To Kill a Kingdom

by Alexandra Christo

  I spot him quickly, on the edge of a small patch of sand by the docks. He’s coughing so violently that the act shakes his entire body. He spits out great gasps of water and then collapses onto his stomach. I swim as close to shore as I can and then pull myself the rest of the way, until only the tip of my fin is left in the shallows of the water.

  I reach out and grab the prince’s ankle, dragging him down so his body is level with mine.

  I nudge his shoulder and when he doesn’t move, I roll him onto his back. Sand sticks to the gold of his cheeks and his lips part ever so slightly, wet with ocean. He looks half-dead already.

  His shirt clings to his skin, blood seeping through the slashes the mermaid tore. His chest barely moves with his breath and if I couldn’t hear the faint sound of his heart, then I would think for certain he was nothing more than a beautiful corpse.

  I press a hand to his face and draw a fingernail from the corner of his eye to his cheek. A thin red line bubbles above his skin, but he doesn’t stir. His jaw is so sharp, it could cut through me.

  Slowly, I reach under his shirt and press a hand against his chest. His heart thumps desperately beneath my palm. I lean my head against it and listen to the drumming with a smile. I can smell the ocean on him, an unmistakable salt, but mingled beneath it all is the faint aroma of aniseed. He smells like the black sweets of the anglers. The saccharine oil they use to lure their catch.

  I find myself wishing him awake so I can catch a glimpse of those seaweed eyes before I take his heart and give it to my mother. I lift my head from his chest and hover my hand over his heart. My nails clutch his skin, and I prepare to plunge my fist deeper.

  “Your Highness!”

  I snap my head up. A legion of royal guards runs across the docks and toward us. I look back to the prince and his eyes begin to open. His head lolls in the sand and then his gaze focuses. On me. His eyes narrow as he takes in the color of my hair and the single eye that matches. He doesn’t look worried that my nails are dug into his chest, or scared by his impending death. Instead he looks resolute. And oddly satisfied.

  I don’t have time to think about what that means. The guards are fast approaching, screaming for their prince, guns and swords at the ready. All of them pointed at me. I glance down at the prince’s chest once more, and the heart I came so close to winning. Then quicker than light, I dart back to the ocean and away from him.

  11

  Elian

  MY DREAMS ARE THICK with blood that is not mine. It’s never mine, because I’m as immortal in my dreams as I seem to be in real life. I’m made of scars and memories, neither of which have any real bearing.

  It’s been two days since the attack, and the siren’s face haunts my nights. Or what little I remember of her. Whenever I try to recall a single moment, all I see are her eyes. One like sunset and the other like the ocean I love so much.

  The Princes’ Bane.

  I was half-groggy when I woke on the shore, but I could have done something. Reached for the knife tucked in my belt and let it drink her blood. Smashed my fist across her cheek and held her down while a guard fetched my father. I could have killed her, but I didn’t, because she’s a wonder. A creature that has eluded me for so long and then, finally, appeared. Let me be privy to a face few men live to speak about.

  My monster found me and I’m going to find her right back.

  “It’s an outrage!”

  The king bursts into my room, red-faced. My mother floats in after him, wearing a green kalasiris and an exasperated expression. When she sees me, her brow knits.

  “None of them can tell me a thing,” my father says. “What use are sea wardens if they don’t warden the damn sea?”

  “Darling.” My mother places a gentle hand on his shoulder. “They look for ships on the surface. I don’t recall us telling them to swim underwater and search for sirens.”

  “It should go without saying!” My father is incensed. “Initiative is what those men need. Especially with their future king here. They should have known the sea bitch would come for him.”

  “Radames,” my mother scolds. “Your son would prefer your concern to your rage.”

  My father turns to me, as if only just noticing I’m there, despite it being my room. I can see the moment he notices the line of sweat that coats my forehead and seeps from my body to the sheets.

  His face softens. “Are you feeling better?” he asks. “I could fetch the physician.”

