Kingdom of Salt and Sirens

by J. A. Armitage

  Or Mother would when she found out.

  The prince took my arms. I shook and shook in his grasp. “Settle down,” the prince said. “I think you’re in shock. Just try to breathe with me.”

  I fought harder.

  “Do you not speak Solian? I’m afraid I don’t speak much of the older languages. ‘Hello, my name is Erymanthus,’” he tried in the tongue native to Cypari and some of the smaller providences. Then he shook his head, switching back to Solian. “That’s all I know. Wait. This is in Solian.” He let me go and pulled the vellum codex out from under the weeds.

  My book!

  I leapt from the dirt and snatched it away. “Don’t touch that! You shouldn’t even be here.”

  He smiled. “So you do speak Solian. That’s a relief. But it seems to me that neither of us should be here. Wherever here is.” He stepped out to scan the coast, shading his eyes. Water struck the shore in its familiar pattern, stretching out for several leagues. “Do you know which direction we drifted? It’s a bit of a blur for me.”

  It was for me too. My heart beat too fast for me to take a proper breath. What was I thinking? Had some spirit possessed me? I didn’t want him here! Whether he lived or died, he did not belong on my island. No man did.

  My book fell from my loose fingers, and I sank to my knees again.

  “Ari! Are you here?” Catra’s voice echoed through the rocks.

  The prince spun around. “Get behind me.” He picked up a piece of driftwood like a club.

  What in Valadern’s name was he doing?

  The makeshift club would never defeat a siren. It wouldn’t defeat me either.

  I snatched the board from his limp fingers as easily as my secret book. “My sisters call for me. Stay here, and I can make them leave.” They couldn’t discover what happened until I found a better way to explain it.

  Was there a better way to explain it?

  His forehead wrinkled, and he winced when the movement disturbed the red gash. “Make them leave? If your sisters are friendly, perhaps they can help us.”

  “They are friendly to me, not to you. Now stay.”

  I had no way to make him do anything, but I dropped the board and ran to the shore, hoping to head them off for at least a few moments longer.

  When my feet touched the sand, my sisters’ raised voices greeted me. They had started another argument. Neither Catra nor Corva wanted to walk ashore to find me. They slipped deeper into the surf, throwing water at each other until I appeared.

  “Ari,” Catra said. “Are you hurt? The storm clouds rolled in fiercer than we thought.” She smiled, though. Still proud of their skill even if it could have killed me.

  I shook my head, panting from my jog. “I’m fine. I couldn’t get to the prince though. He made it to the shore.” I pointed over rocks, past the whirlpools, and across the channel to the peninsula. It was part of Solis, technically, but too rough for any human to settle there.

  Even climbing around would be a challenge.

  Catra struck at the water. “You mean we have to walk all over that place looking for him? I hate walking!”

  I hung my head, the shame real if nothing else. “Sorry. Perhaps I’m not cut out for taking someone like the Sun Prince.” Just give me another man. Any other man.

  “Don’t worry,” Corva said. “We’ll tell the others. One of us will find him.” My sisters dove into the water. They bobbed as they swam up and down like dolphins toward the peninsula.

  I watched them go. How could they believe me? How could it be so easy to lie to my sisters, all to help a man? More importantly, what was I going to do now?

  The prince sat in my garden with both feet now bare, eating my chickpeas and leafing through my secret book. It showed the picture of a proper prince—one with broad shoulders and the head of a serpent in his bare hands. But rather than seeming inspired or shamed, the boy just licked his fingers as he turned page after page. The paper crinkled together. What if he ripped one?

  Rage boiled over as I stomped closer, but he smiled. Small traces of dried blood smeared his face. “So, your name is Ari?”

  I thumped my foot on a rock. “I told you not to touch that.” I was wrong; he behaved much worse than the grounded gull. I should let Titera eat him.

  He closed the book and set it down. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to figure a few things out.” He offered me some of my own chickpeas. “Did you want some of these? They’re better raw than I thought they would be.”

  I grew them. I knew what they tasted like. I took them anyway. If I wasn’t going to kill the prince in a proper ceremony, there was no point in starving myself any longer.

  The prince nodded and smiled like he had conned a ground shrew or gull to eat from his hands. “See? It’s not so bad. Did you live here before we found you?”

  I gave no answer.

  The prince tried again. “Ari?”

  “Arianna, daughter of Miranda and Princess of the Deep.” I let the pea shells fall from my fingers and straightened my back. It was time he stopped acting like we were friends.

  He squinted at my worn tunic and bare feet. Another smile touched his lips. “All right then. I suppose if you’re the only one here, you can have any title you want. It’s an honor to meet you, princess.” He hit his chest and bowed his head, just as Naman had for my mother.

  My mouth dropped. “You’re the Sun Prince. You haven’t heard of my mother at all?”

  “Should I have? You can call me Erymanthus though—Erys. I think the last one to call me the ‘Sun Prince’ was the priest on my name day.”

  This was ridiculous. “You need to go.” If I couldn’t kill him, he had to escape just like I told my sisters he had. He wouldn’t be dead, but on the run, unable to be traced back to me. Naman’s plans would still be foiled, and I could wash my hands of them both.

