Elian is in the center of the moat, surrounded by sirens who foam at the mouth when his scent salts the water. They drift toward him, but when they get too close, he’s jerked violently to the side. Pulled farther into the distance by the scruff of his shirt.
My breath shudders through me as I stare at his attacker.
The Flesh-Eater.
His shark tail is thick, gray, ribbed and spotted like a virus slowly devouring him. Every bit the demon I remember, with the face of a true killer. His features lie flat, eyes like gaping holes in his head and lips a mere slice across his face. They are marked by crusted orange, from whoever he has eaten in battle.
The Flesh-Eater grins, saliva clinging between the lines of his shark teeth, cutlass tail primed by my prince’s heart.
41
Lira
I’M PINNED IN PLACE by half a dozen arms. The sirens flank me, nails braced on my skin. The Flesh-Eater is deadly enough in the wilderness of the ocean with the mermen who live in brutal solitude, but he’s most dangerous here. Under the Sea Queen’s command.
I pant, fighting the sirens, but it’s no use against so many, and with Elian’s crew meandering hypnotically to the side, he’ll be torn apart by the Flesh-Eater in minutes.
The eye sparks in my palm. The dark magic calls, begging for me to surrender to it. Obliterate every enemy in my way. It sings with the same vengeful lust that my mother has. But to give into it would mean following my mother’s path, and I can’t allow that. It’d only prove to the others that I’m just like her and every queen who came before. If they’re going to swear their allegiance to me, then it has to be because of something other than fear.
“Let me save him,” I say.
I half-turn to see the Sea Queen slither closer to me, tentacles weaving through her soldiers. “You really think I would allow you to rescue him?”
“I’m not talking to you,” I hiss.
Her deadly face tightens. “The sirens don’t follow you,” she says. “I am their queen.”
“Not by choice,” I tell her. I look back at the sirens who trap me. “Is this how you want to continue on? Fighting and dying whenever she tells you to, knowing your lives mean nothing if they don’t help her in some way?”
“Shut your mouth!”
The Sea Queen thrashes a tentacle out toward me. My neck cracks to the side as she strikes, drawing a thin red line on my cheekbone. I feel the sirens loosen their grip, shocked by her outburst.
“This is your chance,” I continue on, more fearless than I have the right to be. “If you follow me, I’ll put an end to this once and for all. You can be free.”
The Sea Queen raises another tentacle. “You little bitch,” she says.
And then—
“Free?”
One of the sirens drops my wrist and combs a heap of deep blue hair from her face. “How would we be free?”
“Be quiet!” the Sea Queen barks.
“What would change?” another asks, her hold on me faltering.
“The world,” I answer honestly. “There could be peace.”
“Peace?” the Sea Queen arches an eyebrow. “With those filthy humans?”
The eye burns in my hand with every word she speaks. Just one movement and I could send a wave strong enough to knock her back half a mile. I could make her bleed right here, in front of them all.
“What does the Princes’ Bane care about peace?” a siren asks.
“Because I’ve seen the truth of the queen’s lies.” I look directly into my mother’s eyes. “I’ve spent enough time with the humans to know they don’t want war. They just want to live. The sooner this is over, the sooner we can all stop dying in the name of a feud none of us were alive to see created.”
There is a sudden discord among them. Murmurs spilling into clear, angry shouts. The sirens hiss their disapproval alongside their temptation, and I blink, trying to figure out which direction the scales are likely to tip and if I can still save Elian either way.
As time passes, I grow more and more impatient. Every second longer they take to decide is another second Elian is in the Flesh-Eater’s hold, his teeth ready to puncture Elian’s neck.
“I’m with you.”
A voice erupts from the chaos, and I turn to see my cousin. Kahlia is surrounded by a group of young sirens, unsullied youth fresh in their saltwater smiles. Children ripe for rebellion.
“Lira has always been the strongest,” Kahlia says. “And now she has the Second Eye of Keto under her command. Are there any of you here who really doubt she’ll be a worthy ruler?” The authority in her voice takes me aback. It’s clear-cut and assured, as though the very idea of not siding with me is ludicrous.
“You mutinous eel,” the Sea Queen seethes.
“It’s not mutiny if we’re following our queen,” she says. “It’s loyalty. For my sovereign and for my family.”
I know she’s thinking of Crestell in that moment, because I am too.
“Lira was ready to take your place in just a few hearts,” Kahlia says, her voice growing louder, bolder, with every word. “This only means that when she does, her first act as queen will be to end a war that has killed so many of us. And when she takes the trident” – Kahlia’s yellow eye twitches under her defiance – “she’ll have twice the power you ever did.”
“I could be using the eye right now to force you all to bow before me,” I say. “I could strike each of you who holds me with all the power of Keto.” The sirens stir, lengthening their distance. “And yet I’m reasoning with you instead. Asking for your allegiance when I have every right to just take it.”
I lift my head and survey them each in turn, fire flickering in my right eye. At first the silence gives me pause, and I begin to wonder if my mother’s hold is just too tight. Then, slowly, I see a new kind of understanding descend on each of their faces.
One by one, they incline their heads in a bow, and the sirens who surrounded me move back, their hands dropping from my body and rising to their chests in a show of fealty. Then, as though my eyes cut right through them, the army begins to part and a line draws neatly down the moat.
A clear path to the Flesh-Eater.
The monstrous soldier takes one look at the treasonous sirens before him and drags Elian below the surface.
I follow with maddening speed, like an arrow shooting toward him, arms out and coated more in rage than water. It’s seconds before I reach them and too many for me to be grateful. The Flesh-Eater pins Elian to the shingle, hand braced on his throat and ready to snap in either direction.
He sees me when I’m only inches from them both, and lifts Elian up with oil-slick talons as though he’s a prize to be beheld. I grind my teeth together, a snarl gurgling in my throat. The Flesh-Eater is a monster and a warrior and a ravenous killer. And he doesn’t stand a chance.
I don’t need the eye for this. I’m going to tear him apart.
I lunge, and the Flesh-Eater throws Elian away like garbage. I pause just long enough to see the prince swim back to the surface for breath before I rush forward.