Copyright © Lichelle Slater 2019
All rights reserved.
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Edited by Maria Rosera of The Paisley Editor
Interior Design and Formatting by Melissa Stevens of The Illustrated Author Design Services
Cover Design by Melissa Stevens of The Illustrated Author Design Services
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
THE FORGOTTEN KINGDOM SERIES
MAP
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
EPILOGUE
THE FORGOTTEN KINGDOM SERIES
ALSO BY LICHELLE SLATER
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FOLLOW ME HERE
To Maria Rosera
For always helping me to reach my greatest potential!
THE FORGOTTEN KINGDOM SERIES
The Four Stones of Tern Tovan
(Prequel to The Forgotten Kingdom Series)
The Dragon Princess
(Sleeping Beauty Reimagined)
The Siren Princess
(Little Mermaid Reimagined)
The Beast Princess—coming 2020
(Beauty and the Beast Reimagined)
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www.LichelleSlater.com
one
It wasn’t the sound of the water slapping the hull of the ship that woke me.
It was the song.
The ethereal notes floated in the early morning silence, past snoring pirates, past the dull clink of the lantern rocking against the wall, and into my dreams. I didn’t need to understand the words. In the fog of my waking mind, all I cared about was how lonely the voice sounded.
The ropes of my hammock groaned as I opened my eyes. I found one leg slung over the edge and my blanket somehow on the ground. My damp shirt clung my body, and I understood then why I could hear the siren’s song. Either her magic had brought in the fog or the fog had lured the siren.
I shifted onto my side, snagged my boots, then sat up and tugged them on as fast as possible before jumping to my feet—adjusting my pants as I did. After a quick wiggle of the breasts to get them adjusted properly, and I ran to the stairs. I took three steps up before realizing I didn’t have my hat and had to run back to the bent nail it hung on. With my hat and boots on, I darted up the salt-water worn steps to the main deck and grinned.
The thick fog suppressed the sound of the ocean as we glided across its surface. I could no longer hear the siren, and my heart sank like a stone tossed carelessly into the sea.
“Odette. Yer up early.”
I turned so abruptly on the damp deck my foot slipped, but I managed to keep my balance and faced the first mate, a stout man with dark, graying hair, a wiry mustache, and a large belly. I smiled a bit too big. “Morning, Mr. Smee. I love when it’s like this.” I scampered up to his side on the quarterdeck and leaned heavily on the railing, trying to peer through the fog and see any sort of landmark . . . or siren. After all, she’d woken me.
He rose what would have been an eyebrow, had it not been burned off lighting a cannon last summer. “Nigh impossible to navigate in a fog like this.” His blue eyes shifted back to the sea.
“Our crew isn’t full of ordinary sailors.” I pointed up past the barely fluttering Jolly Roger to the crow’s nest. “Sammy can spot anything with his eagle eyes. That’s why he’s the lookout and not you.”
Smee twitched his mustache. “Aye. Still. Fog makes me nervous. Bad things linger in the fog, mark my words.”
“Like sirens?” I teased, knowing how many pirates were superstitious and that Smee was probably the most out of all of them.
Smee frowned and glanced at the water, clearly not appreciative my joke.
I chuckled and closed my eyes, then drew a deep breath of water and wet wood. There was something so eerie about the fog my skin tingled. Not to mention, the fog always brought back memories of that night.
It had been over seven months since the battle at Castle Bay.
Seven months since I lost my memory.
There were fragments I did remember. Something with a boathouse, running for my life, fighting a faceless figure with my sword, and waking on my mother’s ship. I’d filled in the gaps to the best of my ability from overhearing pirates speak. Most of them covered their mouths with their hands and watched me as I passed now.
From what I’d gathered, I had been captured by the people in Castle Bay and locked up in a boathouse. Some kind of battle happened and my mother rescued me. There must have been some injury to my head, too, to account for the missing pieces.
Seven months, and I was no closer to restoring any of those memories.
Every time I replayed that night, something at the back of my mind nagged me that I was missing something imperative.
My eyes snapped open, and I looked to the right, having heard a woman’s voice. “Did you hear that?” I whispered.
“Dunno what yer—”
“There it is again.” I trotted back down to the main deck, toward the bow of the ship where I heard the song.
Smee shook his head. “I’ve been through the Siren’s Gate many a time and ne’er seen one, miss. It’s the fog playin’ tricks on yer mind.” He tapped the side of his head for emphasis. “Nothin’ more.” Still, Smee’s eyes darted around, and his voice was tight with nervousness.
