Page 11 of The Eighth Isle

“Hello, my dear sisters. Welcome to the Eighth Isle,” Syra said as she stood a few feet in front of the chairs, back turned to me. The sirens faced her, naked, their hands to their sides, the energy about them nervous as hell.

“Good to see you again, Syra,” Andya said. Out of the five of them that remained, she had always seemed to be the more mature one. Raxae tried, too. Oreinne barely spoke, and Mea seemed to alwaystryto care because she didn’t naturally, and Fessa was in love with her own voice. She could talk your ear off and complain about her life all day if you let her. She’d done itwith me when I was a boy and didn’t know how to escape her, every time they came to the Evernight castle.

And Sedelis—she had been the most cunning of all, the one that had always scared me the most. It didn’t surprise me that she had been planning and going behind everyone’s back all along.

“Oh, I’m sure it isn’t,” Syra said to Andya. “For five hundred years you kept me under—I commend you. Really.” She clapped her hands. “That all of you were able to doone thingtogether for this long is worthy of fucking applause.”

“We had no choice,” Raxae told her. “You ruined Ennaris?—”

“You tookeverything from me!”

Syra’s shout was so sudden, so loud that it made the walls of the castle she’d built groan and shake. The entire Isle heard it, and birds flew off trees, and Storm roared in the distance.

Stand down,I thought, and forced that thought his way with all my strength. Fall was away from this Isle, safe, and he needed to stand down for now. It was too soon to act.

“You took them from me,” Syra was saying, her shoulders shaking. “You killed them. You…you killed them both.”

And I wanted to ask,who’s both? The sisters had eaten Hansil. Who were thetheySyra talked about?

I bit my tongue instead.

“We hadno choice,” Raxae repeated. “You were going to kill Ennaris—you refused to come into the water with us!”

“And I will neverswim the seas again,” Syra spit, shaking still. “After all the centuries we’ve been together, you betrayed me. Your own sand. Your own water.”

“You killed your own, too,” Fessa said from Raxae’s side. “Osera and Minel and Gargannea—you killed them.”

“And Sedelis, too,” said Andya. “We felt it.”

“Yes, well, as much as I wanted to thank her for awakening me, she had plans of her own,” Syra said. “To take my power from me. Rule the world.”

“She wouldn’t. She knew your power has to be willingly given,” Andya said. “You killed her out of spite.”

Syra stopped shaking, and slowly raised her head. “Oh, but she was prepared. She had a spell and everything—what a shame,” said Syra. “But if it was spite that drove me, sisters, you wouldallbe dead by now.”

I could feel in the air how every muscle in their bodies clenched at the same time. Even though Andya and Raxae were trying to seem fearless, they were shaking.

“Go ahead, then. Do what you must. We came because we will not cower from you any longer,” Raxae said, and her voice broke.

“We will not run,” Andya confirmed with a nod.

“Silly, silly sirens,” Syra said, raising her hands to her face—possibly to wipe her tears. She was most definitely not crying anymore. “If I wanted you dead there would be nowhere to run. I wouldn’t have given you the chance to cower.”

“Why are we here then?” said Oreinne, pale as Syra’s dress.

“Because I wanted to talk to you,” Syra said, moving closer, and the sirens instantly stepped back. Syra giggled. “Don’t fear, my sisters. I will not hurt you today or any other day. I will not hurt anyone at all—ifyou stay out of my way.”

The sirens looked at one another, as full of doubt as I was.

“Is this…is this some kind of joke?” Andya said.

“Not at all,” said Syra without missing a beat. “You see, sisters, the universe has decided to pay me back. You took my everything, but I have the chance to get it back now. I want to live—as does every other creature to have ever existed. That is our most primal instinct.” Syra turned to me. “And I will live now.”

Every inch of me was frozen in place. I held onto the armrests as I looked at her.

I am not Hansil!I wanted to shout, but I didn’t. Couldn’t.

Anything it takes.

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