To Kill a Kingdom

by Alexandra Christo

  “Don’t look so frightened, darling.” The Sea Queen bears her fangs to a smile. “Mother’s here.”

  I pull myself up from my knees and stare hard at the floor, to give the appearance of bowing. The longer I glare at the wood grain, the more my skin heats, sweat pasting through my clothes as the anger boils beneath. I can hardly bear the thought of looking at her. After everything she’s done, for her to show up here – on Elian’s ship, of all places – is the worst kind of insult.

  A terse silence gathers between us, and for a moment I wonder what the next sound will be. The Flesh-Eater’s roar; my mother’s laughter; the erratic pounding of my furious heart.

  Instead I hear my song.

  The deadly lullaby from before grows louder, and I snap my head up in sudden recognition, stumbling backward. It crawls across the deck, reaching out with delicate hands to sway the Saad. The melody is as opiate as ever, and even I’m barely able to keep my footing as it grows. Hearing it feels like being lost in a memory, or a dream that’s impossible to wake from. It feels like being born into a world imagined.

  With the lie of my song, there’s no chance any of the crew will wake from their sleep.

  My mother presses a long webbed finger to her chest, and her seashell flickers against my voice. When my eyes begin to fog, her mouth tugs up. “It’s only a keepsake,” she says. “I’ll return it if you succeed.”

  I try desperately to blink the sorrow from my eyes. “Have you come to taunt me?” I ask.

  “Not at all,” the Sea Queen says. “I’ve come to see how the Princes’ Bane is faring.” She arches her neck. “Do you have the prince’s heart hidden somewhere in those unsightly rags?”

  It doesn’t surprise me that she’s come to check if I’m sticking to her plan. Being punished and pushed in the exact direction she’s plotted, like Elian’s ship following his course even while the captain sleeps. I am my mother’s vessel. Or so she thinks.

  “It’s not that simple,” I say.

  “Oh, Lira.” She swipes a string of seaweed from her trident. “Queens do not make excuses. I suppose this is just further proof of why you can’t become one.”

  “I deserve to be queen,” I say. “I’m strong enough to lead our kind.”

  “You’re weak,” she accuses. “You’ve always been weak. Look at you now, dressed in your human clothes, with your human emotions. Do you know what I see in your eyes, Lira? It’s not death or darkness or even anger. It’s tears.”

  I swallow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about the look on your face,” she says. “Your human grief.”

  I want to argue, but even I can’t deny the sadness pricking the backs of my eyes. I felt anger as a siren, but never sorrow. Not since I took Crestell’s heart with my mother’s hand steady on my shoulder. But hearing my song cleave through Elian’s ship, knowing that at this very moment my mother is still able to use me as a weapon without my consent, feels like being speared. And the way she looks at me, not at all concerned, so entirely contrasted by the worry I felt when I saw Kahlia’s wounds. Or that Kye had when Maeve attacked Elian. Or even the look on the prince’s face when he pulled me from the ocean my mother left me to drown in. How can the Sea Queen see it as a weakness when it’s the very thing that binds the humans together, ensuring their strength as a unit? A family.

  The Flesh-Eater snarls and my mother reaches out to run a talon over his face. She slices a line across his cheek slowly, soothingly, and the Flesh-Eater growls in satisfaction.

  “Your time is running out, Lira,” she says, bringing her finger to her lips. “And if you don’t bring me the prince’s heart soon, then I’m going to take yours.”

  25

  Lira

  WHEN I LOOK IN the mirror, a stranger stares back. She takes in my newfound piracy and my newfound humanity – the face the Flesh-Eater still claimed for his own – and frowns in a way that marks her innocent features with a curious dent, deep in the center of her brows. Her lips thin and she roughly irons the wrinkle out with the palm of her hand.

  My skin is flushed red from sun and my hair is stiff with the saltwater breeze. I step forward and touch the glass with spiny fingers, blinking rapidly as I take in this version of myself. Legs and feet. Eyes, each the same color. A human heart beating somewhere underneath it all, ready for my mother to take.

