Siren's Fury by Mary Weber
To Dad & Mom,
for always reaching bigger,
further,
higher.
And yet continually showing me the path home.
You are the heroes in my story.
And to my sister, Kati,
whom Nym is based upon,
for pillaging the mind villages with me
and fashioning them into castles.
And for knowing that some melodies are meant to be sung.
“Around me I gather
these forces to save
my soul and my body
from dark powers that assail me:
against false prophesyings,
against pagan devisings,
against heretical lying
and false gods all around me.
Against spells cast.”
—FROM SAINT PATRICK’S BREASTPLATE
CHAPTER 1
FIVE MINUTES EARLIER . . .
THERE IS A MOMENT, JUST BEFORE EVERY STORM, when the entire world pauses. As if the atmosphere, in unison with the ocean tides, the wind, the sky’s watery teardrops, is forced to hold its breath. A bracing against the violence it knows will come—the tempest that perhaps this time, this moment, might actually shred the world’s soul.
I am in that moment now.
I am that moment.
My Elemental blood is paused in my veins—I can feel it the same way I feel Eogan’s hand on my skin as the golden candle orbs float past my window, ascending from the Castle’s courtyard celebration below. On their way to the stars, their round glow shines through the glass pane to reflect off the floor, the glossy walls, the bedpost in my room. They illuminate Eogan’s beautiful black skin and the jagged bangs covering half his face as his green eyes search mine.
“Are you all right?” His voice is ragged, fresh from the peace-treaty speech he just gave with King Sedric.
I nod and glance over the healing bruises and cuts I can see, and the internal ones I can’t because they’re hidden behind that unfair tweak of a smile. You? I want to ask.
His grin widens as he traces a finger down my cheek to my jawline and leans his tall self in until he is inches away and I am breathing in his familiar scent of honey and pine mixed with something oddly musky. His gaze drops to my mouth.
I swallow.
Never better, his eyes answer. He bends closer so that, for a second, his lips nearly touch mine.
I swear it almost dissolves every piece of me in the in-between as I wait for his kiss. Just as I’ve waited for this moment, this time, finally alone with him, for the past week since the battle at the Keep.
But the kiss doesn’t come.
Instead my breath, my veins, they remain bated as the cheers from the courtyard erupt louder through the shut window—the Faelen people extolling Eogan and King Sedric for the truce the two kingdoms just signed.
“To our own King Sedric!”
“And Eogan of Bron! Lost prince who helped defend Faelen!”
Lost prince who is now king of Bron.
I lean back and clear my throat, then tip my head toward the sound. They’re calling for him to go back out there. Instead he’s here consorting with a slave.
I give him a sly grin. What will they think? But abruptly my heart is dithering and thudding because, yes, what will they think? What will he think? The only man I’ve cared for is now the most notable person in the Hidden Lands. And I am still Elemental—recently elevated to revered status in Faelen maybe, but I doubt his Bron subjects will feel the same.
He doesn’t answer. His grin just ripples and broadens.
Suddenly his whole body is rippling, shaking beneath my fingers.
I frown.
Next thing I know he’s raised a scornful brow and uttered a growl and the broadening smile turns toothy.
I pull away. What in hulls?
The firelight bounces off of those teeth a moment, making them look long. Shiny. I’d think he was teasing if it didn’t look so disturbing, but he’s stretching his neck and shoulders, extending them up as if adjusting his spine beneath that undulating skin. When he straightens it’s to glare down at me, as if he is still Eogan. And yet not.
Very carefully he sweeps his black bangs from his face and tucks them behind his ear in a sickening, all-too-familiar trait.
It makes my stomach lurch. I swallow and retreat another step in my velvet slippers and white waste-of-someone’s-good-fortune dress.
No.
It can’t be.
“I warned you at the Keep,” he whispers.
Oh, please, no.
Before I can ask or curse or make my mouth work in any way that forms words, he tips his head to reveal the slightly healed gash running down the back of his neck. Not a gash. A clawed incision.
Exactly like Breck had when Draewulf cut her open and crawled inside her skin.
I shake my head. It has to be a trick of Lord Myles. He must be alive and using his mind powers in retaliation.
I squint, searching his face, waiting for the mirage to change, but he merely bends closer and tucks a swag of my hair behind my ear as a disgusting snarl mars his rich voice. “I told you that you couldn’t save both Eogan and your country.”