  “I’m fine.” The hoarseness of my voice betrays the lie.

  “You don’t look it.”

  I wave him off, hating that I suddenly feel like a child again, needing my father to protect me from the monsters. “I don’t imagine anyone looks their best before breakfast,” I say. “I bet I could still woo any of the women at court, though.”

  My mother shoots me an admonishing look.

  “I’m going to dismiss them all,” my father says, continuing on as though my sickliness hadn’t given him pause. “Every sorry excuse for a sea warden we have.”

  I lean against the headboard. “I think you’re overreacting.”

  “Overreacting! You could have been killed on our own land in broad daylight.”

  I lift myself from bed. I sway a little, unsteady on my feet, but recover quickly enough for it to go unnoticed. “I hardly blame the wardens for failing to spot her,” I say, lifting my shirt from the floor. “It takes a trained eye.”

  Which is true, incidentally, though I doubt my father cares. He doesn’t even seem to remember that the sea wardens watch the surface for enemy ships and are not, in any way, required to search underneath for devils and demons. The Saad is home to the few men and women in the world mad enough to try.

  “Eyes like yours?” My father scoffs. “Let’s just hire some of those rapscallions you ramble around with, then.”

  My mother gleams. “What a wonderful idea.”

  “It was not!” argues my father. “I was being flippant, Isa.”

  “Yet it was the least foolish thing I’ve heard you say in days.”

  I grin at them and walk over to my father, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. The anger disappears from his eyes and he wears a look similar to resignation. He knows as well as I do that there is only one thing to be done, and that’s for me to leave. I suspect half of my father’s anger comes from knowing that. After all, Midas is a sanctuary my father spouts as a safe haven from the devils I hunt. An escape for me to return to if I ever need it. Now the attack has made a liar of him.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll make sure the siren suffers for it.”

  It isn’t until I speak the words that I realize how much I mean them. My home is tainted with the same danger as the rest of my life, and it doesn’t sit right with me. Sirens belong in the sea, and those two parts of me – the prince and the hunter – have remained separate. I hate that their merging wasn’t because I was brave enough to stop pretending and tell my parents I never plan on becoming king and that whenever I am home, I feel like a fraud. How I think carefully about every word and action before saying or doing anything, just to be sure it is the right thing. The done thing. My two selves were thrust together because the Princes’ Bane forced my hand. She spurred into action something I should have been brave enough to do myself all along.

  I hate her for it.

  On the deck of the Saad later that day, my crew gathers around me. Two hundred men and women with fury on their faces as they regard the scratch below my eye. It’s the only wound they can see, though there are plenty more hidden beneath my shirt. A circle of fingernails right where my heart is. Pieces of the siren still embedded in my chest.

  “I’ve given you dangerous orders in the past,” I say to my crew. “And you’ve done them without a single complaint. Well” – I shoot them a grin – “most of you.”

  A few of them smirk in Kye’s direction and he salutes proudly.

  “But this is different.” I take in a breath, readying myself. “
I need a crew of around a hundred volunteers. Really, I’ll take any of you I can get, but I think you know that without some of you, the journey won’t be possible at all.” I look over to my chief engineer and he nods in silent understanding.

  The rest of the crew stares up at me with equally strong looks of fidelity. People say you can’t choose your family, but I’ve done just that with each and every member of the Saad. I’ve handpicked them all, and those who I didn’t sought me out. We chose one another, every ragtag one of us.

  “Whatever vows of loyalty you’ve sworn, I won’t hold you to them. Your honor isn’t in question, and anyone who doesn’t volunteer won’t be thought any less of. If we succeed, every single member of this crew will be welcomed back with open arms when we sail again. I want to make that clear.”

  “Enough speeches!” yells Kye. “Get to the point so I know whether to pack my long johns.”

  Beside him, Madrid rolls her eyes. “Don’t forget your purse, too.”

  I feel laughter on my lips, but I swallow it and continue on. “A few days ago a man came to me with a story about a rare stone that has the power to kill the Sea Queen.”

