Page 114 of A Storm in Every Heart
I press my hands to my chest, like I might hold the words inside and keep them from spreading. “But what if I don’t want to be like you? What if I want to stay here?”
She regards me with something like pity, glancing down at my legs, and my still-fading scales. “If you stay on land, you’ll never be whole. Not really. You’ll be—” She searches for the word. “Lonely. Always. It’s that loneliness that will drive you to destroy anyone who might try to compete with your love for yourtrue home and family. Or, you can join us. You’ll never be alone again…but you’ll have to let everything else go.”
The wind picks up, salt and sharp and full of secrets. I shiver, blanket clutched around my shoulders, and realize the other sirens have vanished from the sea, only this one left, as if the rest of them have already written me off as a lost cause.
Still, I feel the need to make myself clear. “I’m not going with you.”
She tilts her head at me and she almost looks sad. “That’s your choice, but if you want to stay on land, then you must never return to the water.”
“Why?”
“In the water, we are as one. One mind, one…intention. There’s no room in the ocean for a siren who will not join the pack, except as the queen…and there’s already a queen. So, if you ever return, you must join the pack, or I’ll have to kill you myself.”
The siren turns and walks back toward the water and I almost turn away too, but then the words spill out of me, raw and childish. “Wait.”
She hovers on the edge of the rising tide. For a second she looks almost hopeful. “Yes?”
“You said we destroy anyone we love…is that from experience? Did you ever love anyone?”
For a long time, she doesn’t answer. The waves crash, the moon drifts, and I wait. When the silence finally breaks, her voice is tiny.
“Yes. And I broke him in the end. It’s what we do.” Her gaze hardens. “You can try to outrun it, but it’s already inside you. The only thing left is to decide who you’re willing to hurt.”
KASTIAN, PRESENT
It takes less than fifteen minutes for the invisibility to wear off, but thankfully by then Dessa and I have already left the village.
She reappears next to me, and I blink
I’m holding her hand—mostly so we wouldn’t lose each other while we couldn’t see, but it’s strange. The moment she pops back into existence and I see her, fresh-faced with her hair braided, I get the strangest sense of déjà vu.
“You’re staring at me,” she says tightly, tugging her hand out of mine.
I shake my head and run my fingers over the stubble coating my chin. “Sorry. The invisibility wearing off surprised me.”
She nods once, and turns away from me, her gaze fixed firmly on the riverbank in front of us.
We’ve already discussed how we’re going to reach the border of Vernallis, and there simply aren’t a lot of perfect options.
We can’t fly right now while I’m not under direct threat, and even if we could I wouldn’t want to. While it’s still light out and we’re within the borders of Hydratta, the last thing I want is to be spotted swooping around the sky. For the same reason, we’ve decided to avoid the main road, which means walking through the swamp once more. Neither of us wanted to spend any time somewhere so dangerous, so we made our way to the river.
Now, we walk along the edge, our feet occasionally slipping into the murky, shallow water. I suppose it’s better than quicksand.
“You can’t conjure a boat, can you?” Odessa complains as we walk.
I frown. “Probably.”
She stops and looks at me. “I was joking. Can you really? I’d kill to sit right now. My legs are still tired from yesterday and I’m going to burn these shoes when we get back to Storia. I’m never picking beauty over comfort again.”
I smile, unable to look at her without immediately thinking of what a contradiction she is.
Only the other day I was thinking I didn’t really know Odessa that well, but these last few days have been enlightening. Odessa is bold and seemingly fearless, but she’s also delicate. She doesn’t like to be uncomfortable, and won’t bother to contain her displeasure if everything isn’t exactly to her liking.
“You would have made a good princess,” I comment.
She reels back, her eyebrows rising into her hairline. “What on earth would make you say that?”
I’m not really sure why I said it, actually, except that it feels true. Maybe that’s why I keep calling her Princess?
