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Right now my power is at its fullest, so I sing to expel some of it. I’m not enchanting anyone. My song doesn’t have to be a command. Riden flinches anyway. I pretend not to notice.
When I’ve depleted it some, I dip a finger into the water. I almost ask Riden whether or not he’s ready, but I realize neither he nor I will ever be ready for this.
I pull the water through my skin, let it fill me. It’s like taking a cool drink of water into a parched throat. The way the drained abilities within me crave strength and power. Crave the water.
I take in my surroundings with new eyes. Eyes that cansee the individual fibers of wood on the walls, the stains on the floor, the flecks of gold in the human man’s eyes across from me.
The humans have trapped me again, but this time they were kind enough to leave me someone to play with.
“Alosa,” he says firmly, as though it is a command. Worthless human. No creature commands me.
“Alosa.” He says it again, but this time it’s different. It’s soft, pleading.
Where before there was just another human, now there is Riden. My Riden.
Mine.
The siren still pushes to the front. She is ruthless and brutal. Hungry for her own enjoyment. Hungry for power. But I place a cage in my mind, put her behind it. I don’t need her now.
“It’s me,” I say.
Riden lets out a long breath.
I am used to the siren after dealing with her all these years. It’s so strange. Because I am her. When I take in the water, I become a creature with no knowledge of my human existence, no knowledge of those I care about or my human aspirations. I become what I would have been if I’d never known life above the sea.
It’s terrifying to know I could lose myself to her. But it won’t happen here. Not in an environment that I control. I take comfort in theAva-lee’s familiar surroundings.
But what I’m most concerned about right now is Riden. He appears all right, despite what I’ve just put him through. I dare to speak.
“Before,” I say, “when I was replenishing my abilities and you disobeyed orders by coming toobserveme, you didn’t speak. And I didn’t come to my senses. I remained a siren the entire time. I wonder if it’s your voice, somehow, that does it?”
“What about when you’re underwater?” Riden asks. “I can’t speak to you then, but you’ve still managed to come to your senses three different times.”
“You’re right. Those times, you…”
“Kissed you,” he fills in.
Sorinda remains as apathetic as always as Riden continues talking. “When you saved us from Vordan, you held me under the water. I thought I was going to die, and the last thought I remember having was that I wanted to kiss you one more time before that happened.”
He’s never told me that before.…
“That’s when I came to,” I say, remembering. “And when you fell into the water during the storm, you were drowning again. The siren put her lips to yours to give you some air, so you wouldn’t die before she could have her fun. That’s when I was myself again.”
“And then during the battle,” Riden says, “I put my forehead to yours. Not quite a kiss, but it was close.”
I stare at him through the bars. “Why did you do that? You couldn’t have known what I was trying.”
“Somehow, I just thought that if I could get closer to you, maybe we wouldn’t die.”
It is not only the siren who reacts to Riden, then. He somehow knows how to handle her, too.
“Let’s go again,” I say, dipping my finger in the water once more.
Riden doesn’t object, so I draw it in.
***
Riden and I practice for hours. Each time, all he has to do is say my name, and I’m me again.
