Drothiker

Faolin’s heart was drubbing, any heat from earlier had dwindled from her as she raced down the stairs.

A siren—in this very fortress.

Aquakin—those who lived in the world beneath the sea, Blueneath—were renowned for feeding on those on land. Were feared. Their hunger matched no other, their savagery almost equaled to that of baeselk, at least when they were beneath water. The fact that this one was here at all … a shifter. Dread oiled Faolin’s gut at the awareness. It had been lodging here, in this fortress, among these soldiers.

For how long? Had it fed on anyone—

How had it survived so long without water, only otsatyas could tell. Or how it had remained hidden so long.

There were strict laws in Blueneath for aquakin to remain in water, their queen did not claim those who set foot on land. That was how the peace had continued existing amongst aquakin and soilkin—those who lived on land. One didn’t cross the other’s territory.

Aazem unsheathed his sword, and offered Faolin two daggers as they entered the backyard. There was no movement in water, no sound from beneath.

“How deep is the water?” Faolin whispered.

Aazem muttered with equal quiet as he advanced towards the pool, “Twenty feet.”

Faolin flinched.

As if sensing it, he looked over his shoulder, a smile playing at those lips—Faolin waved off her thoughts. Aazem shrugged. “We’re trained swimmers.” She didn’t fail to notice his quick glance towards her own tousled hair, another towards her neck, before he turned his attention back to the pool.

Her whole body prickled—and she shoved that away too.

Aazem paused a few steps from the pool. “I should sound an alarm.”

“No.” Faolin stepped beside him and peered up at his face. “They would kill it the instant they catch another glimpse.”

He lifted a brow. “And why shouldn’t they?”

She bit the inside of her cheek, at loss of words and reasons. “I feel merciful, today,” was all she said and stepped towards the pool, gripping the dagger—

Aazem clutched her arm and tugged her. “It could kill you.”

“No,” she breathed, her gaze jammed on the pool—waiting for any movement. “You’re forgetting it can’t breathe outside water for much long—not in that form.” She looked over her shoulder at him, then. “It could be just a mermaid, if we’re lucky.” Never minding that Destiny had always deceived her, she’d said as much earlier to him. Mer were harmless, adversaries of sirens; despite bearing same bods. Where sirens were predators, mer bore mejest, were peaceful with soilkin.

That did not stop soilkin from slaughtering them when spotted.

“Those are just gossips,” Aazem countered, his grip firm on Faolin’s arm. “Mer could be just as perilous for all we know.”

“You worry too much.” She made to yank out her arm—

Faolin’s slippers skidded on the soaked stones. She tilted, her heart stealing to her throat—

Aazem’s tight grip yanked her before she could dive in twenty-feet-deep water and offer dinner to the aquakin scouting beneath. “Careful,” he snarled as she came face-first to his brutal chest.

She stepped back hurriedly, wincing at the pain in her nose. “Bastard!”

A hissing snarl sounded.

Faolin whirled. Aazem drew his sword, freeing her arm.

The surface of water jiggled, and that shadowy figure soared up, up, up to the surface.

Faolin’s heart raced, yet she did not draw her weapon. Each instinct in her bellowed not to—that it was harmless. Even though Faolin knew better, she remained unarmed. Instead, her hand stretched for Aazem’s forearm. “We do not kill it.”

She did not wait for his disapproval and advanced towards the water.

And the aquakin tore the surface.

Her heart skidded to a pause as she took in the teal scales casing either side of its jaw, its breasts, and either waist. The abdomen evolved into a teal-scaled tail, which was wriggling beneath the water. The pointed ears big enough to tear through the curtain of her hair. Golden around the slitted pupils broadcasted immortality, irises so big that they nearly concealed the whiteness in eyes.

But the recognition seemed to have smacked her when Faolin grasped the golden-brown hair, the sapphire eyes.

There was nothing human on its face, no usual generous smile.

It ferociously snarled at Faolin, no recognition saturating its features. Its teeth small and pointed, like a shark’s.

It charged for Faolin, and Aazem snatched her back from the bank.

She hadn’t realized when she’d gathered herself in a crouch until Aazem snarled, “What are you doing,” in her ear as she fell on her ass, snapping out of her bewilderment.

The siren’s scaled arms touched the bank, as if it would wrench itself out. “Otsatyas above,” was all Faolin managed.

“I’m sounding the alarm.” The finality in his tone had Faolin lurching to her feet.

She whirled in time to catch his arm before he could dart out with his uncanny pace. “No, Aazem.”

