by Logan Jacobs
The water goddesses remained perfectly still for a long moment while their streams of blue hair continued to cascade around them, but then the figure in the center spoke.
“Mage Abyssi contacted us last night,” the goddess confessed.
Last night could be any time. It could be before I left to find Cinis, and my eyes narrowed at the thought.
“When exactly last night?” I asked. “Was this very early in the morning hours by chance? A couple hours before sunup? Was what he spoke to you about very urgent?”
“Please, one question at a time,” the middle goddess hummed. “We like calmness around here. The sirens startle easily, so let’s please keep as peaceful as you can.”
“Of course.” I nodded in apology. “Could you tell me when exactly it was that Mage Abyssi spoke with you?”
“We don’t know the time,” the goddesses said together.
“But it was not long before moonrise,” one of them chimed in.
“The moon rises earlier in the evening lately,” I said with a nod. “This could have been hours before I left.”
“He contacted us through a fountain,” the goddess continued. “It was the same fountain he often contacts us from.”
“The one in his office,” I concluded. “Continue.”
“He asked for guidance,” the main goddess admitted. “And during our discussions, there was a man in the window. The Master was angry to see him there. The man was watching him.”
My body went tense. “Who was the man? Did Mage Abyssi speak of his name?”
“He did not,” the goddesses answered in unison.
“What did his face look like?” I tried. “Was he someone from within the kingdom or outside of it?”
“This we cannot know,” the goddess replied. “We could not see his face, only the vague figure behind Abyssi.”
I rifled my hair in irritation, and my anger started rising. This was precisely the information I needed, but the lead was infuriatingly sparse. The timing was less precise than I wanted, and the description of the circumstances was almost useless, but I drew a deep breath and reminded myself this was better than nothing. It was a start.
“Okay,” I said with a clearer mind. “You did not see more than his general figure, but did you see his clothing? Even this would help me.”
The goddesses looked at me for a long moment before one of them spoke again.
“The man in the window wore a gray robe,” she answered as my heart began to race.
“Were there any other distinguishing things about the clothing?” I eagerly asked.
“He wore a brass brooch,” the goddesses returned. “It glinted in the candlelight, and looked like a skull and crossbones, only the skull had curved horns.”
My body went numb. This was a brooch that was held by many in the kingdom, and adrenaline vibrated through me as I let out the breath I’d been holding.
“Thank you,” I gasped and nodded. “Thank you, that is… extremely helpful. It’s much more than I had to go off of.”
My blood seemed to buzz with relief, and I shifted my waist and scruffed my hair once more as I tried to relax the tension in my shoulders.
“Life and death go hand in hand,” the main goddess suddenly said to me. “You miss him now, but his spirit will always remain in the waters.”
I immediately looked up at the familiar words.
“Can you… is it possible to call his spirit to me now?” I asked with wide eyes. “He will have the answers I need. He… he always has.”
“That is no longer his job,” they all returned. “Mage Abyssi is one with the water again, and it is not in our powers to summon his spirit before it is ready. If he has the strength to find you and talk to you, then he will, but we cannot say when or how.”
“But someday?” I asked as my throat constricted. “I will be able to see him again?”
“Yes,” the goddesses said with a slow nod. “When his spirit has enough strength, we are sure, Abyssi will find you.”
“That is all we can tell you,” the next enchanted figure spoke. “And it is already too much.”
“We will leave you now,” the middle one agreed. “May the forest not drive you mad on your return.”
The five watery figures turned their backs, and their bodies submerged with every step they took while their hair floated to the surface.
“Thank you,” I said once more, and their heads slipped lower until all that was left of the water goddesses was a small ring that bobbed on the surface of the water.
I hunched forward, but I was still lightheaded with relief, so I let myself sink to my knees in the grass beside the water.
Then I thought of the brass brooch and the gray robe.
A horned skull and crossbones was the brooch of a warlock, and only the higher ranking and well-trained warlocks wore gray robes.
The new knowledge was my clearest clue so far, but it actually left me more confused than I had been. Warlocks never dabbled with the likes of mages, and we had never killed anyone from their estate before. As far as I knew, we had never killed anyone on their behalf, either, so I was left with no logic behind this revelation.
I tried to imagine why someone from the Warlock Estate would want to kill the Master, but I could think of nothing. I could only guess that this must have been some sort of a robbery gone wrong, but then I reminded myself of how extensive our security was at the estate.
Perhaps the warlocks possessed some means of defying the forest’s protection there, but I couldn’t be sure. I knew very little about their kind.
I drew my head up from my chest and looked around the foggy, enchanted pond while I tried to decide how to proceed. The colors still glowed green and aquamarine, and both the plants and water radiated fluorescent hues.
I considered the sirens who sat around the pond, and they were looking at me with their heads tilted, but this time, they weren’t trying to sing me their playful lullabies. They just watched me through the dense blue fog as if they had never seen a human like me before. I couldn’t help glancing around the perimeter of bathing beauties, and I took a moment to admire the way they stroked their soft, pastel hair and smiled in my direction.
But then I saw another siren who wasn’t gathered near the edges.
