by Jessa Lucas
“She’s lying. I think she remembers exactly what happened before the dream.”
“Why would she pretend otherwise?” I heard Dash ask.
I hung back in the significant silence, waiting for Gilles’ predictable sigh of exasperation. It came. “I don’t trust her.”
I crept forward, peering out onto the covered balcony where the two of them stood, watching the rain. I weaved my fingers through my wet hair nervously, holding my breath for the revelation I felt coming.
“Gilles, what does she gain from such a lie?”
“Only a few days ago you weren’t so keen on her either, Dash. The way Jude told it, you were halfway to notifying the Crown.”
“Important to note that I did not, however.”
Gilles began to pace, his footsteps heavier than normal as the streaks of rain whipped behind him violently, as though both he and the night shared in some secret wrath.
“I believe her, Gilles.”
“Surprising, Dash, that she walks around with her hips swaying for a few days and now you’ve taken to her. Convenient that she wakes snappier than before, ready for you to warm her bed.”
What the hell was this?
I’d just about slipped out from behind my corner for the sole purpose of seeing the look on that bastard’s face when I caught myself. I couldn’t interfere. Not when I needed solid proof of Gilles’ betrayal.
Turning another watchman against me? Sure seemed like something a fucking traitor would do.
“Come on, Gilles,” Dash sounded more irritable than I’d heard in a while, “It’s not about that— it’s— we all had a connection before. You know that. Each one of us. Don’t act as if you are the only one who...” He trailed off. “She’s a siren.”
“Yes. A siren.” There was a strange inflection in the way Gilles repeated it that I couldn’t say I totally loved.
“I told her she must free that part of herself to truly understand it.”
“You what?”
“It’s something you will never truly understand, Gilles. The duality of creatures like us. You must let go of what happened. It was fifty years ago—”
“It’s too coincidental that Saylora would wake having forgotten that night, and what it made her capable of. What I could never forget.”
Dash’s brow quivered, the reverberations of the mysterious memory passing across his face. “It lingers in my mind as well, Gilles. But you must relinquish that moment to the past, for the benefit of all of us.” Gilles opened his mouth, I assumed to argue, but Dash raised a hand. “Enough. I’m going to bed.”
As Dash turned, he caught my eye. I didn’t care enough to hide my presence from him. I knew I looked sad, a frown carved into my face, wet hair sagging onto my drenched dress. Regret crossed Dash’s face as he took me in, and then he inclined his head ever so slightly before turning down the opposite end of the hall and disappearing.
I inched forward, observing Gilles as he rested against the railing on his forearms, welcoming the raindrops into his hair. His shoulder blades rose from the long arc of his back, and he bowed his head to pinch the bridge of his nose as he expelled a long breath. I leaned against the wall and just watched, something in me affected by this great knot of frustration coiled in him.
I wanted to unravel Gilles. I wanted to get to the heart of the secrets which tormented him. But I didn’t want to find that at the bottom of them he was a traitor. I wouldn’t know, though, unless I could find his truth in my dream. Assuming it was there to be found.
Free her, Dash had said. Did he have any idea what he was asking of me?
Gilles turned his head and I slid back into the darkness, hoping he hadn’t caught me watching him. I stood there a moment, nausea rising as I thought about witnessing myself maim Gilles. It didn’t even matter that he might deserve it for being a dick-slash-traitor.
But... maybe there was another way after all.
My palms were sweaty as I stood before the Reflection, thunder cracking and restless birds cawing just beyond the beams of light.
“Aiayla,” I called softly.
“My lady,” she responded, emerging through the dust and reflected light. “Tell me what it is that you desire, no priority have I which is higher.”
“I need to see the traitor. Can you show me, the way you showed me the visions of Valtronya?”
“Alas I cannot, for hidden was his face and perhaps disguised his voice—”
“But you can see through enchantment, can’t you?”
“Ai, but not this one, lady... foiled me he did with his method of choice.”
