Kingdom of Salt and Sirens

by J. A. Armitage

  Before the creature had retreated enough to allow them to return to the ocean floor, Yuval lunged toward the mountain, her shell slicing a path.

  Screams rent the water as blood spread in their wake. Faster than Asaria could see, a finger snatched Yuval’s hand and squeezed until his pointed teeth bared. The shell dropped, carving a line down.

  The fingers yanked on her tail, and she choked back a yell when they ripped her from Yuval’s side.

  “You dare fight us, mortal!” The booming voice echoed louder, rumbling in Asaria’s head. Fingers coiled around both of them, holding tight like snakes and drawing them higher into the roots.

  Asaria peered up, and a wash of cold stole the color in her cheeks. Dozens of mouths made up a parasite that clung to the bottom of the island. Each finger wound down from it, around roots, and then around them.

  Shaking, Asaria met Yuval’s gaze.

  “Test me!” he yelled.

  The mouths laughed, but their ascension paused. “Test a liar? No. We shall test her.”

  “Let her go!” Yuval fought against the constricting hold as the red eyes peered at her, tilting. He yelled, “Let her go! I’ll face your test and clear her as well.” The eyes moved closer. “Don’t touch her! Don’t—”

  Red consumed her vision.

  18

  Welcome

  Asaria blinked, breathing heavily. Ocea lay before her, but she was crumpled in the coral on the edge of the woods where she had first entered the magical world. “Yuval?” She swallowed and twisted. Her legs settled beneath her, and her eyes widened. “Another dream?”

  “Not quite.” The voice pulled her attention up. A woman stood before her and offered her a grey hand, but Asaria didn’t take it. “I apologize if I have scared you, child.” Red eyes gentled when the woman crouched, her long hair floating around her head in a cloud of strands.

  “Where are we?” Asaria choked, glancing back at Ocea. Merfolk meandered in the streets, those with and without tails, and a quiet peace seemed to blanket the town.

  “In a memory of the past.”

  “I’ve never seen this before.”

  The woman turned to look as well. “No, I suppose you haven’t.”

  “Why are we here then?”

  “Because you deserve to see it. Yuval had covered you from my sight until I heard your voice, but the moment I saw you, I knew who you were.” Red eyes locked on her. “He has committed grave sins, Asaria. Against Ocea and against you in how his mistake has led you into this world in a way that was not planned.”

  Asaria looked down at the woman’s outstretched hand, positioned her legs beneath her, and took it, standing with her help. “I don’t understand.”

  But a sickness settled in her gut. This creature had said only one before had entered the birthplace of Ocea’s guardian, and then Yuval immediately claimed his name.

  “It is as you think,” the woman confirmed. “Yuval of Ocea, Guardian of the Water . . . Betrayer of Beyond.”

  “W-what?” Asaria wrapped her free arm around her stomach and took deep breaths to steady herself.

  “He thought he could avoid me, avoid this.” The woman sighed, her eyes closing. “But all we do comes back with consequence. Come, Asaria of Earth. See the truth that has been hidden from you, then speak for Beyond in favor or opposition on Yuval’s behalf.”

  “I don’t understand.” Asaria tried to pull her hand away, but the woman’s fingers tightened around hers.

  “You will.”

  Without warning, the woman rose through the water, towing Asaria along with her. They both passed above the town, toward the tangling roots and glowing orbs. An opening led further up, past dirt and luminescent specks, onto an island, and the woman pulled her from the water to help her to the ground. Releasing a breath, Asaria looked over the ocean at the crashing waves, then she turned inland.

  A palace made of coral with towering spires stood in the center of the island, a stone path set among shells leading to its gold and silver gates. Within the gates, bush topiaries of merfolk decorated the courtyard, and Asaria’s lips parted while she beheld the detail even at a distance.

  The woman began forward, toward two guards, and Asaria’s heart leapt as she followed. “Am I allowed in there?” she whispered.

  “It’s a memory. We’re allowed everywhere.”

