To Kill a Kingdom

by Alexandra Christo

  She starts to walk to the other side of the deck and then abruptly stops when she notices the siren’s body blocking the doorway. Madrid swallows and waits patiently. They all do. Perfectly silent until the moment the siren begins to fade. The sight is never anything less than a wonder to them, even after all this time. But I don’t look at the lifeless creature turning to foam on my deck. I’ve seen a hundred monsters die. Instead I turn to the strange girl I pulled from the ocean.

  Lira isn’t smiling anymore.

  18

  Lira

  MAEVE DISSOLVES INTO NOTHING.

  Killing a siren is not like killing a mermaid. Their rotting corpses stain the ocean floor and skeleton among the coral, while we dissolve into the very thing that made us. Into ocean and foam and the salt in our veins. When we’re gone, there’s nothing left to remember.

  I thought I’d be glad when Maeve died, but the battle between our species wages on and I’ve just helped the humans in their bid to slaughter us. At the very least, the prince didn’t cut out her heart before he killed her. I’ve never paid mind to legends, unless I’m the legend of discussion, but even I know the stories. Ones that warn of any human who holds a siren’s heart being granted immunity to our song. It’s said that’s why we turn to sea foam when we die, that it’s not a curse to erase us from the world but a blessing from Keto to ensure a human can never take our hearts.

  After Maeve disappears, I’m taken belowdecks to a windowless room that smells of aniseed and rust. The walls are not walls but thick drapes that hang from a varnished ceiling. Their damp edges catch the floor, and as the ship pierces on, they sway and reveal endless lines. Of books, weapons, and gold. Each curtain has its own secret. In the center is a large cube made from black glass. It’s as thick as I am long, with hinges and bolts that are heavy gold. The same kind that the eel-mermaid’s brooch was made from. It’s a prison of sorts and doesn’t appear to be designed for humans. Or, if it is, it’s designed for the worst kind.

  In the kingdom of Keto, we don’t keep prisoners. Betraying the Sea Queen means giving up your life, and so we have no choice but to be what my mother says we are. Deciding differently offers no second chances; my punishment is proof of that.

  I turn to Elian. “Why am I down here?”

  With each passing moment, he takes on more of the ocean. A brown leather tunic is slung over his shirt, frayed black string fastening it at the neck. His legs are half trouser and half long brown boots that catch at the knees. A strap crosses from his shoulder to his waist, and from it a large cutlass dangles. His knife is hidden behind, away from strange eyes. I can still smell Maeve’s blood on it.

  “You seem worldly,” Elian says. “Can’t you figure it out?”

  Behind him, Kye and Madrid are resolute guardians. Less than a day on this ship and I already know who his most trusted are. Which means I already know his greatest weakness.

  “I thought princes liked saving young women in need.”

  Elian laughs, teeth flashing white against his handsome face. “You’re a damsel now?” he asks. “It’s funny, because you didn’t seem like one when you were trying to claw your way past me to attack a siren.”

  “I thought killing sirens was what people on this ship did.”

  “Usually not with their bare hands.”

  “Not everyone needs magical knives to do their dirty work for them.”

  “Not everyone can speak Psáriin,” he says.

  I keep a coy smile on my lips, playing my role well. “I have a talent for languages.”

  “Your Midasan says differently.”

  “I have a talent for interesting languages,” I amend, and Elian’s green eyes crinkle.

  “What about your own language?” he asks.

  “It’s better.”

  “How?”

  “It’s more suited to me.”

  “I dread to think what that means.”

  Elian brushes past me and presses a hand to the cold glass of the cube. As his fingers spread over the would-be prison, I can almost feel the cold of it through him. The siren part of me aches to feel the frost beneath my fingers and know the cold like I used to. The human in me shivers.

  “Where is your home?” Elian asks.

  His back is to me, and I see his lips move through his reflection. He watches himself, keeping his eyes far from mine. For a moment I don’t think he’s asking me. That maybe he’s asking himself. A prince who doesn’t know which kingdom he should claim. Then Kye clears his throat and Elian spins back around. When he does, his face is all lights.

