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“We were that close to beating him?” Niridia asks.
“Stop talking,” Mandsy tells her.
“It distracts me from the pain!”
“We’ve been in tough situations before,” Riden says, “and we made it out alive. We’ll do it again.”
“Are you working on another brilliant plan?” I ask.
“Not yet. But I’m sure I’ll think of something. And this time, I’m going to avoid getting shot.”
The situation is too dire for me to laugh, but I appreciate Riden’s efforts at lightening it. I stare at the porthole in my cell. It offers a torturing glimpse of freedom while being utterly useless.
Through it, I see the fleet move farther out to sea, and my ship moves with them just a ways. Just enough for me to get a view of the fight that’s about to happen, I realize. The ship is moving for my benefit.
Though my father’s men all have their ears covered, it won’t stop them from communicating. The fleet already has signals in place. My father has different flags he hoists up in the air, each one with a different meaning. They can still coordinate an attack.
My focus is no longer on me and my crew, but my mother and the sirens. They won’t come to the surface, will they? Not when they can see the hulls of all those ships. They must know they are at a disadvantage. But how could they know their voices won’t work on the men? They’ll think themselves invulnerable when pitted against them.
“Stay under the water,” I whisper. I did not come all this way just to lose my mother to death.
At first nothing happens. The ships anchor themselves and wait.
Until a man is thrown overboard.
I didn’t see it happen, but I heard the splash and then spotted the man in the water. Did they draw straws? Or did Father pick some unknowing victim, lure him over to the side of his ship, and push?
All is silent for a moment. Nothing but the pirate stirs in the water.
And then a song can be heard, faint at first. Then overpowering. I assume the poor sod in the water can’t hear it, because he doesn’t dive down toward it. Instead I watch as graceful arms grasp onto him before pulling him below.
The water stills once again, but not for long. Several more songs rise to the surface—the most beautiful, glorious songs I have ever heard. They’re all different, coming from many sirens at once, but somehow the melodies do not clash. They rise and fall together in cadences that pierce my heart.
My men are unaffected. Their ears are uncovered, the wax probably stolen by my father during the attack, but it is of no matter. True to my mother’s promise, the sirens are not pulling the four men left in my crew under their spell.
They sing to all the other pirates, inviting them to join them in the invigorating water, promising them love and warmth and acceptance. Heads full of luscious hair breach the water’s surface, mouths open in song. They move tantalizingly, trying to entice the men into the water.
It’s odd how clear the sound is amidst the exploding of gunpowder.
Battle cries carry to us on the wind. Sirens shriek and hiss.
Many men hold harpoons, waiting until the right moment to fling them into the sea at targets I can’t see clearly. Others point cannons or muskets directly into the water, firing and reloading as quickly as possible.
The water turns rapidly in multiple currents—the currentsof swimming sirens. Luminescent bodies float on the surface of the water in a tangle of rich hair and blood-stained skin. And some of the sirens turn to songs of grief instead of those of seduction.
While the men on the ships remain unharmed, some do not get to fight from safe heights. Many are forced into rowboats to fling harpoons from a shorter distance. Others on the boats point their guns at the water, but they cannot reload them quickly enough. As soon as they’ve deposited one round into the water, arms in glistening hues, from ivory to golden-brown to midnight black, break the surface and drag men under. One siren flings herself out of the water, leaping over the boat as a dolphin might, and plummets into an unsuspecting pirate, knocking him into the sea below with her.
She had a beauty that was almost painful to look at with hair the color of white starlight, strung with pearls and shells. It clung to her body as she thrust herself out of the water, reaching clear down to her knees.
The sirens look so very similar to human women. If it weren’t for their sharpened nails and teeth, and exquisite beauty, one wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
Even without the lull of the sirens’ songs, the pirates stare, mesmerized, at the water. It costs many of them their lives.
It’s a strange thing for me to see firsthand the brutality and beauty of my own kind. So much of what I am makes sense. The ruthless killer in me might be part of my nature, rather than my upbringing.
A head of red hair appears above the ocean’s surface.
“No! Get down!” I scream the words as loud as I can, but they cannot be heard over the distance that separates us, over the cannon fire and gunshots.