  Without warning, the guards changed into different people, and Asaria looked between them before she realized in the shifted memory the gates were open. Passing through behind the woman, she rubbed her arm and chewed her lip. Only minutes since she had legs again, and her heart was already swarming toward panic.

  She released a quiet breath and continued behind the woman as the world shifted with varied memories and allowed them passage into the castle. Seafoam greens and blues washed the interior. Faint scents of buttered breads changed into spiced meats, then tangy citrus, as they passed down halls and stairs.

  Everywhere Asaria looked, something beautiful sat on a table or hung on the walls. Vases, pots, relics, paintings, designs, pearls. Even in a memory, she kept in the center of the paths, careful not to touch anything.

  When palace workers faded and only quiet, empty halls stretched before them, the woman paused before a white door marked with a water lily. “Are you ready?”

  Answers. Whether she would like them or not, she couldn’t help but know answers laid within. Asaria nodded. The door didn’t open this time as the woman walked through, so Asaria closed her eyes before she followed.

  The cramped space glowed with unnatural light and magic orbs. No windows brightened the room, only the sparse lit orbs hovered by the low ceiling and cast light on a large glass bowl in the center of the space.

  Seora’s eyes narrowed while she paced along the far wall. “I don’t know about this, Yuval.”

  “We have everything we need. We checked several times.” Yuval’s fists clenched before he released his grip. “It’s simple—”

  “It’s forbidden,” Seora interrupted. “You’re toying with destiny, and I don’t see why it’s necessary. If another guardian’s chosen has appeared, it’s only a matter of time before—”

  “Time,” Yuval sneered, turning his back to Seora. He rested his hands on the glass rim of the bowl and peered into the water within. It rippled. “I’ve spent so much time waiting. You can’t understand how it feels. Rhyeos’s chosen appearing only solidifies the hope that there is someone out there. That the other half of my soul . . . my family . . . is just waiting for me.” Yuval’s fingers reached toward the water, his breath going soft as the liquid quieted and reflected his white face.

  Asaria choked on her inhale when Yuval’s eyes closed, pain scarring his porcelain features. “What are they doing?” she asked the woman, but the woman only shook her head and nodded toward the scene.

  “Please, Yuval, for a century you’ve relied on me for counsel, and I’ve always trusted your decisions, but can’t we wait a little longer? Even just a year.” Seora watched Yuval’s back and tensed when he straightened, turning to face her.

  “‘We’?” His dark tone made Asaria cower back against a wall that didn’t stop her from passing through it. She stumbled forward and graciously accepted when the grey woman steadied her. Yuval let a shaking breath out of his lungs, then continued, “Seora, I take full responsibility for whatever happens, but I can’t just sit and wait and do nothing anymore. What if this is how destiny plays out? I know my chosen is out there now.”

  Seora closed her eyes and shook her head. “There has to be another way.”

  “And yet this is the one within reach.” He extended his hand. “Please.”

  Jaw clenched, Seora dropped her head and took his hand. “Promise me if I say to stop, you will. I won’t be clouded by emotions if something goes wrong, and I’ll likely recognize the problem before you.”

  Yuval pursed his lips but replied, “I promise.”

  A tremble shook Asaria’s breath as she covered her mouth because she
recognized the lie in how easily it spilled from him. How easily they all had spilled. She had put her trust in the wrong person. Again.

  Seora and Yuval stood on either side of the bowl. Opening a pouch, Seora began tossing colored powder after colored powder into the water. Each bloomed in the bowl like smoke erupting in air. “If this works, she’ll be disoriented when she first steps through. Try to avoid telling her directly that ‘the universe made her for you’, okay?” Seora paused, glancing up, and waited for Yuval’s response.

  “I’ll give her whatever space she needs.” His gaze searched the water, flicking to every explosion of color with a nervous excitement that lit his eyes with thinly-veiled hope. “Even if it’s years before she’s mine, I need her by my side.”

  Seora’s lips parted in a sigh, and she threw a handful of petals atop the water. “You’re taking her from her world, her home. Friends. Family. There won’t be any turning back once she’s a part of Beyond. Yuval, are you sure?”

