Page 9 of Cursed By a Siren's Kiss

I backed away from my father, my head shaking with disbelief. “No,” I said to him. “You promised this was my kingdom. This throne belonged to my mother. It is rightfully mine!”

With nothing but a thought, a whirlpool caught me, flinging me in all directions within the center of the throne room until it held me, locked in place, above Poseidon. Unable to move. Unable to catch a breath. Fire burned within his eyes as he glared up at me.

“This is my ocean,” he said, his words clipped and his voice loud within all of our minds. “These are my seas!” The water rippled within his wrath. “I decide who rules. So, if you do not prove your worth, if you do not come back more powerful, then you will come back as nothing. If I were you, I would not come back at all.”

He flung his wrist, and the whirlpool, with me held firmly within its icy embrace, whipped through the seas. He had dismissed me without so much as a farewell. My stomach rocked within me, nausea lifting within my throat as I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to see past the rushing waters.

When the frothing water finally stilled, I found myself splayed out on the shore of an unknown beach. The sun dipped slowly beyond the horizon. Soon, the moon would be high in the sky, and the day of my twenty-first birthday would dawn. There would be no celebration as I’d been cast out. In my father’s wrath, he’d denied me even that.

I slipped back into the sea as soon as the sea finished churning at Poseidon’s command. In the weeks leading up to this day, I’d set in motion a strategy that would aid my story once on land. I needed to set that plan in motion before letting my tail transform into legs. There would be no returning to the sea until I held a heart within my fist.

The time for my rite of passage had arrived, and I didn’t think there was a living soul who wanted me to succeed. I knew what my mother would have wanted though, and so I would do this for her, for my mother, and I would not fail.

Otherwise, I would lose everything my mother had wanted for me.

Chapter 7

The Redheaded Seer

The Pirate

The salty sea breeze struck my face in an icy mist as I stood at the helm, my ship slicing through the waves with graceful ease. After decades of searching for a way to break the sea witch's curse, I was no closer to a solution. The emptiness within me yawned wider each day, threatening to swallow me whole. I refused to succumb to its suffocating grasp.

"Captain! Sail ho!" A shout reached me from the crow’s nest above, breaking into my thoughts as I turned my attention skyward.

I pulled out my spyglass and peered in the direction the lookout indicated. A large merchant ship sailed several leagues away, her hull riding low in the water – no doubt weighed down with valuable cargo. A cruel smile curled my lips. Perhaps some plundering would lighten my dark mood.

"All hands on deck, you rats!" I bellowed. "Ready the cannons and prepare to come about! There's treasure to be had."

The crew scrambled into action, sails unfurling to catch the wind as the ship banked hard to starboard. Adrenaline sang inmy veins as we drew closer, the anticipation of the impending raid sending a thrill down my spine. This was what I lived for now. Small moments of victory to overshadow the foreboding doom gripped around my very soul.

As we gained, I could make out more details of our prey through my glass. She was a fat cargo ship, her decks bristling with sailors. But it was the flag she flew that made my breath catch - a yellow banner with black markings. Slave traders.

Bile rose in my throat as memories of my own enslavement threatened to surface. I ruthlessly shoved them back down. That helpless, abused boy was long dead, replaced by a hardened pirate king. I would show no mercy to those who traded in human misery.

"Ready the grappling hooks!" I shouted as we pulled alongside the galleon. "Prepare to board!"

Cannon fire erupted between the two ships, splintering wood and igniting flames. Grapeshot whizzed through the air, finding targets in flesh and bone. The screams of the wounded and dying joined the cacophony. Grappling hooks found purchase and my men swarmed across, engaging the enemy in vicious hand-to-hand combat that splattered the deck with blood and loss.

I swung across myself, dispatching two men before my boots hit the planks. The smoke was thick, gunpowder acrid in my nostrils. I cut a bloody swath across the galleon, my blade flashing as I pressed forward with single-minded determination.

Below deck, I found them, just as I knew I would. Rows of emaciated bodies, chained and penned like cattle. Haunted eyes turned to me, filled with hopelessness and despair. For a moment, I was a boy again, huddled in the filthy hold of a ship. Lost. Abandoned. Awaiting a fate worse than death. For a moment, the briefest of thoughts flittered through my mind, wanting to claim their lives for myself, but I shoved those darkthoughts back down, knowing they didn’t belong to me but to the curse I faced.

With a furious yell, I charged at the pen's lock and smashed it with my bare hands. The sound of metal breaking echoed through the air as I freed the chained women inside. "You're free now," I told them, feeling a sense of satisfaction in their newfound freedom.

Many of them fled until one female looked at me with eyes that turned completely white. I instinctively jumped back, knowing she was a seer. The slaves distanced themselves from her, fleeing above deck with only a handful of them freezing in place, afraid to move as they stared at the seer before me.

"I knew you'd come, Lord of Death. The gods showed me," she said, her voice filled with both reverence and fear. She stood up, tall and proud, with her long red hair cascading down her back in silky strands. Her eyes changed from white to a clear blue as she studied me intently.

Suddenly, the boat rocked under our feet, and she stumbled into me. I tried to keep my distance, knowing that seers were nothing but trouble. But even as I avoided touching her, I couldn't help but be drawn to her piercing gaze and regal aura.

Her lips twisted into a sly smirk, her eyes gleaming with ancient wisdom. "You seek to break your curse, and she seeks the same," she sang in a haunting voice. "Your paths will intertwine, and that will be the end. But ends are merely beginnings in disguise."

I turned to face her fully, my curiosity piqued. "Who holds the answers? Who do I need to find?" I demanded.

"She who is older than time itself, a master weaver of fate, one of three." Her fingers danced in the air as she spoke, painting an invisible web of connections. "But beware, for she speaks in riddles and truths intertwined."

Frustration built up inside me as I tried to make sense of her words, but before I could press her further, she collapsed onto the wooden planks.

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