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CHAPTERSIX
LIRA
Sai remainedquiet as we waited in the chirping dark of the forest where tree limbs rustled together, and night creatures crackled over dry leaves. It left a stretch of time for me to think for the first time since I’d stepped away from the show.
On the one hand, I’d done it. Years of longing to run and find a way out and I’d finally gathered the courage. But, on the other, in the few hours since making that choice I’d been arrested, lost my fortune, and now stood in a dark forest next to a man who sent warm curls through my stomach. I couldn’t decide if they sprouted more from fear or attraction. It was dangerous, whatever the source.
For the time, I was grateful he didn’t make conversation and, instead, rustled through a bag, the broad slants of his shoulders draped in shadows that blended his ebony clothing and dark hair into the woods like he was some sort of spirit of the night.
Neia crunched into the clearing, holding Elisa, and Sai jumped up. “What happened?”
“She had to”—Neia looked at me, her skin a creamy blue in the moonlight, before shifting back to him—“exert herself.”
Sai snagged a bag. “We should go then.”
“No.” Neia’s voice held a finality to it. “We’re staying here for the night.”
Sai hesitated a moment. His eyes darted to Elisa curled up in Neia’s arms. A lurch of concern pulsed through me. I didn’t know these people, but Elisa had been kind to me. It seemed like she’d gotten injured retrieving my money bag. God, I was selfish. I needed that money, though. I couldn’t get away from here and start a new life with nothing.
Sai’s jaw worked, the muscle jumping and highlighting the sharp edges of his profile. “I’ll help you get your tent up.”
Neia’s posture slumped. She eased Elisa against a log and pressed a kiss to her forehead before joining him. I considered checking on Elisa, but she tucked into herself and closed her eyes. The bad feeling deepened. I’d imposed myself on these people and regardless of who they were, I’d harmed one of them. I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt. There wasn’t a more perfect way to evade Mother, though. She expected me to spend at least an hour—if not the night—with Sai. She wouldn’t look for me.
I could have compelled him to take me. Something about that felt rotten. I hated using my magic at all. It’s why, when he’d not agreed to help me, I’d stopped my song after a single note. I didn’t wish to control others despite most of the other sirens in Mother’s group reveling in the ability. Most of them, like me, had been born into the group and didn’t choose the traveling show and the accompanying lifestyle. However, none of them seemed to hate their destiny the way I did.
I didn’t desire to become the leader of our group, using my magic to destroy lives and teach others to do the same.
Which was why Mother wanted me pregnant.
She didn’t want me to hold the group’s magic either. Instead, she wanted a grandchild she could give it to who she could raise to match her conniving and ruthless ways.
Of course, she could hand her powers off to another in our group.
We’d had this fight a hundred times. The magic was stronger if it passed through a direct bloodline, and that was the most important thing.
“I have to consider what’s best for our entire family, Lirasei, not just one girl’s flippant wishes,” she said on a recent occasion as she stomped her boot against the plank floor of another rented room. The lace of her performance dress ruffled with the motion.
“So many of the others want the magic, Mother. They would enjoy leading the group. Give it to one of them.”
She’d frowned at me. “If only it was so simple. Our powers dilute by half if they’re not passed through blood. Do you wish to take half of your sisters’ magic from them?”
I scrunched my nails into my palms. I wished they were really sisters. That would solve my problem. I turned towards a mirror that had a crack in the corner, as if it had begun the gradual process of falling apart. Like me. “Perhaps it would be for the best,” I whispered.
A charged silence rippled through the room like Mother had released a note of her magic, and I regretted turning my back on her where I couldn’t see her expression. When she finally spoke, her voice came quiet but firm. “You place too much value on human life. They only live a few decades, anyway. Cutting that short a couple of years is not the crime you make it out to be.”
I whirled on her. “If you wanted me to believe that, perhaps you shouldn’t have let humans raise me.”
Her lips pinched, and the surrounding wrinkles deepened. “Now that is a topic I can agree with you on. But the reality is this, Lirasei. You are my daughter. The only one I’ve ever had. My grasp on the magic slips. You will accept the burden of powers until you have a daughter who is old enough to receive them.”
“You should give them to someone else. Anyone else… We scarcely use our magic, anyway. What does it matter if they’re cut in half?”
She pressed her fingers to her temples. “You don’t know of what you speak. And this isn’t an option I’m offering you.” She stepped beside me and gave me a firm look before turning towards the door. “Prepare yourself. Iwillhand the magic over to you on the next blood moon.”
I raised my face to the dark tangle of limbs that made up the roof of the forest. The waxing nearly half figure of the moon peeked through the branches. The mark branding me as Mother’s heiress burned. Sai and Neia had finished putting up two compact tents with domed peaks and bits of scalloped fabric around the top that fluttered in the breeze. Neia walked over to Elisa, lifted her, and disappeared into a tent.
Sai offered my leather purse. I accepted it, the weight of it against my palm sending a pulse of relief through me even as shame still burned on the back of my neck. “I’m sorry if Elisa got hurt to regain this.”
Sai took a deep breath and sat beside me, his gaze set on the shadows that made up the forest. “She’ll be okay in a few days. She has… fainting spells sometimes.”