This siren was adrift in the water and coming closer. I couldn’t really see what she looked like behind the mist, and I rubbed my eyes and tried to wish away the fog, but it didn’t work. The clouds just travelled with her, and I felt like I was in a dream as the glow from the pond radiated brighter.
She was the only one who started to sing now, but there were no words to her song. The lone siren only hummed a sad but calming tune, and when I squinted through the haze of fog to look at her, I saw the hint of a smile.
Chapter 13
The closer the figure got to me, the mistier the pond became. The silky blue hues surrounded me until I was fully engulfed in the sweet-smelling smog, but I hesitantly stayed where I was.
I knew I could leave, and that I should return to my estate, but I only wanted to see the siren up close.
This woman’s luring songs were too enticing to part with now.
I often heard tales in the kingdom of sirens who existed out in the distant seas. Most said sirens sang to the injured in their time of need, and it was said one song could heal any sickness. Sailors who wandered for weeks in barren stretches of sea often followed their songs back to shore before they could starve, and wherever there was a shipwreck, the beautiful sirens would swarm the scene. They were famously playful and eager to please, but I had also heard of the sirens who were not so beautiful or sweet.
These darker creatures commanded ships to halt with screams instead of lullabies, and they’d force the men off their boats. The more hideous sirens would strip the sailors of their memories and then drown them and use their bodies as bait, and they were said to have gray and scaly skin. Their necks were hooded, and their faces were sharp, and apparently, their fingers wer
e the length of their forearms and pointed at the nails.
But the silhouette approaching me was nothing like this.
“Who are you?” I asked the siren as she drew closer.
“My name is Ephelia,” the siren answered.
Her voice was light and airy, just like I imagined it would be, and she slowly swam up to where I knelt beside the pond. Then she rested her arms on the grassy knoll, and as the mist slowly began to clear, I was able to see the siren clearly.
Ephelia was small in stature with tinted green skin, but I couldn’t tell if it was the reflection from the water that made her seem this color. I also couldn’t see her body below the water, so I didn’t know if she had a tail like the legends spoke of, or if she looked like a human.
Her periwinkle hair was thick and wavy and fell to her chest like a waterfall, and her eyes looked like teardrops that dropped slightly in the corners. They were a deep ocean-blue but had speckles of white dotted through them, and the closer she got to me, the darker they seemed to get. Her pinched nose buttoned sweetly at the end, and her cheeks shimmered from the light of the water.
The other sirens in the lake were beautiful gemstones, but the woman before me was a sparkling diamond who made them look like cheap glass marbles that children would play with.
She was unbelievably beautiful, but not in the same way Cinis was. The Ember Priestess was a descendant of the fire deities, and she was feisty while her beauty radiated from the power she held. This siren had a soothing look about her, instead, and she seemed sweet and innocent, like she was the safekeeper of troubles.
The closer she came to me, the more my worries seemed to vanish, but I tried my best not to get too taken in by her appearance.
It was a losing battle.
Everything about Ephelia made me feel warm all over, and when she smiled at me, it was like I had temporarily forgotten the death of my Master, and titans didn’t even seem to exist.
“And you are?” the siren trailed, and she raised her body slightly up from the pond to rest her cheek on her forearm.
“I’m Dex Morgan,” I managed to say. “But you already know that. I’m sure you’ve been bathing in this pond since I arrived, and you must have heard me speak to your sisters.”
“Indeed,” the siren giggled softly, and the sound tickled the back of my neck. “Hi, Dex Morgan. It is a pleasure to meet you. I wonder why you have not come in the water. Most men cannot resist our songs.”
“I… have a mission…” I didn’t know what else to say to her, but I wanted to keep her talking. Even though I knew I needed to leave and get back into inland Ocadia, I didn’t even have a plan yet, and I simply couldn’t make myself walk off.
Not when someone like her had my attention.
Then Ephelia started to sing a soft lullaby, and it wasn’t the same as the other tunes the sirens hummed when I’d first arrived. It wasn’t like the gentle song she released when she neared me, either, but it came out as a hushed, high-pitched melody.
“You are hurt,” the siren sang. “I can see it. We can all see it. Let the sirens help you. We won’t play if you don’t want to, we only want to help. We will do more for you than the goddesses ever would.”
“Thank you, but I don’t think I need your help,” I gently protested. “I’ve asked what I could of the goddesses already.”
“Oh? What is it you desire?” Ephelia stretched out her hand and touched me on the arm. I could see now that her skin was actually tinted a light green, and her touch was so soft, it felt like I was being lightly brushed with dust while she trailed her wet fingers around.
“You are rare to behold,” I told the siren instead of answering her question. “I have heard of your existence but was never told that sirens were in the Forest of Hud.”
“We like to stay hidden.” She smiled up at me. “Even more than the goddesses.”
“But you all didn’t hide when you saw me coming,” I reminded her.
“The forest didn’t tell us someone was on their way,” the siren replied. “But even when we did see you, we could tell you meant us no harm.”
“I don’t mean you any harm, Ephelia,” I confirmed.