  “Well?” he asks.

  “I didn’t think I was going to be interrogated.”

  “Did the cage not give it away?”

  “I didn’t see a cage.” I arch my neck, peering behind him as if I hadn’t noticed my looming prison. “Your charm must have masked it.”

  Elian shakes his head to hide the growing smile. “It’s not just any cage,” he says. “Back when I first started all of this and long before I knew better, I had it built with every intention of using it to hold the Sea Queen.” He arches an eyebrow. “Do you think it can hold you?”

  “You’re going to throw me in a cage?” I ask.

  “Unless you tell me where you’re from,” he says. “And why you left.”

  “It wasn’t my choice.”

  “Why were you out in the middle of the ocean without a ship?”

  “I was abandoned.”

  “By who?”

  I don’t hesitate when I say, “Everyone.”

  With a sigh, Elian leans back and presses a foot flat against the glass. He ponders my carefully chosen words, turning them over in his mind like the wheel of a ship. I dislike the silence that follows and the heavy weight that his quiet leaves in the room. It’s as though the air waits for the sound of his voice before it dares to thin out and become breathable. And I wait too, trying to anticipate what his next move will be. The situation is unbearably familiar. So many times I’ve hovered in front of my mother, biting my tongue while she chooses how I live my life. What I will do and when I will kill and who I will be. Though it’s strange to watch a human deliberate my fate, it’s not such an odd thing to wait while it’s decided by someone other than myself.

  Hidden under my seaweed lies, there’s truth. I was abandoned, and now I’m on a ship with humans who would see me dead if they knew what I was. Below the surface, my mother rules a kingdom that should be mine, and if anyone questions where I’ve gone, she’ll spit whatever lies make me most forgettable. Harpooned by a passing sailor. Killed by a simple mermaid. In love with a human prince. It will leave my memory as more of a joke than a legend, and the loyalty of my kingdom will dissolve as quickly as Maeve did.

  I will be nothing. Have nothing. Die as nothing.

  I look at my necklace, still hanging from Elian’s neck. I don’t doubt that if I press my ear to the red bone, I’ll hear the ocean and the sound of my mother’s laughter rippling through it.

  I turn, disgusted.

  “We dock at Eidýllio in three days’ time.” Elian pushes himself from the glass. “I’ll make my decision when we get there.”

  “And until then?”

  A slow smile spreads across his face. He steps aside to reveal the full glory of the cage. “Until then.”

  In the wake of the unspoken order, Madrid grabs my elbow. To my other side, Kye’s hands tighten around my arm. I struggle against them, but their hold is unbreakable. In moments I’m hoisted from the floor and dragged toward the cage. My writhing does nothing to steer them from their path.

  “Let me go!” I demand.

  I try to kick out with clumsy motions, but my body is squashed between them, leaving little room to breathe or move. I throw my head back wildly and thrash, furious at the lack of control. How frail and weak my body is now. In my siren form, I could tear them in half with a single movement. I bare my teeth and snap through the air, missing Kye’s ear by half an inch. He doesn’t even blink. I’m
as powerless as I feel.

  We reach the cage and they throw me in like I weigh nothing. I bounce off the floor, and when I rush back to the entrance, my palms meet a wall. My fingers spread over the surface, and I realize that it’s not glass after all, but solid crystal. I pound relentlessly against it. On the other side, Elian crosses his arms over his chest. My human heart thumps angrily against my chest, stronger than my fists on the prison wall.

  I point an accusing finger at him. “You want me to stay in here until Eidýllio?”

  “I want you overboard,” Elian says. “But it’s not like I can make you walk the plank.”

  “Your chivalry won’t allow it?”

  Elian walks to a nearby wall and pulls back one of the drapes to reveal a circular switch. “We lost the plank years ago,” he says. Then, in a voice much lower: “And I lost my chivalry around the same time.”

  He twists the switch and the shadows take over.