He turned, eyes livid with warning. He bared his teeth. “It’ll—”

“I know her,” Faolin ground out. “She’s my chamber mate. If she were harmful, she would have already feasted on me.”

No wonder Gnea didn’t sleep at nights—she waited for Faolin to doze off so she could venture here. And the days Faolin had remained awake, unable to catch herself a shuteye, Gnea had remained stirring. Days without being in water … that was why she’d begun to look ill, skin beneath her eyes darkening each passing day, looked fatigued. But how did she manage to slip past the sentries—

Aazem blinked thrice, but said nothing.

“She will shift and return to her human form before dawn,” Faolin pressed. “Before the soldiers rouse and sentries with day duty take their positions.”

He rubbed at his forehead, considering. “You’re suggesting we wait here.”

Faolin turned back to the siren—but Gnea had already vanished deep inside. Faolin sighed, whirling back to the soldier. “She is not a danger.” She willed more certainty in her voice than she felt.

Aazem let out a long sigh, his features softening. Then his lips twisted in a mischievous smile as he stepped closer. Faolin’s grip loosened at his arm, her heart beating a gallop, at his face sinking to her own, at his arm sliding around her lower back. When his forehead met hers, and lips landed atop hers, Aazem murmured, “Maybe we could go complete what we started on the rooftop, in the meantime.”

Her toes curled, heat rallied in her. “Oh?” she muttered instead.

“Oh.”

Vur’s exclamation had Faolin flicking her eyes open, but Aazem did not release her from himself as his gaze snapped to Vur. “Go find somewhere else to be,” Faolin grumbled to the miragist. For these were the only days she will get to kiss Aazem before she left.

Before they were parted for otsatyas knew how long. Her heart ached at the thought, a destroying lump seized her throat.

This was only for a few days.

Aazem seemed to grasp that, too, his own eyes dimmed, and grip around her waist squeezed—as if to clasp the moment forever.

Vur was doing his utmost to not watch them. “I came to escort you to your chamber, unless you have intents of getting dresteen around your neck.”

Faolin opened her mouth, but a whisper from the water had her whirling, setting all her senses on edge, as Aazem released her, drawing his weapon again. Vur staggered a step back, blue eyes wide and fixed at the shadowy figure snaking up to the surface. “What in Saqa—” he began.

But whatever he was about to say was cut off when Gnea threw herself onto the bank, right before Faolin’s feet.

A flash of light seized her wholly, shaping her back to her human body.

When it vanished, scales did too, legs returned.

She was naked, coughing.

Faolin leapt for her, but Vur was already there, a mirage of clothes casing her body. Not touching her, no—clothes were just a mirage.

Gnea peered down at herself first as she sat up, brows twitching towards each other in confusion. Her hand began touching the blue shirt—swelling a glow of light as it went through the shirt. Gnea’s eyes went wide.

“Don’t—” Vur cut off and pursed his lips.

Gnea’s head shot up at him. Then her gaze snapped to Faolin, to Aazem, as if just now realizing they all towered her. Then those sapphire eyes landed at Vur again, and seemed to have lingered there, before Gnea bolted up to her feet, as if taking a hold of her human senses with a snap. Fear now simmering in her eyes.

She opened her mouth, but Faolin snapped, “You have a lot to explain.”

➣

They returned to the rooftop before some soldier could catch them unawares.

Gnea perched at the table, and Faolin pressed down the thought of what might have taken place on that very table, had Aazem not heard … whatever he had overheard. He leaned against the guardrail beside Faolin now, keenly assessing Gnea, not trusting the siren one bit. Vur stood beside the table, towering her, arms crossed.

Fool—only a fool would dare stand so near a siren so undaunted.

Faolin had swiftly touched Gnea’s arm and seeped her own mejest—now rushing through her veins like a vicious sea at will—into Gnea’s skin when they’d entered, without the siren’s notice; it should keep her from lying.

Faolin’s instincts might be roaring Gnea was harmless, but that certainly did not mean safeguards weren’t compulsory. She was an aquakin after all.

Gnea rolled her eyes. “Is this really necessary?” She looked everything but the woman Faolin had interacted with. The gleam in eyes, the smugness on face … she was nothing that innocent woman she had presented herself as.

Faolin straightened off the rail. “At least you’re not pretending.”

“Oh,” she lulled her head, “that was grueling.”

Faolin frowned. “Then why play it at all?”

“You will find, my friend, if you’re a nice and pretty package, people will endure all the trouble only so they could clutch you.” She winked. “Helps a lot when you’re a siren and need to sneak in and out every so often.” Sentries, she meant. She’d seduced the sentries with her aquakin charms—their beauty was unmatched, were so unnervingly stunning. Faolin was surprised how Aazem stood so unruffled.