  In the reflection, I see Elian. He stands behind me with an amused expression, leaning against the doorway, his arms tangled over his chest. He doesn’t say anything, and we continue to watch each other through the pathway of glass until an odd feeling washes over me, worse than dread.

  Soon we’ll be in Psémata, and that means Págos won’t be far off. Then the Cloud Mountain. The Second Eye of Keto. Elian’s certain death. Each point of my deception is so seamlessly plotted that I should feel prepared. But I don’t. Everyone I’m going to betray is too close. My mother may even be watching, and that means there’s a chance she could discover my plan. It feels like a miracle that she didn’t smell it on me before, or hear how fast my human heart beat. And then there’s Elian, who gave me a blade instead of stabbing me with it, standing behind me now. The mercy he practices and the loyalty he has earned are both ideals that my mother would sooner burn out of me – because mercy is never an option, and loyalty is always taken – but those very emotions my mother said made me weak seem to make him strong. He’s a warrior who is my opposite in every way and yet, in some ways, maybe fierceness alone, we seem to be the same.

  In the mirror, Elian continues to stare. I frown when I realize that my back is to him. I’ve never been able to turn my back on my mother before.

  I spin to face him. “What?” I ask.

  “Are you done admiring yourself?”

  “Never,” I say, though truth be told, I’m glad to be distracted from my thoughts.

  “We’re about to dock at Psémata. Try to remember what I told you.”

  As though I could forget. What he told me was to lie, which I had enough practice in to not think of it as something that needed to be done, but something that always was.

  “If Psémata is so dangerous,” I say, “then why are we stopping there?”

  “Because we need to get something.”

  I shoot Elian a skeptical look. “You mean we need to steal something.”

  “Good,” he says. “You’re learning.”

  I follow him out onto the main deck, where the crew is gathered. Kye tucks his sword into the strap across his chest and slips a pistol under his coat. Rather than go to his side, Elian avoids eye contact with his bodyguard, choosing to stay beside me. Kye doesn’t move to shadow him either, suddenly preoccupied with adjusting his coat collar.

  “You’d think the land of lies would be a little more forgiving when it came to thievery,” Madrid says. “But apparently not.”

  I give Elian a scathing look. “You stole something last time you were here,” I say. “And now you’re going to do it again?”

  “Who said I was the one who stole something the first time?”

  His voice is indignant, which doesn’t fool me. I roll my eyes to illustrate this, and Elian sighs.

  “Look,” he says, “all that matters is that the Saad isn’t welcome.”

  “The Saad,” I repeat. “Or you?”

  “You say that like there’s any sort of difference.”

  “I suppose there isn’t.” I twist my seashell between my fingers. “You’re both equally dense.”

  Elian laughs. Loudly, monotone, and in a way that’s nearly as mocking as my comment. “Come on,” he says. “We don’t have time for you to learn how to be funny.”

  PSÉMATA IS A VERY peculiar shade of gray.

  There’s color, but it’s diluted into an eerie film of black. Like a just-visible cloud coating the land in a tint of shadow and dust. It reminds me of looking through murky ocean water at twilight, or the feeling of staring straight into my mother’s eyes. A darkness that seems
ever-present.

  I rub a knuckle in my eye and when my vision refocuses, everything seems darker than it was before. The more I try to make the shade disappear, the stronger it gets. It’s no wonder this is the land of lies and treachery, with air as gray and smog-like as the scruples of the people who breathe it.

  The wind sweats as we weave through the streets, avoiding eye contact and the usual noise Elian and his crew enjoy making. Only a dozen of them are with us, the others waiting on the Saad. They move like wraiths, floating instead of walking. Gliding across the hardstone pavements. I stumble to keep in step with them, nowhere near as graceful, but every bit as invisible.

  As we make our way across the square, I tip my hat farther down my head. It’s ridiculous, I realize, because there isn’t a human alive who can recognize me. If anything, I’m the most ghostlike of us all. Still, I do it anyway, thrilled by the slight jump of my heart when someone lingers their stare on our group for too long. When I look to Elian, his face is blank and stoic, but his eyes are nowhere near as dead. They flicker with the same dirty pleasure. It’s this, I realize, that draws the crew as much as the ocean. The pleasure of becoming as elusive as they are notorious.