I’d always been able to hear things others couldn’t, like the time a royal vessel tried to overtake us on a night with no stars. Or the night I overheard one of the pirates talk about Castle Bay and a boathouse. That’s how I’d learned I’d been locked up.
The weighted feeling of the fog pressed on my shoulders, almost like being wrapped tightly in a blanket on too warm a night. I pulled off my hat to wipe my forehead when I heard the voice again, and I quickly shifted my gaze to the starboard side of the ship.
The voice was louder now, but the song had changed. It no longer pulled on my heart like sadness and wanting, instead sounding more like a lullaby.
Smee was muttering under his breath about something, so I—as casually as possible—walked to the side of the ship, placed my hands on the droplet-covered railing, and leaned over to peer into the dark sea. The voice in the back of my mind warned me not to, but the song pulling on my heart begged me just to take a peek.
The song paused only to start again, this
time much louder.
I scanned the water but couldn’t see anything other than my own reflection on the waves.
“Odette, what are you doin’?” Smee called, his gruff voice growing more annoyed.
“I told you, I hear something.” I dropped my hat on the deck, so the wind wouldn’t swipe it, and licked my lips.
The mist from the fog caressed my face, like fingertips stroking my skin. Slowly, from the darkness of the water, the reflection of my face changed. At first, I thought it was just me needing to blink, or my own movement, but the dull colors began to take shape as it drew nearer to the surface.
The fins of the tail were much wider than a dolphin. Instead of one fin, there were two. Her body . . . her body . . . was covered in glittering red fish scales. Her blue hair flowed behind her in the water as though she were at the bow of the ship on a windy day, not a siren in the sea.
Her face silently broke the surface. Scales adorned the brow of her head, her jaw, shoulders, and arms. She wore a glorious silver necklace and white pearl earrings. Her lips moved with the song somehow thickened by the fog.
She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
Her song was the most beautiful song I’d ever heard.
She was a friend, and when she locked her eyes on mine, I knew I’d known her forever.
I leaned my right arm down, holding tight to the railing with the other. I wanted to touch her fingers, to feel her and make sure she was there. I wanted to touch her scales and recall her name, remember how I knew her.
“Odette?” a voice somewhere in the distance called.
I couldn’t answer.
I didn’t want to.
The siren’s deep green eyes pulled me in. Her song wrapped around me, begging me to come into the water.
All I wanted was a touch.
The siren reached her hand up, and our fingertips brushed. I smiled as a feeling of weightlessness and pure joy washed over me. My left hand relaxed its grip.
I felt the vibration of heavy footsteps running on the wooden planks.
I reached further down.
The siren’s webbed fingers stretched up and touched my fingers again, this time locking our fingers together, and all the while, she smiled gently. The same feeling of elation encompassed me.
“The water, child . . .” her voice echoed in my mind, like a ripple on the surface of the water, different languages and tongues until I heard mine. “Come to me . . . come play.” She tilted her head, still smiling.
“Yes,” I breathed.
“Odette, no!”
I blinked stupidly and looked over my shoulder. Mr. Smee ran for me, but his movements were sluggish. I found him looking rather silly with his arms moving slowly at his sides, his right outstretching toward me.
I giggled.
The siren’s webbed fingers wrapped around my wrist. “Come play with me.”
I turned back to the siren.
And pushed off the railing.
The instant I hit the water was the same instant I knew I was in trouble. The icy water woke me from the siren’s alluring stupor. I’d been a complete fool. In the water, the siren’s true form revealed itself to me.
Her features twisted. Her teeth extended into long points like those of an angler fish, and her scales morphed to a mucky brownish red. They covered her entire body, including the fingers which moments ago had been human. She didn’t have hair at all, but a single fin that ran down her head and spine, and it glowed blue.
Worse, she wasn’t alone.
I pulled against her, fighting for the surface.
Growing up on the sea, one learns at a young age how to swim, and I prided myself in my speed and endurance. But neither helped me at that moment, fighting against a creature whose home was the sea. It was like a land-dweller stepping onto a deck and thinking they could stay balanced on a rocking ship well enough to fight a pirate.
The sirens dragged me deeper. I heard the muted movements of their tails as they swam circles around us. Their eyes reflected the little light still left, shining green like a cat’s eyes, and they sneered through their fangs.
Sirens killed for sport, luring their victims into the water with their songs. No one who was dragged under by a siren ever survived, or at least the stories told. But they didn’t only hunt for pirates, but any sailor—merchant or naval officer—foolish enough to fall for their tricks.
Had Smee been able to reach me, I would have been one of a handful of pirates to be lured and survive.
But he hadn’t saved me.
I thought I was clever enough to outsmart their magic, but in a few minutes, I would be another victim of the siren’s deadly game.
