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“Katrina,” she hissed, once she stopped struggling long enough to look up and notice me. Her face instantly softened when her eyes flicked to the grand trident in my hand. “Well done, my dear. I don’t think my divers could’ve managed such deep waters. Glad to see you didn’t get crushed beneath all that pressure.” She smiled.
“If you think I got this for you, think again, Cordelia.” I adjusted my grip on the metal rod, twisting my palm around it to feel the weight of it. “I’d rather die than help you. Not after everything you’ve taken from me.”
“You’d rather die?” She snickered. “Bold words. Perhaps all that pressure did get to you, after all. Perhaps that crushing darkness finally just weighed too much.”
I hesitated, knowing she referred to something more than just the depths of the sea. “You’re cruel, Cordelia.”
“Angelfish, now, now. We’ve talked about this. That’s no way to speak to your great grandmother.” She choked out the words as the man squeezed her, one arm across her throat and the other holding her hands behind her back. The dismissiveness in her words sent fury flaring through my bones.
“I know why you’re this way. You’ve been denied your siren form too long,” I didn’t know why I was wasting my time talking to her. My plan didn’t include drawing things out like this. It was supposed to be quick. I was supposed to have ended this—ended her—by now. Why couldn’t I do it?
“And just who told you that, dear? The filthy pirate you fell for? Did he tell you before or after he went on his killing spree? Or was it when you were screwing him in that cave?”
I clenched my jaw at her mention of Milo, ignoring the urge to question how she even knew about those things. “I’ve experienced it for myself,” I said through gritted teeth, raising the trident and pointing the prongs at her.
“Then you know what it’s like to have all that power just trapped within you, begging to be released and given the reins. You know what it’s like to realize you were made to use it.” Her eyes fluttered, beckoning me like she was trying to convince me to take a bite of the sweetest poisoned apple.
“Yes,” I said, stepping forward so that the trident’s sword-like prongs rested inches from Cordelia’s stomach. “And it made me realize I’m stronger than I ever knew.”
“Stronger?” She smiled. “And what about crueler?”
I hesitated, my arms shaking both from the weight of the trident and the fear of what I planned to do next. She kept talking, pushing me to my limits.
“Go on, Katrina,” she said slyly, her words smooth, deep, and seductive like a slow song. “Kill me. Give into that side of you that’s just dying to be heard. Put that trident through me like you planned to. You don’t have a soul to save, after all, so why not just indulge yourself?”
I trembled all over, my breath trapped in my chest. The swaying of the ship made me even more uneasy, and I thought I might vomit but my empty stomach reassured me that wasn’t possible. Cordelia continued talking, and I listened like a fool.
“My dear girl, you saw the cruelty and corruption of mankind firsthand, and yet you’re still trying to keep me from putting a stop to it. Look at what they did to you. They even left you with a permanent reminder.” I felt the healing scar on my face sting as Cordelia’s eyes fell on it. “You saw what man does. It’s no different in this century than the last or the next. They will always take and destroy what isn’t theirs to own. And yet you still want to keep this world intact as it is. When we could erase all this and start anew.” Her vibrant blue eyes bore into mine, and in them I saw my own reflection, holding the trident, my wet hair clinging to my skin and tangled across the scar along my jaw., thinner than I was weeks ago before I’d been forced to embark on this journey of survival. “If you’d just let it go.” Cordelia whispered, gently and warmly, a sudden contrast from her earlier statements.
Her words took hold in me, and I fumbled, sorting and questioning my own thoughts. All too late I noticed I’d stopped humming. David was losing his grip on Cordelia. I rushed to sing again, forcing him to strengthen his hold. He lost his grip around her neck, but was able to restrain her from her waist, pressing her arms to her side. And I could see that around her neck, tucked into her silky blouse, was the scale necklace I could never seem to get rid of. Her most powerful weapon was now free.
“What a lovely voice, dear. But you’re inexperienced. A siren’s song is something that takes time to master well. If you’re good enough, you can even use it on more than one mind at a time.”
She flicked her gaze to the opposite side of the ship across the deck. McKenzie and Noah were just now climbing over the railing in their soaked clothing, two divers flanking them with fresh towels ready.
With her eyes fixed on them, Cordelia began singing a song of her own, like mine but more powerful, making me feel dizzy as each ethereal note reached my ears. I didn’t know if it was possible to fully control another siren, but it was clearly possible for her to mess with my head somehow, just like she had at dinner.
Within seconds, the demeanor on my friends’ faces changed, becoming harsh and hollow as they became entranced by Cordelia’s voice. I didn’t know what she planned to make them do, but I couldn’t let her take them. I shoved the trident forward, touching the spear-like tip of the highest middle prong to her now exposed throat, desperate to stop her singing. But no matter how hard I tried to force my hands to plunge the trident into her larynx, I couldn’t find the strength to do it.
“Looks like you need to give into your siren side a little bit more,” Cordelia coaxed. “If you weren’t so stubborn about keeping that halo around your head, we could’ve changed the world by now. Or you could’ve at least killed me.”
Before I could think of a response, McKenzie and Noah rushed at me, stealing the trident from my grasp. I fought to pull it back, but Noah overpowered me easily and shoved me to the floor as McKenzie yanked the trident from my hands and carried it to a now unrestrained Cordelia.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Cordelia said sweetly to McKenzie as she took the trident with a smile. “I’m so glad rescuing you two paid off.”
As I reeled from being slammed into the wooden deck, I looked up just in time to see Cordelia tearing the scale pendant from her neck and pressing it into the base of the trident, where it cast a white glow just like when Milo offered his blood to it. And then she grasped the rod with the other hand, making her claim as its new wielder.
My jaw dropped as I saw the scale absorbed into the trident, pulled into the metal like quicksand, and the glow brightened so intensely that I had no choice but to cover my eyes. When the light diminished, the hold on McKenzie and Noah had broken, and they both rushed to my side after shaking off their disorientation.
“What’s happening?” McKenzie asked, helping me to my feet.
“She gave up the last of her magic in exchange for control of the trident.” I replied, unable to look away as Cordelia relished the sight of the sea scepter in her hand.
“You didn’t know how to use this, Katrina,” Cordelia said, touching the tips of the prongs like they were flower petals. “Because you don’t know how to channel your pain and anger into power. You’re too afraid of it. You’re too afraid of yourself.”
“I don’t want power,” I croaked out dryly, my words breaking beneath the realization that I’d failed. “I just want to be left alone.”
“No, you don’t, dear. Being alone is the last thing you want. You want back the man you think you love.” Cordelia stepped toward me, keeping enough distance between us that I couldn’t reach the trident, while her glowing electricity shield sizzled as a reminder not to even try. But her sapphire eyes softened for just a moment as she continued, and I listened, my body aching and my blood racing. “Trust me, I know. That’s all I wanted for a long, long time, too. But I finally realized I was wasting my time. I wasted my magic on cursing them, and I wished I could undo it for the longest. But losing my siren form made that impossible.