I released an exhale of frustration. What kind of magic could stump an oracle?
“Plan B then. If I put my finger in that fountain again, can you show me other iterations of my dream, like you did with Jude?”
She smiled feebly as she gazed on at me. “Only can I reveal the conscious memories you hold in your mind, no buried or concealed recollections can my magic find.”
“Nice. Excellent trick.” Well, this was a total bust. I shook my head, and the Reflection lowered her gaze in apology.
Then it came to me suddenly, what Gilles had said.
“I value our Q&As very much, Aiayla. You’ve been such an enormous help.” She eyed me suspiciously as I folded my arms. “So I’m sure you can understand why I’m hoping for at least one piece of insight before I walk out of here. Let me listen to what you heard on the ship when the curse was triggered.”
She stared at me, icy blue eyes intent as they locked with mine in challenge. “I told you Princess, that futile this may be; I do not wish to misguide you, so ask this of me carefully.”
“I’m as careful as they come. Show me, Aiayla,” I said, the command rising in my voice.
The Reflection bowed her head in submission, and a haunting, faraway melody diffused into the stirring of birds and rattling leaves. I twisted around, peering into the dark abyss of the fountain, but all that stared back up was a varying darkness. Wherever she’d hung in the ship, the Reflection must’ve been covered.
The ethereal plucks of a harp’s strings fluttered along with a voice. My voice. I didn’t have to hear clearly to know which song it was. This time there was a longing locked inside of it, some sorrow taking the place of the threat I’d come to associate with the melody. As I listened to its faint call, my heart seemed to expand and I was grateful to be spared from such agonizing beauty by the distance that muted its sound. It struck me then, freed from the stain of my nightmare, that it was the purest thing I’d ever heard.
There was a shout, and the sound of bodies scuffling against hollow wood broke out. The song came to an abrupt halt, cut off mid-note by a girl’s panicked screams. The skirmish had escalated; voices rose, the clash of blades grating against the stark silence following the song. The cloth obscuring the Reflection’s view billowed, and I sensed that the ship was rocking against growing waves. A light flashed against the threads, and a few seconds later, thunder crashed somewhere out in the lonely sea.
Then came the shriek. The most disturbing, piercing sound of pain that I’d ever heard.
A man cried out. Footsteps pounded along the deck to cries of dissent. Chills rose along my spine as I heard a large weight plunge into the water.
Someone— maybe Sy— bellowed loudly, but his words were too muffled to distinguish. There were more sounds of things smashing into the surface of the sea.
And then there was a silence. I could feel it crawling over me, too quiet to be good after everything before it. Something strange and terrible had happened just beyond the folds of the Reflection’s covering— something I wasn’t so sure I wanted to remember after all.
“Is that it?” I turned to Aiayla, and she thrust her chin back to the fountain.
I spun back to the pool just as the darkness whipped away. I found myself staring directly at Sy.
His labored breath clung heavily to each word. “Aiayla, you must help us.”
Arriving on the thres
hold, silhouetted by the blue of dusk beyond the open door, was a hulking form I immediately knew was Dash. He moved closer, water dripping from his hair and catching in the swaying dim light of the cabin. First I noticed the blood— he was painted with it, running down his face, biceps— and then I noticed the body he carried.
I looked like a corpse. My arms hung at my sides, figure limp in Dash’s tight hold. My skin was pale and slick with ocean water, a sickly silver sheen emanating from me. Just before the pool went dark, I swore I saw iridescent scales melting away from my arms.
I found myself shaking my head at the gurgling waters of the fountain. “I don’t remember any of that,” I said quietly, turning back to Aiayla. “Any of it.”
And it made me afraid.
"Plan C is not an option," I said, tapping my foot anxiously, trying to act as though seeing myself in such a foreign, horrific light hadn’t shaken me. "I need a new strategy. One that doesn't end up with all of us dead, or me killing them off one by one."
