Page 154 of Mama Si's Paradise

My God, they were mesmerizing. The world had never seen anything more beautiful than the sisters, and certainly not these men. They’d heard horror stories before, of sirens who wrecked ships and ate the flesh off men’s bones, but those were just stories becauselook at them.So beautiful. So happy. Sopositive.They smiled at the men, jumping in and out of water, showing them their fins, giggling at the whistles and the compliments of the pirates, catching the coins and the jewelry they threw at them.

They looked like they were in love—both the pirates and the sirens swimming around the ship, hypnotizing everyone watching—including me from wherever I was. Each time they jumped out of the water, the scales on their fishtails seemed to reflect the sunlight andchargethe air with magic, and the pirates would cheer louder.

A dream, that’s what it looked like. The perfect dream for both these men on the ship and the sirens swimming for them.

Then the captain pulled out his red handkerchief from the pocket of his vest, and he threw it at the sirens—at one in particular.

She was possibly the most beautiful siren of all the sisters, with long hair as golden as the sun and wide eyes as blue as theocean, and those red lips that were forever stretched into a smile as she reached out both hands to catch the floating handkerchief.

Syra. She was Syra, the second eldest siren sister, as powerful as any of them—and completely enchanted by the beauty of the pirate captain.

Such a handsome man was he, with thick dark hair touching his shoulders, dark beard covering half his face, eyes the most striking grey, dark brows on his wide forehead, wide shoulders and big, strong hands.

My God, he looked so much like Grey Evernight that, for a moment, I imagined it was him for real, that if he shaved all that beard off and cut his hair, he would reveal himself to me completely.

Except this wasn’t Grey.

This was Hansil Knight, a pirate so feared that entire ship crews surrendered willingly and gave up their riches at the very sight of his black flag approaching. So smart and wise was he that he’d found treasures buried in caves and islands that no other man had ever been able to find for centuries.

His body had belonged to many women, but his heart was still pure. Still inexperienced in love—until now.

Young Hansil was falling for Syra just like his handkerchief was doing. It was the first time in his life that he’d willingly given a personal item to a woman or a man. It was the first time in his life that he wanted to get off the ship that was his home and stand still for longer than a day on dry land. Withher, the beautiful siren who was so in awe of him she hardly heard her sisters calling to the pirates to jump, to join them in the water.

Sirens don’t fall in love. That is their nature. To Ennaris, they are providers of the biggest magical source, one they harvested off human bodies. It was their job as it had been since the beginning of time to lure men into their waters andeat them. They did not fall in love, even though legend said that nothing in the world would give more power to a siren than to eat the heart of the man she loves.

But who could do such a terrible, evil thing?

Nobody, not even a siren. That is why they’d vowed toneverfall.

Until Hansil Knight threw that handkerchief from his ship, and Syra caught it in her hands.

The pirates began to jump in the water soon to get closer to the sirens who called for them in their beautiful, mesmerizing voice. Hansil didn’t hear them, though, as he only had eyes for Syra, and Syra did not need to call for him to join her in the ocean. He jumped in himself.

The stars aligned when his hands touched her face, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, and her fishtail around his legs. They fell together as they held each other’s eyes, so powerful the feeling that it cocooned them into a bubble nothing in the world could burst.

He’d go to the ends of the Earth for her. He’d kill armies and conquer nations for her.

And she’d be with him every step of the way.

When he kissed Syra, the whole world sang for their ears, and the song was so loud and so beautiful that they didn’t hear the other sirens drowning the rest of the crew the way they always did. They didn’t hear the screams and the cries for help, nor did they hear the laughter of the sirens as they swam away with their food to the nearest shore.

Hansil and Syra stayed in the ocean, kissing and talking and falling in love until the sun set and rose up in the sky again. Until Hansil was so tired he could not keep his eyes open anymore, even though he detested sleep with his whole being now because he wanted to spend every second of his life awake with his beautiful siren.

But Syra promised him that she would never leave his sidefor as long as she lived. She promised to keep him safe, to protect him from any harm that may come his way.

And he promised to love her more than the sea until his dying breath.

Syra took him ashore to Ennaris, where her sisters had already feasted on the bodies of the pirate crew right there in the open, as was natural, and had fallen asleep with the sunlight.

Hansil saw.

When the half-eaten bodies of his friends, his trusted crewmembers came into view, the spell cast upon him by love was broken. He nearly lost his mind at the sight, so brutal to him, sovilewhat to the sirens was a way of life. Syra’s way of life.

She’d been doing this for centuries and would continue to do it for many more to come—but to see the disgust in Hansil’s eyes, to see the way he screamed and mourned his friends’ death, did something to her. It made her wonder if maybe what she and her sisters did was wrong. It made her wonder if maybe there was another way to fuel the magic of Ennaris because the man she loved couldnever,she realized, understand this. He could never live with this, not even with her.

But her love for him was vast and so powerful. It had taken root deep in her bones, and so she vowed to find a way. She vowed to search for a better route, to make her own destiny, one in which she no longer spent her time luring sailors into the sea to eat them. One in which she spent her life in the water under the open sky, kissing Hansil Knight.

Using her compulsion magic, she stopped Hansil from screaming, from calling her and her sisters murderers, monsters, bloodthirsty beasts—all words that greatly wounded her heart. Syra put Hansil to sleep, and when her sisters approached her, now walking on legs, she told themthat he was hers. He was not to be eaten or even touched. He was the love of her life, and she’d vowed to protect him against any and all—even her own sisters if they forced her.

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