  Asaria’s heart thundered in her chest, tears pricking in her eyes when she focused on Yuval’s face. The petals burned as though they were on fire. Turning to ash, they sank into the water, clearing it until only an empty mirror remained. “I am,” he replied.

  Asaria blinked, tears cascading down her cheeks. Yet another person willing to use her for themselves, take her choices and make them for her. “I don’t want to see any more,” she whispered.

  The woman wrapped Asaria in her arms. “I’m so sorry. You must. Only a little more now, though. Please be strong.”

  She wasn’t. She simply wasn’t. But she forced her eyes to lock onto the scene again as an image of her appeared in the bowl’s mirror. Asaria remembered the moment, but she didn’t want to.

  Curled on the bathroom floor, she rocked back and forth, gasping for breath and trying to settle her nerves. In that moment, every effort to remain stable had failed. Her friends hadn’t replied to her calls or texts. And she had never made it to the ocean. Halfway out of her T-shirt in an attempt to get into her bathing suit, she sat in her bra and rocked on the tile.

  That moment Asaria watched replay in the glass bowl was when it had hit her. Her sister was graduating. Her guise of freedom would soon rot away. Everything would change. Everything she loved would be ripped from her at her parents’ whim.

  “That’s her,” Yuval breathed, eyes going wide. “What’s going on?” His voice wavered as he gripped the bowl’s rim. “Are we hurting her? Is this hurting her?”

  Seora shook her head, also watching with wide eyes. “No, no, this isn’t us.”

  “Then someone there is hurting her?” Yuval reached forward, panic overcoming him as well. “I have to get her out. I have to save her.”

  His fingers touched the water, and Seora jolted. “Wait, Yuval! Stop. Something has crossed the path.” Her words jumbled as she forced them out. “We must be passing over a dark patch to reach her, so we can’t. We can’t reach her. Not like this.”

  A film crawled over the water, spreading over Yuval’s fingers, but he ignored the warning and reached deeper.

  Black ink filled the bowl, and when realization snapped through Yuval’s eyes, it was already too late. A cloud covered the image in the water entirely, but grey hands clung to Yuval’s arm. He yanked himself back, pulling the creature along with him.

  Wyre pushed himself out of the portal, tentacles spilling onto the floor as he breathed deeply and examined those present. A slow smile bared sharp teeth, his gaze flicking between Yuval and Seora. “Hello,” he said. “Welcome to hell.”

  19

  Walls

  Asaria’s eyes snapped open, and she was back in the heated water by the mountain. Her mind swirled, panic coming faster than anything else as she gasped. She tugged against the creature’s hold on her, then looked up at Yuval. He hung limply across from her in the grey fingers’ embrace.

  “What . . . What just—” Her worried gaze skimmed over him, but her heart pinched. He had lied to her this entire time. He had wanted to force her into his world, whether she wanted to be in it or not.

  He was just like everybody else.

  Closing her eyes, she knew tears drifted into the warm water, and she didn’t hold them back.

  The creature’s voice came softly. “Will you pardon him?”

  Her throat tightened. Eyes focusing on the guardian again, she rolled her lips and bit down. “W-what happens if I don’t?”

  “He has opened the way for a great evil to consume Ocea. And evil doesn’t recognize kingdom lines. For being the catalyst that could doom Beyond, he can no longer be called guardian. And if he is no longer guardian, his time ended long ago.”

  Asaria’s heart thudded, her stomach sickening with the thought. More tears poured into the water, her head clouded with heat and aches. “My legs,” she whispered. “Can he really restore my legs and take me home?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you in his mind now?”

  Again, the creature replied, “Yes.”

  Shaking, Asaria swallowed the lump in her throat. “Will he really restore my legs and take me home?”

  “He has had every intention of doing so.”

  “Then I need him,” she whispered. “And if Wyre is still out there, Ocea may need him to fix this.”

  “You plea to give him a second chance, child?” The creature’s voice remained kind, but Asaria avoided looking in any of its red eyes.

  “Time.” Asaria dropped her gaze from the helpless man before her. “Give him time to prove he deserves one.”