Light from the hallway spilled onto my feet and I hastily added “accidentally” as I turned to see Gilles in the doorway. I swallowed, hoping he hadn’t heard too much. Talking about killing my watchmen? Not going to do me many favors with the guy.
"What do you want, Gilles?”
"That's a big question, Princess. I want many things."
I sighed dramatically. "Haven't you ever heard of a ladies night? Get out."
Instead, he came in and shut the door behind him, resting a hand on the hilt of the knife that was hanging at his waist. I eyed the gesture for a moment and then looked back up at him. "I thought knives were Jude's weapon of choice."
"Doesn't mean Jude is the only one who knows how to use them."
I raised my eyebrows and considered him. “So I guess there are two possibilities for why you seem to be following me. You either plan to use that thing,” I nodded at the knife, “or you wanted to take me into your arms, carry me to bed again, et cetera, et cetera.” I could see the agitation in his eyes. I was hooked. "That's what you did last time, right?” I smiled. “You cradled me against your chest and tucked me safely into bed? Did you whisper a bedtime story in my ear, too?”
"You were sleeping on stones," he said uncomfortably, like even admitting a fact like this was too much for him.
"Why are you here.” It was a demand, and there was no slack left in it.
Gilles took a deep breath, like he needed to rally all his pent up anger before answering. “You’re doing something to me, and I want to know what."
"Doing something to you?" I cocked my head at him, an involuntary frown flickering across my face.
"When we touch, something happens... something strange. I see it in what it does to you. I feel it rattling in my bones. Sirens consulting with sirens,” he gestured up at the Reflection, “only furthers my suspicion.”
"See, this is funny to me," I said, gesturing like I was postulating, "because you've reminded me about a thousand and one times that I can't do anything to you."
"I never said you couldn’t do anything."
Gilles took a step towards me. Oh, so that's what this was gunna be about.
“You have secrets,” he said quietly, our breaths merging in the tense air between us.
This was my chance. It was the perfect moment to make my move, to slam my body up against Gilles, tangle my fingers into that hair and welcome those damned memories of Earth. But I couldn't make my feet move, mind on overload as I tried to discern my next maneuver—
Gilles shrugged, looking away, and I felt my opportunity slip right past me. "I get the feeling that whatever happened between you and Jude is about to happen with me, and I’m not keen on the idea. I don't know who woke in that coffin, Princess, and I'm not entirely sure I trust her."
"Maybe you shouldn't," I said seriously, as the desire to seduce him curled into me, wrapping a giant fist around my gut. The siren liked bickering with Gilles. She fed off of it.
Gilles blinked, realizing the shift in my tone but not looking nearly as afraid as he should have.
“Now, you tell me, which is the harder thing for you to admit: that you actually care for me in your vague and detached way, or that you’re the traitor? Because one of those things is true, Gilles.”
He frowned, eyes briefly widening. “Traitor? You really have such a low opinion of me?”
“Don’t act so offended. You obviously have a low opinion of me.”
He shook his head. “You couldn’t be more wrong, Saylora.”
“Oh yeah? How many people does it take for you to tell in this goddamn tower, ‘I don’t trust her!’ before you think I start getting the wrong impression?”
“I—” Gilles swallowed. “I don’t trust what happened to you. What you might have become. I don’t trust what’s inside of you, Saylora.”
The siren.
It was a strange devastation, to hear these fears about myself spoken aloud by another. The words didn’t even come from him in a moment of bitterness, but in one of confession. And that was a million times more crushing.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Message received.”
Gilles sighed— not with the usual ire, but as though he were giving up. “We’re the same, you and I. Too much so.”
“You and me? The same?” I barely held in the derisive laugh.
“We literally repeat the same things back to one another.”
“An astute realization, Gilles.”
“Astute?”
“Yeah, it means—”
“I know what it means, I’m just saying—” his voice cracked. “We’re just proving my point.”