  Naman would have died with the rest of the sailors anyway.

  The prince climbed to his feet. “Great idea. Where should we go?” He looked past the shrubs of my sisters’ overgrown gardens and the dark caverns of my mother’s shrine as if I had proposed some sort of game.

  Open water surrounded us. If he were to go anywhere without my sisters or Mother finding him, he would need a boat. Fast. Before my family stopped searching the peninsula and returned to the sea. In the water, they would be able to sense anything caught in its depths.

  I dragged a piece of driftwood closer, a line appearing in the dirt behind it. There would be more lumber near the rocks. “We’ll have to tie the boards together.”

  “Like a raft? Perfect.” He dashed away to add another board to my pile. It didn’t seem fair that his skinny arms could haul more than me. Close up, his small frame seemed nothing but lean muscle. “Was that what you were trying to do when we picked you up on our ship? Raft away from here?”

  “Why would I want to leave?” Everything I knew was here. I untangled a coil of rope caught on some twisted roots and pulled two boards together. I knelt down, trying to keep my eyes on the prince at the same time, just in case he tried something.

  The prince laughed. “What do you mean, why? So you could live with the rest of us, of course. In a city.” He hunched down next to me.

  “Why would I want to live with a man?” Didn’t he know what men were like? Was he trying to fool me, or was he just too young and stupid to know?

  “Not all girls do. Some live together like the Sisters in Amerstead.” He peered at me. “You’re not a nun, are you? Taken some vow of isolation or silence or starvation or something?”

  I didn’t know what a nun was and I didn’t want to. “The city is dangerous, and I do not want to talk to you. I want you to leave before my sisters return.” I pointed a board at him, encouraging him to keep his distance.

  The prince gaped. “You want me to leave you here? Alone? I can’t do that.”

  He would try to take me with him. Perhaps I would have to kill him, just to prevent my own abduction.

  “Besides, it wou
ld be safer if we were together.” He pushed the board between us away. No respect for boundaries at all. “I don’t believe all the monster stories, but there are beasts and whirlpools and a hundred other things.” He gestured to the waves.

  He was right. He probably would die out there all alone and my previous attempts to save him would have been for nothing. “I will take you to the fishing village, up from the peninsula. It’s part of Solis, and there are humans there.” Then I could be back before my mother or sisters came looking. Hopefully. The spiderweb-thin strains of a plan were the best I could come up with.

  The prince frowned for a long moment, and then he nodded. “That’s a good start, but you know I still will want you to come along once we get there.”

  I touched the hilt of my knife behind my back. If he tried to make me go with him, I would cut him open.

  6

  I set the wooden board on the surf and pushed down on it with my hands. Water spilled over the sides. This would never carry our weight. I dragged the board back toward the prince in my garden, shaking my head.

  If I had fins, this wouldn’t be an issue. If the prince were dead, this wouldn’t be an issue.

  If only . . .

  His eyes bore down on me. “Have you ever built a raft before?”

  My face flushed. Mother said most men thought girls were fools, but it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t like I had ever left the island without my family before. “It’s fine. We just need to layer it more.”

  He crawled over, fingering all the wood. “I don’t think you’ve even seen a raft before. Most of them use logs, not just flat wood.” He looked back into the shrubs behind him. “Do you have any trees here? Older would be better. I don’t think green wood floats.”

  I shoved the boards away and ground my teeth. “Would you like to build it, then?”

  He laughed. “I thought we were building it together. Layering it is a good idea, and I do think we can use that wood. I just think we need some more logs and rope too. What do you think?”

  I didn’t know what to think, but I went to find the logs.

  We built the raft together, but I still started every time the prince moved.

  He chuckled. “You’re not used to having someone else here to talk to, are you? You really were here all alone.” He tied a knot, pulling it tight with his teeth like a beast.

  And he was always talking. That might be why my mother chose to kill men. Even when they weren’t being vile, they just were too irritating to tolerate. “I have my sisters and my mother.” But it had been three years since the twins made the change. Having someone next to me all the time, laughing, talking, breathing all the air, was . . . odd. And a little suffocating.

  “The sisters that wouldn’t like me?” He shook his head, leaning against a stray board that didn’t fit anywhere on our raft. His voice became a whisper. “They still leave you alone here most of the time, don’t they?”

  “It is not their fault. They want me to join them. I just can’t. I . . .” My voice caught.

  A wave of pain poured out, so deeply entrenched I hadn’t known it existed. I couldn’t stand this empty island anymore. I wanted to be with my family again, but I couldn’t be what they wanted me to be. Every action I had taken since meeting Erys was taking me further away from them, and I would be alone forever.

  Tears streaked down my face without any warning.

  The prince waved his arms about in a fluster and dropped the board, still looking like the grounded gull. “Oh no. What did I do? Can I help?” He touched my hand. “You’re helping me get back to Solis. Perhaps I can figure out how to help you join your family.”

  Did he know how ridiculous that was? The best way he could help me was to drop dead right now. I took a step back, fleeing his touch. “You really haven’t heard of my mother at all.”

  “Should I have?”

