Chapter 35

How beautiful,the sirens. All ten of them, sisters born out of Ennaris, tied to both land and sea—but they’d always preferred the ocean. They’d always preferred the vast space underneath they could so easily control. They’d always preferred the dark over the light, and the cold over the warm, and the heart over any other part of a man’s body to feast on.

After all, it was the heart that gave them the most power to give back to Ennaris. It was the heart that tasted better than all.

They lived on shores all around the Kingdom, the continent so large I saw a glimpse of it as if from outer space just to get the feel of it. If I had to guess, I’d say it was almost the size of Australia. Some shores were made of white sand, soft and sparkling under sunlight, but the sirens preferred the rocks, ones with sharp edges, for their feet itched when they traded their fins, when they traded water for land, when they sometimes got tired and needed rest—or when they were feasting after their latest hunt.

I saw them, saw all ten sisters in the ocean one twilight, and it wasn’t like watching a movie, no. It was like I was there, in the air somewhere, floating, no body and no voice, but I had eyes to see with, and I saw it all playing in fast forward mode. Words that explained exactly what was happening popped into my mind without me having to even think about it.

A black ship with a black flag atop the sails, a white skull sewn on it, had anchored in the middle of the ocean. Every member of the crew, including the handsome captain with the leather vest and a red handkerchief in the chest pocket, was at the back, leaning against the railing, looking at the sirens playing for them in the water.

My God, they were mesmerizing. The world had never seen anything more beautiful than the sisters, and certainly not these men. They’d heard horror stories before, of sirens who wrecked ships and ate the flesh off men’s bones, but those were just stories because look at them. So beautiful. So happy. So positive. They smiled at the men, jumping in and out of water, showing them their fins, giggling at the whistles and the compliments of the pirates, catching the coins and the jewelry they threw at them.

They looked like they were in love—both the pirates and the sirens swimming around the ship, hypnotizing everyone watching—including me from wherever I was. Each time they jumped out of the water, the scales on their fishtails seemed to reflect the sunlight and charge the air with magic, and the pirates would cheer louder.

A dream, that’s what it looked like. The perfect dream for both these men on the ship and the sirens swimming for them.

Then the captain pulled out his red handkerchief from the pocket of his vest, and he threw it at the sirens—at one in particular.

She was possibly the most beautiful siren of all the sisters, with long hair as golden as the sun and wide eyes as blue as the ocean, and those red lips that were forever stretched into a smile as she reached out both hands to catch the floating handkerchief.

Syra. She was Syra, the second eldest siren sister, as powerful as any of them—and completely enchanted by the beauty of the pirate captain.

Such a handsome man was he, with thick dark hair touching his shoulders, dark beard covering half his face, eyes the most striking grey, dark brows on his wide forehead, wide shoulders and big, strong hands.

My God, he looked so much like Grey Evernight that, for a moment, I imagined it was him for real, that if he shaved all that beard off and cut his hair, he would reveal himself to me completely.

Except this wasn’t Grey.

This was Hansil Knight, a pirate so feared that entire ship crews surrendered willingly and gave up their riches at the very sight of his black flag approaching. So smart and wise was he that he’d found treasures buried in caves and islands that no other man had ever been able to find for centuries.

His body had belonged to many women, but his heart was still pure. Still inexperienced in love—until now.

Young Hansil was falling for Syra just like his handkerchief was doing. It was the first time in his life that he’d willingly given a personal item to a woman or a man. It was the first time in his life that he wanted to get off the ship that was his home and stand still for longer than a day on dry land. With her, the beautiful siren who was so in awe of him she hardly heard her sisters calling to the pirates to jump, to join them in the water.

Sirens don’t fall in love. That is their nature. To Ennaris, they are providers of the biggest magical source, one they harvested off human bodies. It was their job as it had been since the beginning of time to lure men into their waters and eat them. They did not fall in love, even though legend said that nothing in the world would give more power to a siren than to eat the heart of the man she loves.

But who could do such a terrible, evil thing?

Nobody, not even a siren. That is why they’d vowed to never fall.

Until Hansil Knight threw that handkerchief from his ship, and Syra caught it in her hands.

The pirates began to jump in the water soon to get closer to the sirens who called for them in their beautiful, mesmerizing voice. Hansil didn’t hear them, though, as he only had eyes for Syra, and Syra did not need to call for him to join her in the ocean. He jumped in himself.