“I am nothing like you,” I spat. “I’m a lot of things. But I’m not—”
“I’m not the one you’re looking for, Princess.”
My nostrils flared as I glared at him. My mind had it figured out, had made sense of my theory. But my heart, despite everything about this man standing in front of me, still kind of hoped I was wrong.
“What does Sera mean?” I asked.
It was a fat chance, that this name was more than a figment of my dream and actually held significant meaning for him. But there was a brief flicker across his face. Just enough for me to see that he knew what I was asking. His lips tightened into a flat line.
I smiled. “See, you know things you’re not willing to tell me, too. Like where your allegiance truly lies.”
Hungry, hungry. The siren was smiling. It was her arm that quivered at my side as I restrained it from reaching up to pin him against the wall.
“Tell me something, Gilles. What am I going to find at the bottom of those stairs, huh?”
“Saylora, that’s not—”
“A secret shrine to your queen? Hmm?”
“What?”
The siren had put up with being touched by him all day during training, being suppressed under the weight of my will, having her time squandered for the plainer tasks of fighting. I'd never known it was possible to bury her if I wanted, but because I’d never really tried I also didn't know she would be such a bitch to fight.
I took an impassioned step towards him. Every second that we stood alone in this room together, bickering, inches away from contact, was a terrible risk. I wasn’t ready for Plan C. "You need to leave, Gilles," I said through gritted teeth.
"I'm not going anywhere," Gilles said quietly. Dangerously.
I stared him down, trying to level the aggression that I sensed in myself. There was nothing in the world I wanted more than to do something that would piss him off, and anything was better than being here in this room with him, instincts verging on killer.
“Fine, I’ll do the honors,” I spat, tossing one last glance towards the Reflection drifting dreamlike in her beautiful cage. I shouldered past Gilles with just enough contact to keep the siren happy, and just enough angst to feel like it wasn’t calculated.
I just needed my proof, and I knew exactly where to find it.
Chapter 18
&nbs
p; The Siren and the Snake
It was a hall of mirrors.
Long and narrow, the chamber felt endless as it replicated infinitely in the full length reflections spread across every wall. That strange blue light fell from chandeliers above, great bouquets of dark glass flowers bleeding sapphire light from the heart of each bloom. At the far end of the hall, a pyramid of glittering items towered high.
I approached, only the echo of my footsteps and the faint lashing of rain outside to keep me company. My eyes scanned across the various items for some sort of clue, interest piqued. Everything was coated with decades’ worth of dust. What would be down here that Gilles wouldn’t want me to find?
As my hand ran across a heap of dresses, their colors paled by time, my eye caught the sparkling edge of something peaking like a summit from mountain of relics.
A harp.
My breath caught. I looked on at it, head falling to the side as I realized what these things must be. I wound myself apprehensively through the maze of wall hangings and linens, coming to a standstill before the instrument.
The harp had to be as tall as I was— taller, maybe— with graceful slopes as alluring as the curves of the mermaid sculpted into its body. My eyes followed the line of her profile as I marveled at her exquisite form where the slant of her breasts fell away to the carved bend of her gilled ribs. There, at the harp’s side, was an engraved wooden stool.
Thunder tumbled outside as the harp gleamed at me in the azure light like an old friend, its silent seduction not foiled by my inability to remember it. I seated myself on the stool.
I knew, deep in my bones, that I shouldn’t touch it. But even as the warning clanged through the chambers of my mind, my hand lifted quite apart from my will.
Don’t be an idiot, Saylor.
I tore it away half a second before my fingers grazed the strings. The damn thing was enchanted, for crying out loud! It was the spinning wheel to my Sleeping Beauty, and I had just been about to fall for it. Again.
I scowled at the harp, fingers yearning to caper across its strings. A wild instinct in me needed to know if my tendons held any measure of muscle memory, if— like the bow, like the murmur of magic, like these watchmen of mine— something as simple as touch might coax out some long-forgotten remembrance of self.