  I wiped my eyes. If I told him, what would he do? Attack? Run? Whatever it was, it would only make things more complicated. I just had to get him off my island and that meant we didn’t have time for tears, either. I turned and pushed our raft toward the shore.

  His hands joined mine until it skidded into the waves.

  It floated.

  “Let’s go.” I jumped aboard.

  The raft wobbled, but stayed upright. I didn’t even get my feet wet.

  A smile crept over my face as I looked back at the prince. “You kick first and then me, all right?”

  His smile widened again with laughter. “You think you can push me?”

  I rolled my eyes. I had gotten him here, hadn’t I? Sure, I couldn’t swim like my sisters, but I bet he couldn’t either. No human could.

  I jumped into the water, ready to take the first turn. “Get on.”

  He took delicate, doubtful steps onto the raft. The moment both of his feet were on the wood, I plowed into the side, kicking so fast the prince fell into his seat.

  I grinned as his jaw dropped.

  Maybe the water wasn’t so bad after all.

  My sisters could swim to the fishing village and back in a few minutes. I could see the shore from the highest point of my island. I didn’t know if I ever appreciated how much water separated us until I had to kick through it, one stroke at a time. Even trading the work with the prince, my muscles strained, and salt burned my skin.

  The prince didn’t seem to have any such troubles, rambling on whenever he was on the raft. He rambled in the water too, but that was between mouthfuls of saltwater, and I didn’t have to pretend not to understand him. He became persistent, though, jumping up beside me when I turned my head. “The way you swim—it’s like those sailor stories, the sirens.”

  My heart skipped a beat, and he smiled. Now he had my full attention, and he knew it.

  “And you know, I think I have heard of Miranda. She was a princess of Cypari. A hailstorm killed my great uncle, her betrothed, so she ran out into the storm, mad with grief. Is that who you meant?”

  Grief? My mother called the hail and laughed over his corpse.

  “They never found her body,” he continued, waving an arm into the distance. “But she couldn’t be alive now. She would be nearly a hundred years old, if she were.”

  Ninety-two, but Mother never liked anyone reminding her of her age.

  “How did you know about her anyway? Were you from Cypari before you got stranded? Do you know Princess Helene or someone else in her family? You might have mixed the two since you’ve been away so long. What other books did you have besides the one I saw?” His eyes bored into me, pressing for some answer.

  He seemed determined to fit me into his world, but every version he came up with ended the same way. I was wrong; he was right. A mad girl from an island he must tutor in the ways of the real world. The implied arrogance squashed any desire I might have to share and learn.

  I lowered myself into the water, ready to kick.

  He shook his head. “You really are quiet. Not like any other girl I know.”

  “Good.” Any other girl he knew had to be a brainwashed harlot or some other servant.

  He laughed, standing over me. “And she speaks. Now we just have to get you to do it without crying or glaring at me.”

  I immediately glared, but even that seemed a game. How did he manage to turn everything into a game? His time in the water had washed most of the blood from his face. His clear cherub smile had an innocence that seemed as deceptive as my sisters’ song.

  I knew of the charm women held over men. I heard of the brutality men held over women. How was it that he seemed to hold the former, but none of the latter?

  Perhaps he wasn’t a real man at all. Perhaps he was some new creature all his own.

  I held onto the raft, feet treading water idly. Something brushed my legs. Warm and slick.

  A fish?

  I caught a glance of something dark under the water. It fastened around my foot like a tether, yanking me downward. My chin hit the raft. Salt and blood filled my mouth. Colors flashed b
ehind my eyes. I thrashed, something pulling me from both sides.

  “Ari, stay still.”

  The prince’s voice. It had to be. No one else would have suggested something so senseless.

  The pressure left my legs, and he yanked me over him onto the raft.

  A coil of a severed tentacle lay beside me. My leg still burned where I had been bound in its grasp. The prince sheathed a dagger I didn’t know he had.

  He had stabbed the beast and pulled me aboard. “What was that?” he asked.

  Charybdis—the beast of the whirlpools who shared the channel, the beast whom men sought to avoid when they became prey to my family instead. It had never bothered me before, seeking out the larger ships.

  All the creatures of the sea were servants of my mother and our god. If they were coming after me, it was only because I was acting in a way my mother would never have sanctioned. I had gone against the will of my mother and the sea. It was only fitting that it should try to claim my life in return. Death would be a relief, saving me from my building guilt and grief.

  I had heard of the pale-skinned northerners killing each other this way, pulling and pulling at the limbs until the torso was ripped to pieces. Even before the beast attacked, my heart had been pulled in two directions so hard it might burst between them.

  I just never expected the skinny prince to win.

  He glared at the water as if daring anything else to move from its depths. “It isn’t dead, you know. We’d need a larger, stronger weapon for that, like the barbed harpoons my father used in the war with Galath.”

  Before, I wouldn’t have thought he knew a thing of war. Now, I almost did.

  A sudden authority entered his voice. “You’re not going back in the water. We’ll row, or I’ll kick.”

  I stared.

  There it was. The hard and brutal man of my mother’s tale but also the storybook prince who saved my life, wrapped in a single package. All the tales I had heard over the years could not have prepared me for this, and I had no idea what to do.