Page 29 of Siren's Gift

"Shouldn’t we do something now, though?" Aaron asked. "Are we just going to leave them all here like this?

He was referring to the tortured dragons and their doomed hosts. Like us, Aaron understood the intimate bond between animal spirit and human.

I grimaced. As much as I wanted to do more, I couldn’t risk spooking Ichiro before we could bring him down completely. For now, we would have to leave them, and I prayed to any god listening that by doing so, we wouldn’t be guaranteeing their deaths.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t convinced any god was listening.

CHAPTER 14

Bree

The days blurred together as I lived with and worked for the sea witch. Had I been here for a week? Two? More?

No matter the number, the longer I was here, the more I realized just how cruel and deranged the serpent woman was. I wasn’t sure if she’d always been this way, or only after her failed attempt at overthrowing my father’s throne all those years ago.

But one thing was certain—she was downright evil.

A coral’s sharp edge dug into my arm, and I winced as blood blossomed from the cut. For the past few days, Calypso had me collecting a specific type of kelp growing near her home for one of her many spells. I’d learned early on to stop asking about the ingredients or what the spells did, or about anything. Asking through my confused facial expressions, of course, since I had no voice.

It was like trying to talk during a hurricane and expecting someone to hear me. I’d gotten used to being ignored, or at least, I’d forced myself to. The first days after losing my voice had felt like drowning in silence—constantly misunderstood, fighting to be seen without the most basic tool of communication.

Now, the silence was second nature. But even when I knew how to make the shapes with my face, the weight of my loss never fully left. No matter how much I adapted, the ache was always there, a reminder of how much she had taken from me and how much I’d taken for granted.

Her punishments for even minor infractions were swift and severe, and I had a multitude of bruised bones to prove it. After years of training to fight and a month in the human ring, I could take a beating, but Calypso thrived on making me suffer. And without my magic, healing took forever. Being a non-Gifted human must really stink.

Reaching into the small bag I carried, I pulled out a strip of kelp and tied it around the cut to stop the blood flow. Attracting sharks—other than the witch’s ever-present sand sharks, that is—wasn’t on my to-do list.

I glanced at them warily, wishing she’d give them something else to do than guppysit me. It’s not like I could go far with our contract intact. Not without swift and painful consequences.

The sharks had done nothing to warrant my dislike, but their unnatural stillness gave me the creeps. Most sharks had to move to survive. Not these guys, which made them the perfect spies for an evil sea witch.

With a sigh, I returned to my task. Although time had lost all meaning in the oppressive darkness of Calypso’s lair, I was pretty sure it had been just over a week since I’d arrived. One week down, the rest of my life to go.

I often wondered whether I had made the right decision, or if I should have included Marissa in it, let her be a part of the choice. But what good came from wondering? I’d already sacrificed too much, beyond the point of return. I could mourn the life I’d lost, but nothing would bring it back.

So I pushed forward, day after day. I had no other choice.

Besides, I knew what Marissa would have said. Despite all her selfish tendencies, my little sister wouldn’t have wanted this for me. She wouldn’t have agreed to return home to our father either, not after living with freedom for so long.

But then what would we do? We had nowhere else to go.

Our talismans would have failed, and we would have had to start over—this time, back in the ocean. I might have learned quite a bit about surviving since our first foray into a new world, but that didn’t mean I wanted to repeat the process in an unfamiliar underwater kingdom, constantly looking over our shoulders even more than we did already.

A slight disturbance in the water caught my attention. I looked up from my work and froze.

Three male sirens were headed my way, and they had definitely seen me. I might have welcomed their approach, hoping for a rescue, except one face was all too familiar, even from this distance.

It was Sidon, the siren Marissa and I had fled from when he showed up the night I fought Dominic. He was the right-hand siren of King Ateleíotes, who had once been my father’s worst enemy. He was also a brutal killer.

Before my heart reacted to the thought of Dominic, I spun around to dive into the relative safety of Calypso’s lair, which was protected by a labyrinth of tunnels. Except I swam straight into the witch herself.

Her upper lip pulled into a snarl, revealing her fangs. Her gaze dipped to the kelp I’d wrapped around the cut on my arm. "So clumsy for a princess."

With wide eyes, I shook my head and pointed at the approaching sirens. Then I gestured at her and me and mimed swimming away. I waved at her to follow me into her lair.

Why I was trying to help her, I had no idea. Call it a bad habit. I only knew we were running out of time before Sidon arrived,and I didn’t want to risk breaking our contract by fleeing without her. The magic binding me to her would work even if she wasn’t present, and the consequences of going too far would be fatal.

But instead of following me to safety, Calypso gripped my arm and held me in place. Her claws dug into my skin until I winced. "We greet our guests with respect, child. Especially such esteemed guests as these."

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