28. Chapter 28

NIARA

As promised, I barely had time to get dressed and nibble on a piece of bread and cheese, before four hulking dragoons arrived to escort me to the pier. I pondered if this would be like this for the rest of my life, having an escort wherever I went and decided, that yeah, probably, when a siren came around the corner. And not any siren, but Sarissa, the queen of sirens.

“A word, human?” she demanded.

Something looked different though. It took me a moment to figure out what it was, but when I did, I recoiled, taking a step back toward the dragoons. Dark shadows moved underneath her skin, as if her veins and arteries were alive and humming with energy. As if her blood had turned black and her skin translucent. They made her skin appear as if it were cracking.

“You ssee me,” Sarissa hissed.

I did. I saw through her flawless beauty, which she portrayed to the Leandars, hiding the true layer of herself. The teeth that had looked perfectly straight to me the last time I saw her, were in fact serrated and sharp, ready to pierce skin. Speaking of skin, it was in fact a greyish, washed out blue, so light it could have been white. It was the color of a dead fish. Just like her lackluster hair, that robbed of its beautiful color resembled seagrass.

I wasn’t sure if all her beauty was only an illusion for the Leandars or if that’s how she truly looked like and I was only given a glimpse of what lay underneath her beauty, either way, she was the epitaph of terror to me.

“I see you,” I replied, regaining my composure.

“Interessting,” her fingers stroked through her hair, making me dizzy as the beautiful locks intertwined with the seaweed I also saw.

“It’ss time for you to leave, human,” she bared her teeth at me.

“In case you had forgotten, this is not up to me, I am his hostage,” I worked through my revulsion toward her and squared my back.

“I will help you esscape,” her voice was meant to sound alluring, but only filled me with dread. Probably because both resounded in my ears, the way others heard her and the way I did.

“Oh? And silly me thought you and Myles had some kind of alliance. An alliance you are willing to put at risk? For me? Because of the kindness of your heart? I feel flattered.” I blamed my courage to bait her on the four dragoons at my back, who I was sure wouldn’t allow her to attack me, siren queen or not.

“From woman to woman, your plight resonatess in my heart.” She replied, swaying on her tail as if trying to hypnotize me.

“Your tricks won’t work on me, siren,” I stopped her before she made an utter fool of herself. I even took a step toward her. “And you don’t fool me, you don’t have a heart. ”

She rose on her tail, forcing me to look up at her, but she wasn’t intimidating me. My pulse was beating faster, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of the anger rising in me or because on a deep level she did frighten me, something I would never admit to.

“You just want Myles to yourself,” the words rang true as I spoke them and I put a challenge in my expression, daring her to contradict me.

“You want candor, human? Fine, I’ll give you candor,” her tail slid her back a few feet, but only so that she could bent her torso forward to bring her face right into mine.

Her breath smelled of dead fish and it took all my willpower not to recoil from her.

“How iss thiss for candor? Leave or I will have you killed.”

My heartrate picked up another notch and my stomach turned uncomfortably but I would be damned if I showed her how much her words affected me. Even her lisp didn’t take from the threat her whole persona spat out at me.

“Hmm,” I pretended to think, tapping my nail against my teeth, regarding her as if deep in thought and unaffected by her terrifying presence. “I wonder if threatening a vissy is treason on Leandar?”

She shrank back, her eyes with pupils like a snake’s narrowed. “A what?”

I forced myself to smile to drive my triumph home, “A vissy. Myles will make it official tonight.”

The tip of her tail swished back and forward so fast, I swear I heard a rattling sound coming from it, but I was sure it was only my imagination .

“You’re lying,” she said, trying to convince herself.

“Come to the feast tonight and find out, Sssarissssa,” I exaggerated the esses in her name for good measure, getting a sick satisfaction from her shock and anger. “Myles and I will be happy to have the queen of the sirens bear witness.”

“You’re oversstepping yoursself, human,” she warned. “Drowning accidentss unfortunately do happen, quite frequently ass a matter of fact,” she had regained her composure faster than I had anticipated. “Sso, take care, little human. And congratulationss for ass long ass your marriage may lasst.”

With a laugh she slithered off, leaving me standing there, nerve ends exposed, while seething with anger. I wasn’t a fool, I would take her warning seriously. But, she had also aroused my curiosity.

Was this what she and her kind did to any females coming to Oceanus to keep them away?

“Are you alright, Lady Niara?” One of the guards asked. I doubted they had fully understood Sarissa and my interaction, for them sirens were alluring creatures. At the most our little spat must have looked… off, enough for him to ask me.

“I’m alright, thank you. Sirens and humans don’t cohabitate well,” I assured him, downplaying the meeting. I didn’t want Myles to be informed, he had much more pressing matters to worry about right now than his ally Sarissa threatening me.

The dragoons took me to the pier, where I found I wasn’t needed at all. The Leandars I had been training were doing a good job and had even found ways to improve the original design, something I had shied away from. It worked though. At least on the pier, underwater we would have to test it.

They had also exchanged the plastic oxygen hoses with metal tubes that wouldn’t be easily severed by a blade or ripped by a siren’s claws.

After my encounter with Sarissa earlier, I began to wonder what Myles already suspected, I doubted him readying himself for a war with the sirens was only to renegotiate trading terms .

Which reminded me again how little I knew of the man I was about to physically bind myself to, after I had already submitted myself to him. Just thinking of him made me all warm and tingly though, brought color to my face and heat down in between my legs.

It was astonishing how quickly I had accepted this whole idea of reincarnation and soul mates. But if there was one thing I was one hundred percent sure of, it was that Myles and my destinies were irrevocably linked.

Just as I had always taken on the responsibility for Horn, the first seeds of caring for Aecor and Oceanus were beginning to germinate in me. I had liked Myles’s city from the moment I had stepped foot on it, but now it was becoming to mean more to me: A new home.

I had been a baron’s daughter and sister all my life and now I would be a vissy. I felt ready to take on this new responsibility, my purpose was to be with Myles and together our purpose was, in this life, to protect Oceanus and I was ready for it. If it meant fighting Chrymphten, Sirens and a volcano, even all at once, we would meet this challenge head on.