The stars aligned when his hands touched her face, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, and her fishtail around his legs. They fell together as they held each other’s eyes, so powerful the feeling that it cocooned them into a bubble nothing in the world could burst.

He’d go to the ends of the Earth for her. He’d kill armies and conquer nations for her.

And she’d be with him every step of the way.

When he kissed Syra, the whole world sang for their ears, and the song was so loud and so beautiful that they didn’t hear the other sirens drowning the rest of the crew the way they always did. They didn’t hear the screams and the cries for help, nor did they hear the laughter of the sirens as they swam away with their food to the nearest shore.

Hansil and Syra stayed in the ocean, kissing and talking and falling in love until the sun set and rose up in the sky again. Until Hansil was so tired he could not keep his eyes open anymore, even though he detested sleep with his whole being now because he wanted to spend every second of his life awake with his beautiful siren.

But Syra promised him that she would never leave his side for as long as she lived. She promised to keep him safe, to protect him from any harm that may come his way.

And he promised to love her more than the sea until his dying breath.

Syra took him ashore to Ennaris, where her sisters had already feasted on the bodies of the pirate crew right there in the open, as was natural, and had fallen asleep with the sunlight.

Hansil saw.

When the half-eaten bodies of his friends, his trusted crewmembers came into view, the spell cast upon him by love was broken. He nearly lost his mind at the sight, so brutal to him, so vile what to the sirens was a way of life. Syra’s way of life.

She’d been doing this for centuries and would continue to do it for many more to come—but to see the disgust in Hansil’s eyes, to see the way he screamed and mourned his friends’ death, did something to her. It made her wonder if maybe what she and her sisters did was wrong. It made her wonder if maybe there was another way to fuel the magic of Ennaris because the man she loved could never, she realized, understand this. He could never live with this, not even with her.

But her love for him was vast and so powerful. It had taken root deep in her bones, and so she vowed to find a way. She vowed to search for a better route, to make her own destiny, one in which she no longer spent her time luring sailors into the sea to eat them. One in which she spent her life in the water under the open sky, kissing Hansil Knight.

Using her compulsion magic, she stopped Hansil from screaming, from calling her and her sisters murderers, monsters, bloodthirsty beasts—all words that greatly wounded her heart. Syra put Hansil to sleep, and when her sisters approached her, now walking on legs, she told them that he was hers. He was not to be eaten or even touched. He was the love of her life, and she’d vowed to protect him against any and all—even her own sisters if they forced her.

The sirens were outraged. Never before in the history of Ennaris had such a thing happened. A siren in love with a human man?

We do not play with our food, one of the sisters told her right there on the shore, as they stood naked on the rock-covered beach, Hansil Knight asleep behind Syra, and all his crewmembers half-eaten behind her sisters.

We do not fall in love, said another.

We are sirens—we eat the flesh of men.

We are sirens—it is our duty to bring power to the waters of Ennaris so that the Kingdom may flourish.

We are sirens—we do not fall in love!

But even so, Syra didn’t care. She loved Hansil, and none of her sisters were to come even close to him. He was hersand hers only.

The sisters laughed. Wait until he awakens, they said.

He’ll hate you forever.

Did you not hear his screams?

He thinks you’re a monster.

He despises you, sister.

He will never love you…

Even so, Syra believed.

She truly believed that once Hansil woke up and she explained everything to him, he would understand. He already loved her—she’d felt it, had seen it in his eyes. He would know that she was not a monster—he knew her heart. He knew.

The sisters retreated into the sea when they ate the last of the crew’s flesh and only their bones remained behind. Syra stayed ashore, terrified to wake Hansil up still, and I watched her from wherever I was, walking that beach naked for hours on end, talking to herself, trying to convince herself of Hansil’s love.

I had never before seen anyone more torn, more uncomfortable in their skin than her.

Her sisters watched her from afar and they looked at one another, judged her, despised her for going against them like that, but they were also sure that it was going to pass. That in a matter of hours, maybe days, she’d come out of it, would eat Hansil, and come back to the sea so they could swim its depths all around Ennaris in peace like they were always meant to do.

Eventually, Syra awakened Hansil to offer him food—fish and fruit, drinkable water she’d found in a witch town near the shore.

But when Hansil saw the bones of his dead crew, he raged again.

He shouted and screamed at her—You’re a monster! A filthy, flesh-eating monster!

Syra broke in a million pieces right in front of him, falling to her knees, crying. She tried to tell him about Ennaris, about the magic, about what she was, but Hansil wouldn’t hear it. He wanted to be away from her. He wanted her to either let him go or kill him the same way her sisters had killed his crew.