The siren blinked slowly, and a small smile formed in the corners of her mouth. She shimmered all over in the green glow of the waters, and I found myself admiring every dripping inch of her from her periwinkle hair to the waterline that rolled against her chest.
“That’s good to hear,” she sighed after a moment. “You can call me Ephy if you like.”
“I’d like that,” I said with a grin.
“And I’d like to heal you, Dex Morgan,” the siren returned.
“I am not wounded,” I said with some confusion.
The siren took her hand off my arm and curled her finger to gesture for me to come closer to her. I hesitated only a moment before I leaned a few inches forward, and then Ephy reached out her hand and placed it on my heart.
“You are troubled,” she said with a sad smile. “You are not physically wounded, but your heart hurts. The heart is important, Dex Morgan. Especially to a man as mysterious and powerful as you.”
I was completely enchanted by her nature and couldn’t help but nod along with her as she spoke. All she wanted to do was help me, but right now, I knew what I needed most was to continue my work.
Then I would have peace.
“I am fine,” I assured her. “I’m healthy and have plenty to preoccupy me. Mostly, I have the power to turn all of this mess around, and that is what I intend to do.”
“I can see you’re strong,” the siren replied. “But let’s not be too hasty and say that you are completely fine. I have no doubt you will be able to succeed in your endeavors, but it’s still a hard task to undertake so much.”
“It is,” I allowed, “and while I am not completely fine right now, I will be once I find out who killed my Master and why. Then I will return the favor and defeat the titan who threatens my kingdom. Revenge is driving me.”
She pouted her lips, and she tilted her head to the other side. “Mage Abyssi meant a lot to you.”
“He did,” I agreed with a nod. “He took me in as a young orphan boy and turned me into the man I am today. Without his guidance, I would have been nothing. I owe everything to him.”
“Mage Abyssi meant a lot to us, too,” she said and lowered her head a bit. “But assassination sounds like a tough job, and a dangerous one. We have heard and seen for ourselves that some assassins do not return from the jobs they are given. I would be sad if I could never see you again.”
“Yes, there are certainly risks involved,” I chuckled, and the siren smiled sweetly at me. “But this is what I am made for. I could have walked away from it at any time, but I never wanted to. I respect my work, just like Mage Abyssi did.”
“Very noble indeed,” the siren cooed. “Mage Abyssi spoke a lot like you do. So truthfully, and without fear.”
I smiled at her words, and I did appreciate them. I’d been focused strictly on avenging my murdered Master, but I knew she sensed the ache in my chest, and that she only wanted to heal it. Hearing her speak of the Master in such a respectful way eased it a bit, but all of a sudden, a flock of birds passed over our heads, and we both looked up.
It was hard to see them very well through the blue haze, but as the silhouette of their black wings flew between the thick treetops, I traced the direction they’d come from to see what spooked them.
Then I noticed it.
A small flame began to glow in the distance, and as it built, it suddenly set a whole tree on fire. The demonic screams that followed were the same ones I had heard when the last fire was ignited. It seemed to be another isolated flame, but this meant more and more fires could be starting.
I sighed at the notion, but the sirens all shrieked at the sight of the flame, and one by one, they pushed themselves off the far side of the pond. They swam toward the center of the water, and then they dove down beneath the surface and left no trace behi
nd them.
I didn’t know where they were going, but maybe they rested on the silted floor of the pond, or maybe they could travel like the goddesses could through other waters.
“Sirens scare easily,” Ephy said lightly, but judging from her face, she was just as frightened.
“Why haven’t you gone?” I asked. “Are you not scared?”
“I am,” she admitted and bit her bottom lip. “I do not like fire. Not any of it, and the beings who have put it in the forest scare me, too.”
“You don’t have to fear them all,” I assured her. “I can understand why you might, but some of them don’t really wish to harm anyone. I met an Ember Priestess who--”
The siren suddenly gasped, pushed away from the side of the pond, and sank down until only her head was perched out of the water.
“I have heard of the Ember Priestesses,” the siren whispered with frightened eyes. “They are very powerful and very dangerous.”
“They can be,” I allowed, “but that doesn’t make them bad. Water is powerful, too, and can be very dangerous.”
“We sirens come from water, and we heal, unlike the fire entities,” the woman countered. “They are evil spawns who hail the titans. They are just as hungry for power as the gods, and they would rather watch the lands burn than anything else. They are chaotic, and no good for this forest, the Ember Priestesses come from a long line of titans who are filled with ego and ambition to dominate.”
It was the first time since we’d begun talking that I heard any malice in her sweet voice, but it croaked a bit, and I could tell she was terrified.
But her words were similar to what the rest of the kingdom seemed to believe of fire beings, and I knew the malice behind their words didn’t lie with Cinis. It really stemmed from Ignis’ reign.
“It’s only Ignis who is a titan,” I replied. “Cinis is just a descendant of the fire deities. There are many descendants and even deities who live in Ocadia, and they never cause trouble. The problem with the Ardere lies with Ignis, not all fire beings.”
“Did she not try and kill you?” she asked in a trembling tone. “I’ve heard Ember Priestesses kill anyone who crosses their paths.”