  THERE’S ONLY NIGHT INSIDE the crystal cage. The room is coated in damp darkness, and though the prison seems impenetrable, I can smell the musk of soggy air from the world outside. Every so often, someone comes with food and I’m allowed a rare few minutes of lantern light. It’s almost blinding, and by the time I’m done squinting, the lights are off and a tray of fish assaults my senses. It doesn’t quite have the taste of salties and white pointers, but I devour it in moments.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been in the crystal cage, but the promise of Eidýllio weighs on me. When we arrive, the prince will try to throw me onto land with humans who know nothing of the ocean. At least in this place, I can smell the salt of home.

  When I sleep, I dream of coral and bleeding hearts. When I wake, there’s nothing but dark and the slow wash of waves against the body of the ship. The first time I killed a human, it was so bright, I couldn’t go above water without squinting. The surface barely rippled, and in moments the sun melted any shards of my kingdom’s ice that still lingered on my skin.

  The boy was a prince of Kalokaíri and I was twelve.

  Kalokaíri is not much more than a beautiful desert in the middle of a desolate sea. It’s the land of endless summer, with wind that carries the smell of sand. In those days, my legend hadn’t been born, and so royalty sailed with no more trepidation than any human.

  The prince was cloaked in white, with purple cloth wrapped tightly around his head. He was gentle and unafraid, and he smiled at me long before I sang. When I sprang from the ocean, he had called me ahnan anatias, which was Kalokaírin for “little death.”

  The boy wasn’t frightened, even when I bared my teeth and hissed in the same way I heard my mother do. Taking his heart had not been such a nasty business then. He almost came willingly. Before I began my song, he reached his hand out to touch me, and after the first few clumsy lines, he climbed slowly from the docked sailing boat and walked until he was deep enough to meet me.

  I let him drown first. While his breathing slowed, I held his hand, and only when I was sure he was dead did I think of his heart. I was careful when it happened. I didn’t want there to be too much blood when his family found him. For them to think he suffered, when he had died so peacefully.

  As I took his heart, I wondered if they were looking for him. Had they realized he was missing from the boat? Above the water’s edge, were they screaming for him? Would my mother scream like that if I never came back? I knew the answer. The queen wouldn’t care if I was gone forever. Heirs were easy things to make, and my mother was the Sea Queen first and nothing second. I knew she would only care that I hadn’t taken the boy’s heart while he was still alive. That she would punish me for not being enough of a monster. And I was right.

  When I arrived home, my mother was waiting for me. Surrounding her were the other members of our royal bloodline, arced in a perfect semicircle as they awaited my entrance. The Sea Queen’s sister was at the forefront, ready to greet me, each of her six daughters looped behind her. Kahlia was last, directly beside my mother.

  As soon as the Sea Queen saw me, she knew what I had done. I could see it in her smile, and I was sure she could smell it on me: the stench of my regret for killing the Kalokaírin prince. And no matter how much I tried to avoid looking at her, the queen could tell I had been crying. The tears were long washed away, but my eyes remained bloodshot and I had done too good of a job trying to scrub the blood off my hands.

  “Lira,” she said. “My sweet.”

  I placed a trembling hand onto her outstretched tentacle and let her pull me slowly into her hold. Kahlia bit her lip as my mother regarded my clean hands.

  “Have you come bearing gifts for mummy dearest?” the Sea Queen asked.

  I nodded and reached into the netting tied around my waist. “I did what you asked.” I cradled the young prince’s heart, lifting it above my head to present it to her like the trophy she wanted. “My twelfth.”

  The Sea Queen stroked my hair, her smooth tentacle slinking from my scalp and along my spine. I tried not to blink.

  “Indeed,” the Sea Queen said. Her voice was soft and slow, like the sound of the dawn breeze. “But it seems you didn’t quite listen.”

  “He’s dead,” I told her, thinking that was surely the most important thing. “I killed him and I took his heart.” I held it a little higher, pushing it toward her chest so she could feel the stillness of the prince’s heart against the coldness of her own.

  “Oh, Lira.” She cupped my chin in her hand, sliding the talon of her thumb over my cheek. “But I didn’t tell you to cry.”

