Page 10 of Of Song and Scepter
Tephra snaps her fingers, and Odissa falls silent. “I’m inclined to make a few tweaks to your initial request. That Coral Prince is a slippery fish to catch. I’m a woman of business, and for bargains like this, I requireproof. Say, a wedding? You have until the end of the moon to secure your royal marriage. He must vow in my name to love you till the day he dissolves.”
“You said all I needed to do was win his heart.” Odissa’s tentacles quiver, betraying her nerves. “Win it. As in, I get him to fall in love with me.”
“Yes, well. Plans change. And what is love if nothing but a game? I need something a little more… substantial.”
“But—”
Tephra raises a tentacle. “Pray you remember your place, little fish. I’m in a good mood.”
Odissa’s expression hardens, and she bows her head. “Thank you, you are most generous.”
“Do we have a bargain?” The goddess leers, fixing Odissa with her perfectly off smile.
This deal weighs heavily in the goddess’s favor. How Odissa expects to impersonate a royal, I have no idea. Not to mention, pulling off the ruse in another kingdom, and a surface kingdom at that. Princess Aris, trained from hatching to be a royal, would likely have struggled with the match. Odissa is a death-dealer from Vespyr with no Voice training. She will not survive this bargain. And when Odissa fails, I’ll be left to clean up her mess.
What thefuckis she thinking?
This is unlike any of Odissa’s previous schemes—it’s rash, dangerous, and by the sound of it, half-improvised. And there’s no kill at the end. Does she expect me to help her with this deadly love game? I’m notoriously bad at feelings. Sex, I can do. But the heart-pumping, gut-twisting romantic shit? I’d much rather knife a prince.
Odissa extends her hand. “It’s a deal. And I never disappoint.”
Tephra laughs, snatching her wrist between two fingers. With her fingernail, she cuts the flesh of Odissa’s palm, flooding the water with her blood. Tephra presses her finger into the wound.
Odissa groans, her face contorting in pain. She gasps and clutches her wrist. The goddess lifts her finger to her mouth, sucking in a wispy trail of Odissa’s blood, then licks her lips.
“Excellent,” the goddess says, her voice taking on a musical quality. Tephra’s song begins low—a deep, solemn note. Her hands glow white, channeling her spell. She releases Odissa’s arm, and the death-dealer spins, sinking against the skeleton floor with a crackle of bone.
Tephra stirs the water into a circular current, sucking Odissa and the dead princess into a spinning vortex. The tendrils of Tephra’s magic weave into the current, carrying the sound of her dark Voice. Odissa floats higher, her hands splayed out, her pink tentacles twisting out in a jumble. Shadows encircle her body, writhing over her and the corpse until only blackness remains. Odissa screams.
Tephra’s song morphs, dissonant. Her mouth opens in a wry smile. She closes her eyes, tilts her head, and then, after what feels like an eternity, the goddess cuts her spell. Finally, Odissa’s body drops to the floor, a lifeless carcass. The princess, dead moments prior, twitches with new life. The fluttering silver tail moves, slowing her descent to the floor. The arms raise. Theeyes open—bright and blue—and the head turns to glare at the goddess with Odissa’s signature scowl.
Tephra snatches Odissa’s old body, dangling it before her mouth.
“Wait!” Odissa calls out in a light, melodic voice. Nothing at all like her graveling sneer. She lifts a dainty hand.
Tephra smiles, eyes alight with mischief. “That body is yours to keep for the remainder of its lifetime,” she says. “If you succeed.”
Odissa’s new fins quiver. She presses her hand to her scarred chest, tracing the line of my suture. “And if I fail?”
Tephra’s gaze flicks from Odissa to me and back again. “Then you’ll be my dessert.”
Chapter six
Soren
I twirl the tridentin my hand, savoring the familiar shift of its weight as it slices through the water. Muted light catches its three whitesteel tips. The sun filters from the surface above, casting a dance of light across the sandy seabed. The coral walls of the training arena curve up, forming a bowl in the sharp barrier.
Ten pairs of mermen square off in the arena. Their muscled tails stir the water as they hover in place, assessing each other, weapons poised. At the bark of a commanding officer, they charge one another. The clang of metal weapons weaves a steady rhythm, lulling me into a sense of calm. I relax my gills and tighten my grip on my own trident.
“Are you ready, Your Highness, or are we going to admire your fancy fork all evening?” Nara says.
I laugh, gripping the trident more tightly. “It is rather beautiful, is it not?”
The mermaid smirks, angling her own trident with the practiced ease of the kingdom’s best military captain. “I’ve seen better.”
If any other subject spoke to me that way, they’d lose their tongue. But Nara is different—a lifelong friend, and the closest I’ll ever have to a sibling. We’ve known each other since we were mewling guppies exploring the reef—her sneaking into places she shouldn’t be, me sneaking out of places I shouldn’t leave, and the both of us getting into too much trouble for my mother’s liking.
Nara stirs the water with her tail, her white-tipped tendrils disturbing a crowd of bubbles. The pattern of white and maroon stripes continues up her tail to cover every inch of her skin, wrapping around her stomach, the bulge of her muscled arms, the thick strands of her neck. Her red hair ties in a tight, efficient knot on top of her head. Nara watches me with large, round eyes, unblinking. The maroon irises focus with intensity, no doubt analyzing every twitch of my muscles and shift of my scales, just as I do for her.