  We turn into an alleyway, where a man waits for us. He’s dressed in a long black coat with a white pressed-down collar, and his heavily ringed hand rests upon a cane that is the same sandy shade as his hair.

  Elian flashes him a smile, and when the man doesn’t return it, he flashes him a pouch of coin instead. A toothy grin slides onto the stranger’s face, and he presses his palm flat against the gray stone wall. It slides out from under him, drawing back like a curtain.

  He hands Elian a small key and gestures for us to step inside. Once we do, the wall closes behind us and leaves nothing but shadows in our midst. The torchlight flickers as wisps of air blow through the stone entrance. We hunch together at the foot of a staircase the narrow room can barely contain. I reach up to fiddle with my seashell. The space is too small, and I realize quickly that it’s the smallest space I’ve ever been in. Even the crystal cage seems commodious in comparison.

  “What is this?” I ask.

  Elian casts a glance over his shoulder. “Stairs,” he says, and begins to climb them.

  I don’t waste good breath on a retort. Staring up at the never-ending spiral, I have a suspicion that I’ll need to save it. I can’t imagine the climb up the Cloud Mountain of Págos being this arduous.

  I keep my silence as we ascend, wondering if we’ll reach the top before my legs buckle out from under me. But just as it seems I won’t be able to take another step, Elian comes to a halt and a large oak door emerges from the barely there light.

  “This is dramatic,” I say, squashing myself into the space beside him. “Is someone on the other side going to try to kill us?”

  “Since when did you become one of us?” Kye asks, and Madrid jerks him in the ribs. He grunts and then says, “Fine. I look forward to you laying down your life for mine, comrade,” at which point I debate whether or not to push him back down the stairs.

  I watch Elian pull the key from his pocket and twist it into the slanted lock. When the door pushes open, I expect to be hit with a rush of dust or the smell of dying embers and decay. Instead I’m hit by light. It flashes away gray and echoes from dozens of sphere-shaped torches that blink with deep yellow flames.

  The room is large and accommodating enough for a hidden attic, with an alleyway of doors that lead off to separate rooms. A low chandelier slices through the middle, with beads that graze the polished floors.

  “This is not what I expected,” I say, taken aback by the misplaced opulence.

  Elian steps farther into the room. “As you like to remind me,” he says, “I am a prince. This is where royalty who don’t want to be found go to never be found.”

  “This is where we should always stay.” Kye throws himself onto a plush fur chair that leans against the farthest wall. “There’s no rum, but damn if the beds aren’t good.”

  “Like you’re going to find out,” Madrid says with a smile. “Only enough beds for half of us, remember? And I think it’s your turn for floor duty.”

  “We can’t share?” He presses an injured hand to his chest. “Plenty of women would kill to climb into bed with me.”

  Madrid bristles. “They’re single beds,” she says sharply.

  Undeterred, Kye places a hand on her knee. “I’ll flip you for it.”

  Madrid pushes his hand from her leg. “Heads I win, tails you’re an idiot?”

  “Torik should sleep on the floor,” Kye says, settling back into the chair. “He’s always on about home comforts being dangerous for making us believe we actually have a home.”

  Torik casts him a side-eye. “I know enough about knives to stick them where the sun don’t shine if you aren’t careful.” Kye smirks. “It’s not good form for someone like me to sleep on the floor. I’m practically an aristocrat.”

  Torik casts him a blank, unimpressed stare. “You’re an aristoprat,” he says.

  I look to Elian, who stands like a statue beside me. It’s surprising not to hear him chime in with his crew’s tender insults, or smile as they carelessly throw cheers around. He brings his hand to the back of his neck, unsure what to do with himself when he’s not smiling.

  “So our next step is to hide out here?” I ask.

