“They have learned of the moonstone goblet,” Evie told him. “And Steele is determined to find it and use it for himself.”
The King shook his head. “That’s impossible!” he cried, and for a second Evie mistook the emotion in his eyes for anger. But then his face paled, and she realized, with a tremor of shock that rolled through her whole body, that the Siren King was afraid.
“We’ve done everything possible to destroy all knowledge of that goblet!” The King protested. Evie shifted uneasily and decided not to tell him that she herself had done a great deal of the research that had brought the goblet’s existence to light. “The threat that it poses to our survival is so great that we would have destroyed it generations ago if we had not feared bringing our Mother’s wrath down on us and worsening our curse!”
“Wait a minute, what do you mean?” Evie asked, narrowing her eyes. “I came to warn you because I know Steele. If he became more powerful, he could do even more terrible things than he has already done.”
“You do not know, then, where the goblet gets its power? Or what the liquid is that it contains?”
“No,” Evie answered, shaking her head. “And I don’t know what curse you are talking about, either.”
“My people were born at the very beginning of this world,” he said. “Back when the Creator formed the two great lights, ordering the sun to rule the day, and the moon to rule the night. This much you know?”
Evie nodded mutely. Everyone knew that story.
“What you do not know is that the sun and moon were not always as you see them now. At first, the sun and the moon were equal in strength. They shone with equal brightness, and the world did not know darkness or fear. But the sun and the moon argued. Of this, there is some whisper still among mankind. Ancient Jewish Midrashim tell of how the sun and the moon argued before God, each wishing to gain dominion over the other. The moon lost the argument. And then she was reduced, in both her size and her brightness. She became so weak that she could no longer hold the dark at bay.
“In the darkness of her absence, evil was born into the world. She had been commanded to rule the night, but now she was too weak. She loved the humans far below her and grieved for the evil that befell them in the darkness. Humans turned on each other, once their faces were hidden. Other creatures, too, grew bolder. They found humans were easy prey.
“The moon wept and filled the oceans of the world with the salt water of her tears. Out of her grief, she bore children.” The King motioned to himself. “The Watchers. She clothed us in wings of white and gifted us with voices as pure and piercing as a moonbeam. She sent us down to be her Watchers in the night, to keep the peace for her on nights when her own light waned. Men called us angels.” The King shook his head. “And for a time we walked among them. Beloved. Honored. At that time all of us wore feathers, and each possessed two voices; a human voice and a heavenly one. We could converse safely with humans if we so chose. Only to stop violence were we to use our other voices; even then, they were meant to be merciful, preserving the life of the guilty, turning them from lives of depravity to usefulness. We were not wholly evil. But the temptation was too great.
“Of this, too, there is record, though much has been misunderstood. The purest is in Genesis, where it is written, 'The Neflim saw that the daughters of man were beautiful, and they took for themselves wives from whomever they chose.’”
“Neflim?” Evie asked, interrupting for the first time. “I've heard that word before. I can't remember what it meant.”
“Most do not translate it correctly. They believe the word comes from the word 'nefal' meaning fallen. They took us for fallen angels, descending to earth to cavort with human women.” The King snorted derisively. “Our name always meant 'Overseers,' much the same as how we are known to your kind today.”
“As the Watchers.”
“Yes. Historically, we are condemned for fathering half-human children.”
“You mean us?” Evie lay her hand against her chest. “The Legacies?”
The King nodded. “Yes, and the Echoes as well. They are equally our children. At the time, we did not stop to think about the shadow of our own power that we would pass on to our partly human descendants. We did not consider what harm might be done. But fathering the Echo people was hardly the worst thing we did.”
Evie held her breath, watching as the King closed his eyes and bowed his head.
“We enslaved entire towns,” he said softly. “Drunk on the power of our voices to enthrall anyone who might stand in our way, we did not hold back our hands from any good thing. There was no one to stop us.
“We forgot that our Mother was watching . . . but she was. And her anger burned hot against us. She created the moonstone goblet, to weaken us and to strengthen the one she chose to carry out her judgment. She created the moonstone knife, to carry out the sentence she pronounced. In one bloodstained night, every Siren who had spilled human blood was killed; their throats slit with a moonstone knife until the sand ran red beneath our
feet. The rest were cursed; our human voices ripped away, our feathers stripped from our wings. So that we appeared the monsters that we had become. Now the slightest sound of our voices would rip any humans will away forever, no matter how we tried to prevent it. And we know that to take a human’s life needlessly would bring down our Mother’s rage on us again. So we made homes for ourselves on the edges of the water, and only rarely did any humans glimpse us. When they did, they did not understand. Myths sprang up around us. Once they had called us angels, but after that night the humans thought us demons. Sirens.”
“You speak of it as though you were there,” Evie said softly.
The King shook his head. “Our lives are longer than humans’, but I am not so ancient. Still, I have relived it many times, in dreams. As king, I am exempt from the curses that plague our kind. Of all our people, only I can converse with you safely. And only I still bear my feathers. But I carry my own burden.”
The King smiled bitterly, as he answered the unspoken question in Evie’s eyes.
“Prophecy,” he explained. “Our Mother sends me visions, both of what was and of what may be.” He smiled slightly. “Though I do not know what answer you will give me now.”
“Answer?” Evie's mouth was dry. “To what?”
“To my proposal.” The King stood up, and his tone became businesslike. “You must realize, Evie, that we cannot simply send you back. Though you have committed no crime, you know too much about us. You have seen our home. We cannot allow you to leave with this knowledge, so, only two paths remain. You could bind yourself to one of us.”
“I don’t want to be a slave!” Evie cried, jumping to her feet as adrenaline flooded her system.
“Stop and think before you say that, Evie.” The King's voice was soothing. “You would be happy . . . happier than you have ever been. You have suffered. You are scarred. We can wipe all that away. I would give my own daughter, Nomi, as your Singer. She is a kind child and would be a good companion for you. All that you have endured . . . the fear, the betrayal. The deprivation. It would be less than a dream to you.”
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