So, Syra had no choice but to put him to sleep again because she was not going to give up. He was her one true love, and she would fight for him with everything she had. She would not give up no matter how long it took. She would fight forever.

The days passed by in a blur in front of my eyes, in fast-forward, and it was mesmerizing to watch the sun rising and falling at such speed. Heartbreaking to see Syra, restless, walking the beach, and building a small cabin out of wood right there on the rocks for Hansil all by herself. She was preparing for yet another day of waking him up, feeding him, trying to convince him of her love—all while the other siren sisters watched from the water.

Some days, Hansil screamed harder, and some days he was quiet. Syra told him the story of Ennaris, of everything that lived in it, so many times, yet every time she tried to touch him, he would move away, disgusted.

Months must have passed, and Syra only barely went into the water of the ocean anymore. Her sisters begged her to join them every day, telling her how much weaker they were apart, trying to convince her to give up on Hansil. He was not her true love. He thought she was a monster.

But Syra refused.

Until one day, Hansil said, “Never again. If you swear to me that you and your sisters will never again harm a soul or eat flesh off a man’s bones, I will love you. I will spend the rest of my life with you. I will make you my wife.”

That night, when Syra put him to sleep, she vowed to find another way for the sirens to live—herself as well as her sisters, one that did not involve luring sailors into the water and eating them raw. She vowed to search the whole of Ennaris during the day until she had her answer, and return at night to be with Hansil while he slept.

So, the next morning, she set out to go find the witches, for their territory was closest to the shore she’d made a home on. She hoped to find a witch who knew enough magic, who knew enough history to tell her how a siren could live differently. How a siren could provide magic to Ennaris without having to eat human flesh.

She had hopes, big hopes, but when she met the witches, none of them knew what to tell her. They had no idea how the sirens could live differently—they’d never had to even wonder about such a silly thing, and they found Syra’s questions absurd.

Why change something that isn’t broken? they asked, but that was the thing—it was. Syra was finally seeing clearly through the eyes of Hansil. She was seeing herself and her sisters for what they truly were, and she knew their way of life was broken. Wrong.

There had to be another way. She was sure of it.

So she didn’t lose hope even though the witches couldn’t tell her what she needed to know. On the contrary—she returned to her love more motivated than ever. There had to be one person in Ennaris who knew the answers she sought, and she’d find them. However long it took, she’d find them, and she would make the world right for Hansil.

Except when she returned to the beach, she saw horror.

Her sisters, wearing legs, naked, gathered around a body. A dead body, already half-eaten.

The dead body of Hansil Knight, her one true love.

No other part of the story was as clear to me as this: the way Syra fell to her knees. The way her lips opened wide into a silent scream. The way her eyes, blue and unblinking, took in the blood, the torn flesh, the bones of the man she was going to change the world for.

They’d eaten him.

Her own sisters had betrayed her, and they’d eaten him while she was gone.

There, they told her. Now you come back home.

No more nonsense. No more of your delusions.

Now, you come home where you belong.

Together, they all went back to sea, changed their legs into fishtails, and they swam away, leaving Hansil half-eaten on the rocks in front of the cabin Syra had built for them.

Even though I had no body, I felt like I was shaking with the sobs that broke out of me. I felt her pain, so raw and angry, deep inside my heart as if it were mine. I felt it so clearly while Syra remained on her knees, motionless, looking at the body of Hansil for what could have been hours.

My God, that pain. So much of it, so intense, contained inside her small frame, powerful enough to ruin the entire world.

Eventually, she dragged herself on all fours closer to him, her breasts covered by her long hair, a piece of fabric around her hips that she’d put on to go see the witches. She touched half the face of Hansil, all that remained of him, only one eye, and only the corner of his lips that her sisters had torn off him. Those lips that she’d yearned for, that had given her so much more than any kind of magic or flesh ever could. That body, those arms that they’d ripped off his shoulders, the same arms that had held her so tightly, that had made her feel everything even the sea never did.

They’d taken him from her—her own sisters. They’d taken the love of her life and had eaten him, had torn him wide open.

She screamed.

Every creature in Ennaris heard her. The whole world heard her, understood her desperation.

And Syra screamed for a long, long time, hoping to lessen her pain. Hoping somehow Hansil would awaken from the dead, whole again. Hoping somehow the world would end so she didn’t have to feel anymore.