  “How’s it possible?” someone asks from the crowd.

  “It’s not possible!” another voice shouts.

  “Someone once told me that taking a crew of felons and misfits across the seas to hunt for the world’s most deadly monsters wasn’t possible,” I say. “That we’d all die within a week.”

  “I don’t know about you lot,” Kye says, “but my heart’s still beating.”

  I shoot him a smile.

  “The world has been led to believe the Sea Queen can’t be killed by any man-made weapons,” I say. “But this stone wasn’t made by man; it was crafted by the original families from their purest magic. If we use it, then the Sea Queen could die before she’s able to pass her trident on to the Princes’ Bane. It’ll rid their entire race of any true power once and for all.”

  Madrid steps to the front, elbowing men out of her way. Kye follows behind her, but she keeps her eyes on me with a hard stare. “That’s all well and good, Cap,” she says. “But isn’t it the Princes’ Bane who we should be worrying about?”

  “The only reason we haven’t turned her to foam is because we can’t find her. If we kill her mother, then she should show her face. Not to mention that it’s the queen’s magic that gives the sirens their gifts. If we destroy the queen, they’ll all be weak, including the Princes’ Bane. The seas will be ours.”

  “And how do we find the Sea Queen?” Kye asks. “I’d follow you to the ends of the earth, but their kingdom is in the middle of a lost sea. Nobody knows where it is.”

  “We don’t need to know where their kingdom is. We don’t even need to know where the Diávolos Sea is. The only thing we need to know is how to sail to Págos.”

  “Págos.” Madrid says the word with a frown. “You’re not seriously considering that.”

  “It’s where the crystal is,” I tell her. “And once we have it, the Sea Queen will come to us.”

  “So we just head on down to the ice kingdom and ask the snow folk to hand it over?” someone asks.

  I hesitate. “Not exactly. The crystal isn’t in Págos. It’s on top of it.”

  “The Cloud Mountain,” Kye clarifies for the rest of the crew. “Our captain wants us to climb to the top of the coldest mountain in the world. One that’s killed everybody who’s tried.”

  Madrid scoffs as they start to murmur. “And,” she adds, “all for a mythical crystal that may or may not lead the most fearsome creature in the world to our door.”

  I glare at them both, unamused by the double act, or the sudden doubt in their voices. This is the first time they’ve questioned me, and the feeling isn’t something I plan to get used to.

  “That’s the gist of it,” I say.

  There’s a pause, and I try my best not to move or do anything but look unyielding. Like I can be trusted. Like I have any kind of a damn clue what I’m doing. Like I probably won’t get them all killed.

  “Well.” Madrid turns to Kye. “I think it sounds like fun.”

  “I guess you’re right,” he says, as though following me is an inconvenience he never considered before. He turns to me. “Count us in then.”

  “I suppose I can spare some time too, since you asked so nicely!” another voice shouts.

  “Can hardly say no to such a temptin’ offer, Cap!”

  “Go on then, if everyone else is so keen.”

  So many of them yell and nod, pledging their lives to me with a smile. Like it’s all just a game to them. With every new hand that shoots up comes a whooping holler from those who have already agreed. They howl at the possibility of death and how much company they’re going to have in it. They’re insane and wonderful.

  I’m no stranger to devotion. When people at court look at me, I see the mindless loyalty that comes with not knowing any better. Something that is natural to those who have never questioned the bizarre order of things. But when my crew looks at me now, I see the kind of loyalty that I’ve earned. Like I deserve the right to lead them to whatever fate I see fit.

  Now there’s just one thing left for me to do before we set sail for the land of ice.

  12

  Elian

  THE GOLDEN GOOSE IS the only constant in Midas. Every inch of land seems to grow and change when I’m gone, with small evolutions that never seem gradual to me, but the Golden Goose is as it has always been. It didn’t plant the golden flowers outside its doors that all of the houses once did, as was fashion, with remnants of them still seen in the depths of the wildflowers that now swallow them. Nor did it erect sandy pillars or hang wind chimes or remodel its roof to point like the pyramids. It is in untouched timelessness, so whenever I return and something about my home is different, I can be sure it’s never the Golden Goose. Never Sakura.