The familiar burning of holding my breath began in my lungs. But this was no game to see who could hold it the longest. Swimming against the siren wasn’t working. I needed a different method. Instead, I stopped fighting her and swam at her, drawing her off guard. I used what little momentum I had gained and pulled the dagger from my boot.
Or would have had it been there.
I patted my leg in panic. I hadn’t put it on when I’d woken that morning. It was likely hanging on the same nail my hat had been on. I did the only thing I could think of. I slammed my fist into her ribs, which was definitely not effective under water.
She snarled and dug her claws into my wrist.
I screamed. Air bubbles filled my vision, and I clamped my mouth shut, but it was too late. I had no air and no weapon.
I was going to die.
I was eighteen, one of the few female pirates, really only at the beginning of my story, and I was going to die because I fell for a siren’s song. She smiled at me, victory in her stony fish eyes.
I gripped her fingers and twisted. Her bones popped in my hand. I kicked at her.
She screamed so loud my ears hurt.
My lungs wanted to explode, begging me to take a breath in.
The surface was lost to me. Darkness swallowed me.
And then I gasped a mouthful of water.
And then another.
And another . . .
I blinked, and my vision flickered from bursts of light to shapes in colors I’d never seen. The sirens had a sort of yellow hue to them, like when the moon lights up the outer edge of a form in the darkness. Slowly, I drew another breath.
Breathing. I am breathing. Underwater.
The siren gripping me suddenly recoiled, her eyes wide, her face no longer twisted in anger and hatred, but confusion.
I seized the opportunity and swam for it. But my legs didn’t kick one at a time. They moved together. My hands moved easily as I clawed for the surface. Slowly, the dim light ahead grew nearer, and as I reached the sunlight, I saw my own fingers webbed with translucent skin.
Frantically, I ran my fingers across my face and discovered gills at the edge of my jaw, three on each side of my neck.
I broke the surface.
“There she is!” someone shouted.
The pirates hauled me on board, but I couldn’t quite comprehend how. My body was racked with intense pain, and when I reached the deck, I realized my clothes were shredded and torn.
Someone dropped a blanket on my shoulders.
Someone else hauled me over to a barrel, and everyone gathered round to demand what had happened.
I stared at my hands. My normal, web-less hands. Non-webbed? No skin stretched between them, and no gills resided in my neck. I wasn’t a siren at all.
“Back off,” Captain Avery said, pushing his way to the front. “What happened?” he asked, his tone much less demanding than everyone else.
“It was a siren . . .” I closed my eyes. “I was lured in by a siren.”
“How did you get out?” someone called.
“I must have stabbed her with my dagger and escaped. I
’m not hurt.” I’d been careful to avoid telling them the part with me growing gills and webbed hands. Pirates are, after all, terribly superstitious. If they had heard I had become a siren, they may have tossed me overboard!
“That’s good enough for me. Return to your duties!” Captain Avery ordered.
The crowd of pirates dispersed.
I got to my feet immediately, in spite of his hand motioning for me to stay seated. “Please don’t tell my mother I fell for a siren’s song and almost died. She’ll never give me that new ship.”
He gave me a wry smile. “Odette, you know I can’t withhold anything, especially from her, of all people. Someone on board is bound to tell what happened. Even if they don’t say you were pulled in by a siren, just mentioning you fell into the ocean in passing, she’ll come to me furious I never told her.” He lifted my bleeding arm. “I will, however, leave out the part where you ignored Mr. Smee’s warnings.” He raised his eyebrows and lowered his chin in a look of disappointment.
I gave him a relieved sigh. “Thank you.”
Even though Avery wasn’t my father, he was the closest thing I had to one. I sailed with Captain Avery more than anyone else, and I’d grown fond of the man. He was a fantastic leader, and I’d learned more about sailing and pirating from him than anyone, aside from my mother.
Of course, my mother had assigned me to sail with him whether I liked it or not. I only really complained because I had the right to. No other pirate complained about their crew or Athena would fine them and lock them in the brig for a week.
“Go on and change out of those wet clothes and take care of that wound. It’s a good thing you fell in. You were in need of a bath anyhow.” He put his hands behind his back and smirked.
“Oy,” I protested with a playful frown.
He gestured to the steps with a tilt of his head.
I wasn’t in the mood to object or make a witty comment. My whole body ached from fighting, and my stomach growled loudly.
I made my way below deck and to the small trunk tied to the post with exactly two changes of clothing and boots inside.
“Don’t forget your dagger.”
I lifted my head and saw Smee standing with my dagger strap looped on his finger. I slowly straightened.
The Siren Princess Page 1