But none of it happened. Hansil didn’t wake up. The world didn’t burn into ashes. She could still see the blood and flesh and rib cage of the man she breathed for—and little of his heart remained inside of it.

So little—her sisters had eaten all of it. Had eaten his lungs and his kidneys, his arms and most of his legs.

A little of his heart remained.

I felt the switch in Syra’s mind from wherever I was as she stared at the piece of heart in that bloody rib cage. I felt how everything shifted for her—her feelings, her thoughts, her pureness. It was gone. She’d just found it, had just found a reason to change the way she lived, to make the world a better place—and now it was gone again, just like that.

Because of her sisters, who couldn’t mind their own business, but had to ruin everything she loved.

Because of her sisters who thought they’d won. They’d showed her. They’d forced her to go back to the shell she once used to be.

Syra reached out for that rib cage, for that little piece of heart. Her hand shook so badly, but she reached for it, and she took it in her fingers, and she felt his blood on her skin. Her pain screamed inside of her, shattering every thought, every other feeling. Shattering her completely into a million pieces, leaving nothing behind except anger. Rage.

Raw, unforgiving rage.

She brought the last of Hansil Knight’s heart to her lips and ate it, swallowed it whole.

The power that followed was immediate.

I felt it, too, as if it was mine, crawling under my skin. Syra screamed again, this time a short scream, a second long—and it was done.

It was done.

She was never going to be the same Syra again.

When she rose to her feet and turned to the ocean, she was smiling, lips smeared with the blood of the man she loved. She was smiling because they’d been right all along when they said nothing gave a siren more power than the heart of the man she loved.

Now, she had all of it right there at her fingertips. She had all the power anyone could ever need. She could rule the universe with it—and after all, if she couldn’t be with Hansil Knight, what did it matter how big of a monster she became?

She wanted to. She wanted to be a beast.

And her sisters were going to pay the price for betraying her first.

Slamming her fist in the rocks right there on the shore, Syra let out all the magic that had accumulated within her in the minutes after she’d swallowed Hansil’s heart. So much of it flowed from her hand and slipped into the ground at the same time, its only aim to destroy. Destroy everything in its path, land and magic and people, just like she had been destroyed from the inside out.

“Ennaris will fall,” she said to the ground, ordered it.

And indeed, Ennaris fell that very day before the sun set completely behind the horizon.

“So,you see, Doll, love makes us better than anything else in the world, and it also turns us into the most vile versions of ourselves with the same intensity.”

Emerald’s voice suddenly popped into my mind as I watched the view in front of me moving so much faster by the second. As I watched how the entire land of Ennaris, all of that vast continent, shook and groaned and burned and broke under the power coming at it from the inside, straight from Syra’s body.

“The siren sisters didn’t see it coming. They never thought Syra would react this way to their betrayal—they were merely doing her a favor, in their minds. They were saving her from herself, and now, she was going to ruin Ennaris forever,” Emerald continued as I watched the broken pieces of land move farther and farther away, most on fire, and I could have sworn I heard screams in the distance.

So many screams…

“But the sisters still fought, even though they knew they couldn’t kill Syra. They still fought her with all they had, and in the following weeks they managed to spell her into a state of sleep using a powerful incantation made by the witches with the remains of Hansil Knight’s body. They trapped her as well as they could, but they knew that if she ever awakens again, she would kill them all. She would destroy what was left of Ennaris, and everything in it. She would destroy the whole world out of rage and spite,” said Emerald.

“And that was why they, together with the witches, created a series of spells that would ensure her mind would never awaken again. It only worked because the magic was enhanced by the blood and bones of Syra’s true love, the same blood in that tiny piece of heart she’d eaten that had given her such power. And as long as his bloodline remains in Ennaris, the spell that keeps her under will not be undone.”

Everything came to a halt.

The fires that had been burning in the pieces of land torn apart from one another faded, leaving behind tendrils of smoke that rose into a sky that was welcoming dawn.

For a second, it was all suspended in time.

Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. Nothing made a single sound.

Then something pulled me back with so much strength that I fell.

A scream left me when my ass hit the floor and I actually had hands to touch with and a mouth to scream with and a body to move with.

“Oh, God…oh, my God,” I kept whispering, crawling backward as fast as I could as I blinked and blinked and more of Emerald’s underground library revealed itself to my eyes. I’d come out of the glass ball and I’d fallen to the floor. I was moving backward still, and Emerald was walking down those stairs calmly with a huge smile on her face.

Then she showed me the book in her hand.

“And that’s the end of book one.”