  It’s early and the sun is still a milky orange. I thought it best to visit the dregs of the Golden Goose when the rest of Midas was still sleeping. It didn’t seem wise to ask a favor from its ice-born landlord, with swells of patrons drunkenly eavesdropping. I knock on the redwood door, and a splinter slides into my knuckle. I withdraw it just as the door swings open. Sakura looks unsurprised on the other side.

  “I knew it would be you.” She peers behind me. “Isn’t the tattooed one with you?”

  “Madrid is preparing the ship,” I tell her. “We set sail today.”

  “Shame.” Sakura slings a dishrag over her shoulder. “You’re not nearly as pretty.”

  I don’t argue. “Can I come in?”

  “A prince can ask for favors on a doorstep, like everyone else.”

  “Your doorstep doesn’t have whiskey.”

  Sakura smiles, her dark red lips curling to one side. She spreads her arms out, gesturing for me to come inside. “I hope you have full pockets.”

  I enter, keeping my eyes trained on her. It’s not like I think she might try something untoward – kill me, perhaps, right here in the Golden Goose – not when our relationship is so profitable to her. But there is something about Sakura that has always unnerved me, and I’m not the only one. There aren’t many who can manage a bar like the Golden Goose, with patrons who collect sin like precious jewels. Brawls and fights are constant, and most nights spill more blood than whiskey. Yet when Sakura tells them enough, the men and women cease. Adjust their respective collars, spit onto the grimy floor, and continue on with their drinks as though nothing happened at all. Arguably, she is the most fearsome woman in Midas. And I don’t make a habit of turning my back on fearsome women.

  Sakura steps behind the bar and pours a slosh of amber liquid into a glass. As I sit opposite, she brings the glass to her lips and takes a quick sip. A print of murky red lipstick stains the rim, and I note the fortuitous timing.

  Sakura slides the glass over to me. “Satisfied?” she asks.

  She means because it isn’t poisoned. I may scan the seas looking for monsters
that could literally rip my heart out, but that doesn’t mean I’m careless. There isn’t a single thing I eat or drink when we’re docked that hasn’t been tasted by someone else first. Usually, this duty falls to Torik, who volunteered the moment I took him aboard and insists that he’s not putting his life at risk because even the greatest of poisons couldn’t kill him. Taking into account his sheer size alone, I’m inclined to agree.

  Kye, of course, declined the responsibility. If I die saving your life, he said, then who’s going to protect you?

  I eye Sakura’s smudged lipstick and smirk, twisting the glass to avoid the mark before I take a sip of whiskey.

  “No need for pretense,” says Sakura. “You should just ask.”

  “You know why I’m here, then.”

  “The whole of Midas is talking about your siren.” Sakura leans back against the liquor cabinet. “Don’t think there is a single thing that goes on here that I’m not aware of.”

  Her eyes are sharper than ever and narrowed in a way that tells me there are very few of my secrets she doesn’t know. A prince may have the luxury of discretion, but a pirate does not. I know that many of my conversations have been stolen by strangers and sold to the highest bidders. Sakura has been one of those sellers for a while, trading information for gold whenever the opportunity presents itself. So of course she was careful to overhear the man who came to me in the dead of night, speaking stories of her home and the treasure it holds.

  “I want you to come with me.”

  Sakura laughs and the sound doesn’t suit the grave look on her face. “Is that an order from the prince?”

  “It’s a request.”

  “Then I deny it.”

  “You know” – I wipe the stain from my glass – “your lipstick is smudged.”

  Sakura takes in the print of dark red on the rim of my glass and presses a finger to her lips. When it comes away clean, she glowers. I can see her plainly now, as the thing I have always known she is. The snow-faced woman with lips bluer than any siren’s eye.