  I wasn’t sure if she meant when I killed the prince, or not to do it now, in her grasp, with our royal bloodline watching. But my lips shook with the same fear my hands had, and when the first drop fell from my red eye, my mother breathed a heavy lament. She let the tear run onto her thumb and then shook it from her skin like it was acid.

  “I did what you asked,” I said again.

  “I asked you to make a human suffer,” the Sea Queen said. “To take its still-beating heart and rip it out.” A tentacle slid over my shoulder and around my tiny neck. “I asked you to be a siren.”

  When she threw me to the ground, I remember feeling relieved. Knowing that if she was going to kill me, she would have crushed me under her grasp. I could take a beating. I could be humiliated and bloodied. If taking a few hits would quell my mother’s temper, then it wouldn’t be so bad. I would have gotten off easy. But I was a fool to think that my mother would choose to punish only me. What good was it to scold her daughter when she could shape her instead?

  “Kahlia,” my mother said. “Would you do me a favor?”

  “Sister.” My aunt swam forward, her face suddenly wretched and pained. “Please don’t.”

  “Now, now, Crestell,” my mother said. “You shouldn’t interrupt your queen.”

  “She’s my daughter.”

  I remember hating the way Crestell’s shoulders hunched forward as she spoke. Like she was already preparing for a blow.

  “Hush now,” my mother cooed. “Let us not fight in front of the children.”

  She turned to me and stretched out her arm toward my cousin. It was like she was presenting Kahlia, the same way I had done with the Kalokaírin heart. I didn’t move.

  “Kill her,” the Sea Queen said.

  “Mother—”

  “Take her heart while she still screams, like you should have done with the human prince.”

  Kahlia whimpered, too scared to move or even cry. She glanced over at her mother, then back to me, blinking a dozen times over. Her head shook violently from side to side.

  It was like looking into a mirror. Seeing the horror on Kahlia’s face was like seeing a rendition of myself, every drop of terror I felt reflected in her eyes.

  “I can’t,” I said. Then, louder: “Don’t make me.”

  I backed away, shaking my head so adamantly that my mother’s snarl became a blur.

  “You stupid child,” she said. “I am offering you redemption. Do you
know what will happen if you refuse?”

  “I don’t need to be redeemed!” I yelled. “I did what you asked!”

  The Sea Queen squeezed her trident, and all the poise that remained vanished from her face. Her eyes grew to shadows, blacker and blacker, until I could only see the darkness in them. The ocean groaned.

  “This humanity that has infected you must be quelled,” she said. “Don’t you see, Lira? Humans are a plague who murdered our goddess and seek to destroy us. Any siren who shows sympathy toward them – who mimics their love and their sorrow – must be cleansed.”

  I frowned. “Cleansed?”

  The Sea Queen pushed Kahlia to the seabed, and I winced when her palms slammed against the sand.

  “Sirens do not feel affection or regret,” my mother seethed. “We don’t know empathy for our enemies. Any siren who feels such things can never be queen. All she will ever be is defective. And a defective siren can’t be allowed to live.”

  “Defective,” I repeated.

  “Kill her,” my mother said. “And we’ll speak no more of it.”

  She said it like it was the only way I could ever make up for my sins against my kind. If Kahlia died, then I’d be a true siren worthy of my mother’s trident. I wouldn’t be impure. The emotions I was having were a sickness and she was offering me a cure. A way out. A chance to rid me of the humanity she claimed had infected me.

  Kahlia just needed to die first.

  I moved closer to my cousin, clasping my hands behind my back so the Sea Queen couldn’t see how much they were shaking. I wondered if she could smell blood from the crescents I had stamped into my palms.

  Kahlia cried as I approached, great howls of terror spilling from her tiny lips. I wasn’t sure what I planned to do as I got closer to her, but I knew I didn’t want to kill her. Take her hand and swim, I thought. Get as far away from the Sea Queen as we can. But I knew I wouldn’t do that, either, because my mother’s eyes were the ocean and she would see us wherever we hid. If I took Kahlia, we’d both be killed for treason. And so my choices were this: to take my cousin’s heart. Or to take her hand and let us die together.