Vur cleared his throat. “How about you start by telling us how did you survive without water all those years in Jegvr?”

Gnea’s smirk was nothing short of wicked. “Whoever said I ever had a trip to Jegvr?”

It took everything in Faolin to not gape. “Gnea—”

“Ah.” She lifted a finger. “If we’re all getting so courteously introduced, you might as well know my name is not Gnea. It’s Levsenn.” She made a face. “Gnea is such a hideous name.”

It was Aazem who spoke, “But your files—”

Gnea—Levsenn grinned. “Not my files, handsome.”

“You killed the real—” Vur started.

But Levsenn waved her hand. “Yeah, yeah. I fed on a soilkin, my sins shall not go unpunished.” She looked over her shoulder at Vur. “Save me your bravura.”

Vur blinked, though something shone in his eyes, but Faolin snapped, “Did you think slavery was fun? Enough that you slew someone and have been living in her name?”

Levsenn scowled. “I’m not a fool, Faolin.”

“I might need a bit convincing on that one.”

She rolled her eyes. “My friend had been in Jegvr, she was bid to Queen Felset. I came to help her escape.”

Levsenn’s hand quickly clasped to her mouth, eyes widened at what she hadn’t willed to speak, but Faolin’s mejest in her system pressed it out.

Faolin couldn’t help her crooked smile. It felt good to be the one in power again.

The siren snapped, “What have you done to me?”

Each roar in Faolin’s instincts had grown deafening, urging her to question Levsenn. “What friend?” she asked and stepped towards the aquakin.

Levsenn’s grip tightened over her own mouth, her eyes red with an effort to not voice whatever was at the tip of her tongue. Indeed, whatever she spoke, came out muffled.

“Fine, then,” Faolin sighed. “Have it your way.”

She called for her mejest, lilac fog soon spiraled her hand, her arm. She stretched it towards Levsenn, sending the fog wrapping around the siren’s wrists, feeling each second of the cunning, boundless triumph in her mejest. More, more, more, it sang.

Calm down, Faolin muttered to it. Not now.

But her mejest was a boisterous beast, impatient after twenty-five years of remaining frozen in her very veins. More, more, more.

Faolin ignored it, and registered the rigidness in Vur, fear in Gnea—Levsenn. Not fear from Faolin, no, but of revealing the information she held.

Moving her fingers slightly had the lilac fog tightening around the siren’s wrists, and pulled her hands from her mouth. Levsenn gritted her teeth, fighting the hold with her complete strength. Needless to say, her efforts went unrequited. Faolin repeated, “Who is your friend.”

Levsenn thinned her lips in a taut line, but when she spoke, the words were quick, as if they had been knives living in her stomach. But as she spoke, those knives seemed to have stabbed Faolin’s very soul, the oath lashing her to her duce.

“Syrene Evreyan Alpenstride.”

Each sound in Faolin went silent, her instincts calmed, leaving dead quiet in her head, her body. “What.”

“Daughter of Hexet Evreyan. The current Duce of Tribes.”

➣

World seemed to have swept off from beneath her feet. He legs buckled slightly. Faolin hadn’t even realized when Aazem had come behind her, his hand on the small of her back, as if she might stumble.

Syrene—Syrene was her duce, the one she was oathed to, Destined to guard with her blood, soul. “But she’s a human,” Faolin exclaimed.

Fury simmered in Levsenn’s eyes, but the siren only shrugged. “She holds too much power, no matter what she is.”

Faolin’s heart was banging against her ribs, but … it all made sense—why she’d felt that fury towards the prince after the Pojekk’s occurrence, why she’d felt this need to shield this human, why she’d recognized Syrene in the Voiceless Pits. Her oath had recognized the Starblood.

Syrene Evreyan Alpenstride, the last Heir of Stars. The Duce of Tribes.

“We need to find her,” Vur said. The steadiness in his voice had Faolin snapping her gaze to him.

“Why are you so gritty to find her?” asked Levsenn, scowling.

Vur grimaced, but his gaze slid to Faolin. “We’re freeing the slaves, aren’t we? Why leave her?”

The siren snorted. “This is not fair. Everything is seeped out of me, while you still hold your secrets? Spill, sweet miragist.”

His shoulders tensed. “There is nothing to spill.”

“Aren’t you sly with your worry towards your cousin.”

Faolin stilled. “His what.”

Levsenn batted her lashes. “Oh, have you bothered asking this man his complete name?” She smirked, looking over her shoulder at Vur and drawled, “Come on now, tell us.”