  “Our next step is to try to think of how we’re going to get our hands on an ancient artifact without revealing who we are,” Elian says.

  “Steal,” I correct. “How you’re going to steal an ancient artifact.”

  “It’s not stealing if you’re stealing it back.” Elian slips out of his jacket and throws it onto the table behind him. “The necklace belongs to the Págos family. I bargained a lot to get my hands on the map that shows their route up the mountain, but without the necklace, all of it is for nothing. She told me it was the key to the hidden dome.”

  “She,” I repeat. “Who are you talking about?”

  “The Princess of Págos,” Elian says.

  His eyes dart to Kye, and a strange look passes between them. Kye clears his throat.

  “You mean she sacrificed her family’s secrets for jewelry?” I scoff. “How trite.”

  Elian raises an eyebrow. “If I remember rightly,” he says, with a look that is far too smug, “you were willing to sacrifice your life for a necklace.”

  “I was willing to sacrifice yours first,” I say.

  LONG AFTER THE REST of the crew disappears into sleep, Elian and I sit together. We plot in the most ghastly ways, scheming through each detail of his plan, including how to get the princess her family’s necklace without getting a bullet in our hearts. Key points I’m keen to clarify.

  Sunlight threatens to spill through the tiny round window above us, buried in the arch of the ceiling. The candles have died down to withering embers, and their faint afterglow casts blurry shadows around us. The smell of dawn smokes through the air, and with it the grayness seeps in from the outside world.

  “I still don’t understand how you know that these pirates have the necklace,” I say.

  “The Xaprár are infamous for stealing from royalty,” Elian explains, palming a licorice stick. “If there’s a precious heirloom missing anywhere in the world, you better believe that Tallis Rycroft and his band of pirate thieves have it in hand.”

  “Even if that’s true, wouldn’t they have sold it by now? What use would it be to keep something like that?”

  “You’re assuming that Rycroft needs to steal to survive,” Elian says. “Maybe he did once, but now he steals just to prove that he can. A necklace like that carries prestige. It would be more of a trophy to him than a treasure. Just another artifact to prove how good he is.”

  “If he’s that good,” I say,“how are you going to steal it from him? I think he might notice your hand running through his pockets.”

  “Misdirection.” Elian takes a bite out of the licorice stick. “They look over her
e” – he waves a hand theatrically – “while I’m pilfering over here.” He wags his other hand at me, looking all too satisfied. “As long as you can manage to look innocent and above suspicion.”

  “And if that doesn’t work?”

  “I have a backup plan.” Elian produces a small vial from his pocket with a flourish. “It’s less wily, but equally duplicitous.”

  “Poison?” I muse. “Were you keeping that around for your future wife?”

  “It’s not lethal,” Elian says. For a killer, he seems oddly offended at the idea. “And no.” He pauses, then turns to me with a half-smile. “Unless you were my wife.”

  “If I were your wife, then I’d take it.”

  “Ha!” He throws his head back and pockets the vial once more. “Thankfully that’s not something we have to worry about.”

  “Because you’re betrothed?”

  He hesitates. “Why would you say that?”

  “You’re royal,” I tell him. “That’s what royalty does. They marry for power.”

  I think back to the Flesh-Eater and the way my mother’s voice turned into a song when she told me she had chosen her finest warrior to continue our line. The orange rusted blood in the corners of his lips as he regarded me with a mix of hunger and regimented disinterest. And on the Saad, just nights before, when he claimed me even in my human body. An uneasiness creeps through me at the memory.

  “I don’t want it to be that way,” Elian says. “When I marry, it won’t be about power.”

  “What will it be, then?”

  “Sacrifice.”

  His voice is crisp. There’s a certainty to it, as though he’s resigned to the fact rather than proud of it. He swallows, just loud enough to catch me off guard, and the action makes me shift, his discomfort snaking through the air toward me.

  Elian’s eyes drop to the floor, and I feel as though I’ve exposed him or he’s laid himself bare and suddenly regrets it. Either way, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say, and something about the moment seems so personal – too personal – that I find myself searching for anything to fill the quiet.