captain and Imke were lost among the tangle of struggling crew.
I deserved to be abandoned for what I had done, but Morainn was not as cruel as I was, as I had so briefly become. While Antares lashed himself to Triss, Morainn flew to me, her eyes blazing.
“Are you Eiren?” She shouted, but before I could consider what she meant, she clapped a hand around my wrist and pulled me to the vessel’s highest point. The waters churned at my thighs, and the panic that rose within me was like a sickness. Would I die for what I had done? This was my fault. Whether it was with another mind or an alien purpose, it didn’t matter. I was like a woman possessed, but I could not excuse my animal heart, the dread goddess that dwelled within. Are you Eiren? I wasn’t sure.
The captain appeared before us, shouting something we couldn’t hear, but before Morainn and I could reach him a wave struck against the vessel like a fist and she was parted in two. I plunged into the water before I could get a breath, thrashing. Morainn was torn away from me, or me from her.
Of course I couldn’t swim; I had never been submerged in water before. The roar of my fear filled my ears where the storm had, and my eyes began to burn in the black of the waves. I could see nothing, and though I had the sense at least to shut my lips tight against my last breath, my flailing limbs were useless. I was sinking and too selfish to want anything but to survive, even if it meant living with what parts of me had so recently proved themselves unworthy.
It grew so quiet that I was sure, so sure, that I would become light enough to rise to the surface again. I saw a glow like a lantern perceived through a colored screen, and a sense of disbelief flared in me, perhaps the last of my senses. The glow dispersed into many focused points of blue-green light, shimmering as they drew near. Only when one of them blinked did my last breath escape me in a bubble of surprise, and when the siren put her scaled hands upon my face, covering my mouth, when her children put forward their hands as though to pluck out my eyes, my hair, but lifted me instead on all sides, what I felt more than anything was fear. By my own power I could drown and die. In their hands I felt the power to drown the whole world, but the will to deny it.
I knew they would allow me to live. I didn’t know if I deserved to.
Chapter 10
Water and sand clotted my lungs, thicker than the blood that pumped sluggish from my heart to my hands and feet. I coughed and sputtered and rolled from the wave that retreated from the shore, dragging the hem of my dress and scrap from the hull of the ship with it. Tangled hair and seawater made it difficult to see, and I scraped both from my eyes. I thought perhaps my sight had been damaged, for though it had been midmorning when we had sailed out, the light now was twilight, purple as a bruise. Tongues of tide licked at my legs and feet, greedy, and I crawled forward until my nails dragged in dry sand. The time that I’d spent in the womb of the sea, her rollicking, wet belly, had seemed no more than a few minutes. Perhaps there was no such thing as time in the depths where the sirens dwelled.
I was alive. Their light hands, like the touch of waves, had preserved me and carried me here. The desolation of the beach was a meager comfort, though how far I was from Cascar I didn’t know. A world or years away, no amount of time or distance could be enough for me to accept what I had done and seen. When I had touched the sea and raged at the resistance I met, I had known then that what Gannet claimed was true: I was Theba. The shadowy encounter in Re’Kether had not convinced me, but the delicate brush of the siren’s finned hands had painted me with the certainty of it. I had been my whole life a girl whose heart raced at treachery in stories and shied from it in all worldly encounters, but it seemed I was becoming a woman that yearned for it. Some creature
I deserved to be abandoned for what I had done, but Morainn was not as cruel as I was, as I had so briefly become. While Antares lashed himself to Triss, Morainn flew to me, her eyes blazing.
“Are you Eiren?” She shouted, but before I could consider what she meant, she clapped a hand around my wrist and pulled me to the vessel’s highest point. The waters churned at my thighs, and the panic that rose within me was like a sickness. Would I die for what I had done? This was my fault. Whether it was with another mind or an alien purpose, it didn’t matter. I was like a woman possessed, but I could not excuse my animal heart, the dread goddess that dwelled within. Are you Eiren? I wasn’t sure.
The captain appeared before us, shouting something we couldn’t hear, but before Morainn and I could reach him a wave struck against the vessel like a fist and she was parted in two. I plunged into the water before I could get a breath, thrashing. Morainn was torn away from me, or me from her.
Of course I couldn’t swim; I had never been submerged in water before. The roar of my fear filled my ears where the storm had, and my eyes began to burn in the black of the waves. I could see nothing, and though I had the sense at least to shut my lips tight against my last breath, my flailing limbs were useless. I was sinking and too selfish to want anything but to survive, even if it meant living with what parts of me had so recently proved themselves unworthy.
It grew so quiet that I was sure, so sure, that I would become light enough to rise to the surface again. I saw a glow like a lantern perceived through a colored screen, and a sense of disbelief flared in me, perhaps the last of my senses. The glow dispersed into many focused points of blue-green light, shimmering as they drew near. Only when one of them blinked did my last breath escape me in a bubble of surprise, and when the siren put her scaled hands upon my face, covering my mouth, when her children put forward their hands as though to pluck out my eyes, my hair, but lifted me instead on all sides, what I felt more than anything was fear. By my own power I could drown and die. In their hands I felt the power to drown the whole world, but the will to deny it.
I knew they would allow me to live. I didn’t know if I deserved to.
Chapter 10
Water and sand clotted my lungs, thicker than the blood that pumped sluggish from my heart to my hands and feet. I coughed and sputtered and rolled from the wave that retreated from the shore, dragging the hem of my dress and scrap from the hull of the ship with it. Tangled hair and seawater made it difficult to see, and I scraped both from my eyes. I thought perhaps my sight had been damaged, for though it had been midmorning when we had sailed out, the light now was twilight, purple as a bruise. Tongues of tide licked at my legs and feet, greedy, and I crawled forward until my nails dragged in dry sand. The time that I’d spent in the womb of the sea, her rollicking, wet belly, had seemed no more than a few minutes. Perhaps there was no such thing as time in the depths where the sirens dwelled.
I was alive. Their light hands, like the touch of waves, had preserved me and carried me here. The desolation of the beach was a meager comfort, though how far I was from Cascar I didn’t know. A world or years away, no amount of time or distance could be enough for me to accept what I had done and seen. When I had touched the sea and raged at the resistance I met, I had known then that what Gannet claimed was true: I was Theba. The shadowy encounter in Re’Kether had not convinced me, but the delicate brush of the siren’s finned hands had painted me with the certainty of it. I had been my whole life a girl whose heart raced at treachery in stories and shied from it in all worldly encounters, but it seemed I was becoming a woman that yearned for it. Some creature
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