Faolin wasn’t sure she was breathing as she looked at Vur, as if for the first time, and perceived his dark golden hair and the blue eyes. While Syrene’s eyes were the color of a clear day sky, Vur’s were the color of a bright blue sea in sunlight.

Despite a shade variance in the hair, he was a twin to Syrene.

The vein at Faolin’s temple had begun throbbing, at the uncanny similarities in features, at the information tonight had brought.

“You’ve been lying all along?” muttered Faolin.

“Oh, he hasn’t been lying.” Levsenn grinned. “He just hasn’t imparted the truth to you. I smelt the familiarity in his blood the moment I met him, so akin to Syrene’s.” She rubbed at her temple, as if the time in water had not been enough, her expression segueing to irritation. “It’s all been laid bare already,” she snarled at Vur, looking every bit the predator she was. “Speak.”

Another question crashed into Faolin, and fear soared to her throat. “If Syrene is the duce, where in Saqa is the Sword of Ondes …” Her words trailed off as a memory from the Voiceless Pits pierced through her.

You took my sword when I was brought here, where is it, Syrene had said to the overseer. Where in Saqa is my sword?

Vur met Faolin’s gaze, and sighed.

Then began.

“Aunt Hexet had married in hiding, had two children, sheltered them from any thinkable danger. Her complete name was Hexet Evreyan Alpenstride. Every week she visited her family secretly, I helped conceal her beneath someone else’s skin as she slipped out of the forests. From her throne. This went on for years.

“But in the end, someone found her children. One day, when Czar Hexet was in the forests and I had gone to fetch her, two assassins were sent to her home. We returned to her house caked with blood. Her older son, Adlae was beheaded. Adlae was the last full-hemvae with deadly fire mejest, who was to be a duce one day, and take on Czar Hexet’s legacy.

“Syrene was ten, then, a child. Unworldly, untrained, unlettered. But she was the only chance at salvation. Aunt Hexet did not know her own Destiny that night—whether she would survive or not—so she did what had to be done. She anointed a ten-year-old the Protector of the Sword of Ondes, and dumped a world of burden on her, and commanded her to run. So Syrene did.

“I found the assassins, killed one, but the other slipped away. Czar Hexet survived that night. Next day, when I went to fetch the Lady of Wolves for Aunt Hexet, and tell her about the previous night’s events, I found Syrene with Prime Raocete’s pack in the forest—bleeding and traumatized.

“Both the duce and the prime trained Syrene for years after that—now that Syrene was the Protector, she had responsibilities. For six years, things were quiet and calm. But then Syrene disappeared for three decades. Those thirty years, we searched everywhere, frantic and anxious. Duce Hexet was as good as dead, having lost her daughter and the Sword. But then the news arrived that Syrene had been captured, and was being kept in the Voiceless Pits.

“I was sent to Jegvr. I was there for three months, made the Plunge there because I needed my mejest at the fullest and that rotten food of the Pits wasn’t helping. Then concealed myself under my mejest, my cell was only a mirage of myself confined in dresteen. I looked everywhere for Syrene’s cell. When I heard that Chosen will be discharged in a few days, I slipped in their office—found Syrene’s name on the list—and wrote down my own.”

When Vur finished, there was quiet on the rooftop, no one dared speak, or breathe for that matter. Even Levsenn was quiet.

“So.” Vur exhaled. “My name is Vurian Alpenstride.”

Aazem was so quiet, so calm and … unflustered, as if he hadn’t just heard how they’d both fooled Jegvr, and its owners—tcoiines.

But then he spoke. “You must be really young, then—I mean, if you made the Plunge in Jegvr, you couldn’t have been more than twenty when Adlae Alpenstride was slaughtered.” Indeed, Vur looked twenty-two at most.

But Vur only shrugged, any usual mischief had ebbed from that face—that male version of Syrene’s face. Her duce’s face.

Vur’s gaze was on Faolin, waiting for her to speak.

And Faolin … there seemed to be a storm inside her. They had all been here for one person, and she was taken away, her life was being sucked on bit by bit by a sadist prince.

This was too much information in one night.

Gnea wasn’t Gnea, but a siren named Levsenn.

Vur wasn’t Vur, but Vurian.

And Syrene …

Ablaze Kosas.

“Your turn,” Levsenn said suddenly. “Why do you care about Syrene?”

Faolin didn’t suppose she could earn their trust with these secrets, wouldn’t be able to get to Syrene without them.

And so, she told them.

As much as Duce Hexet’s last words to her allowed.