  Though Asaria didn’t look up, when the creature replied, she imagined its many mouths were smiling. “Beyond welcomes you, Asaria of Earth, and grants your wise request.” Some fingers brushed against Yuval’s chest, leaving a full hourglass etched over his heart. “If he has proven himself worthy to return to his sacred position by the time this runs out, he shall be restored.”

  Asaria’s eyes traced the tattoo, and she swallowed before nodding and looking away.

  The fingers carried both herself and Yuval to the cave’s entrance, then loosened. Asaria drifted inside, thankful for the cooler water within, and looked out at the creature. Sure enough, its dozens of fanged mouths grinned.

  “What are you?” she asked.

  “One of Beyond’s many eyes. A lesser guardian to aid in her will and provide direction to her children so this world doesn’t follow in the destruction of her sister.”

  Asaria tensed. “Is Earth her sister?”

  The island and the creature began drifting away, but the reply just reached Asaria’s ears. “No. Her sister’s name is Macula, but do not worry about that, child. It is not your story that crosses her path.”

  Asaria shivered when the island was little more than a blotch in the distance. Turning, she looked at Yuval’s body on the cavern floor. Like in the first labyrinth, glowing plants coated a path that likely led down on the far end of the chamber. Swimming to him, she touched the full hourglass on his chest, then yanked her hand back as though touching him burned her.

  “You lied to me,” she whispered, expecting his eyes to open like every other time he had been asleep.

  They didn’t.

  “All this time you were the guardian we talked about.” She closed her eyes and settled on the hard floor beside him. It made sense. How else would he know the path to his birthplace, the path home. It had to call to him. How could she be so blind? “The king.” Her chest constricted. “And I’m the long-lost princess betrothed to you? Is that it? The one truth you told me is the one thing I didn’t believe?” She let out a shaking breath, because now she didn’t want to believe it. “Who decided I was your chosen, Yuval?” Her nails bit into her arms as she buried her head against her tail. “Because it wasn’t—and now it won’t—be me . . .”

  ↜❀↝

  Asaria’s back was to Yuval when she heard his inhale the next day, and she didn’t turn. Instead, she continued peering out at the warm water as the sun crested the distan
t islands. Running her hand through it, she wondered what kept the inside of the cave cool.

  “Wai lily—”

  “Asaria,” she corrected, spreading her fingers over whatever invisible barrier held back the heat. “It’s Asaria.”

  “Please, let me explain—”

  She tensed when water rushed behind her, his voice drawing closer, so before he could touch her, she slipped away. “I hate my name,” she said. “Asaria, a knock-off of my sister Acacia’s because my parents couldn’t even give me my own. The only nickname I’ve ever had, before you, is ‘Asa’. Meaning morning, like the dawn, but Acacia insisted it meant mourning over my very existence.” Voice shaking, she faced him and stared into his helpless, pale eyes a moment before looking away. “I’m tired of being used, Yuval. I won’t be a convenience anymore. Today, we are going to reach the bottom of this labyrinth, you’re going to do whatever you need to so you can break my curse, and then I’m going home, and you’re going to fix the situation you caused with Wyre.”

  His lips parted, but she held up a hand, clenched her fingers, and looked at the ground.

  “If you don’t, you will die . . . when the sand runs out.”

  Yuval’s head tipped, and his eyes widened. A finger traced the mark on his chest. “Asaria, I—”

  “I don’t want to hear it, Yuval.” She blinked, heart crying when she met his gaze. Tears glazed his eyes, and his chest trembled on an inhale.

  “I’m so sorry.” The words left his lips harshly, each saturated with so much pain.

  A shiver coursed down her spine, but she had to ignore it. “Then make things right.” Flicking her tail, she started toward the path, and he followed her silently before passing to lead, a thick layer of quiet separating them like a wall.

  It was just as well. Walls kept her safe because no one else was going to.

  Her fingers flexed, and she wished she still had her shell, but he had taken that from her too. He had shown her incredible things, taken her on the adventure of a lifetime, but it was never for her.