![]() Fish and human both, with the beauty of neither. Their deep-blue flesh is dotted with fins that spread up their arms and spines. Unlike sirens, mermaids have stretched blue husks and limbs in place of hair, with a jawlessness that lets their mouths stretch to the size of small boats and swallow sharks whole. Mermaids more fish than flesh, with an upper body to match the decadent scales of their fins. ![]() These are the women who take the human bounty of their kin. Left to suffer until their blood becomes salt and they dissolve to sea foam. I’ve heard things: tales of lost hearts and harpooned women stapled to the ocean bed as punishment for their treachery. Hearts are power, and if there’s one thing my kind craves more than the ocean, it’s power. I count each of them, so I can be sure none were stolen in the night. Every so often, I claw through the shingle, just to check they’re still there. There are seventeen hidden in the sand of my bedroom. In disbelief that it’s over, she and Elian watch as the Sea Queen’s body fades into sea-foam.I HAVE A HEART for every year I’ve been alive. When the rubble settles, Lira sees her mother’s lifeless body lying in the snow. The force of the cyclones causes an avalanche, and Lira protects herself and Elian until it stops. The Sea Queen and Lira then battle until Lira uses all the magic she can muster to send two cyclones towards her mother, killing her. The sirens turn to attack the Sea Queen, but she uses magic to separate them from the fight. However, Lira convinces the sirens that they could be happier if they weren’t under the Sea Queen’s rule. As powerful as her mother, she now faces off with the Sea Queen, who tries to use her subjects against Lira and Elian. Elian decides to trust her and gives her the Crystal of Keto, giving Lira infinite power. Lira kisses him and tells him that he’s not affected by her song because he’s stolen her heart. Elian, unaffected by her song, plays along. She commands Lira to steal Elian’s heart, and Lira pretends to lure Elian to the water. She tells him to go, and he reluctantly does.īefore they can reconcile, the Sea Queen attacks and turns Lira back into a siren. He manages to slip away from the pole, but with his hands still tied, he can’t help Lira. Soon, the crew of the Saad shoot cannonballs at the Xaprár, and one breaks the wooden pole to which Elian is tied. Rycroft ties Lira and Elian up in a room belowdecks, and when Elian wakes up, he tries to escape. The Xaprár crew surround them, and Elian is knocked unconscious. He tries to kidnap Elian to make him climb the Cloud Mountain, but Elian and Lira fight back. Rycroft is one step ahead of the prince and reveals that the man who told Elian about the Crystal was part of the Xaprár crew. Rycroft invites Elian onto his ship, where Elian asks if Rycroft knows where to find a (fictional) stolen Midasan heirloom, hoping that the pirate will allow him to search his stash. ![]() His aim is to trick him while looking for the Págese necklace that is the key to the Cloud Mountain chamber. The Sea Queen then tells Lira that she must hunt for the heart of a regular sailor for her birthday, taking away her glory as “The Prince’s Bane,” the siren known for killing only princes.Įlian has Lira pose as his new girl when they meet Tallis Rycroft, the ruthless captain of the Xaprár. Lira offers to take Khalia’s punishment to protect her from the Sea Queen’s wrath, and the Sea Queen beats her and crushes the heart she stole. When they return from their hunt, the Sea Queen isn’t happy and decides to punish them both-Lira for hunting too soon, and Khalia for not stopping her. She only steals hearts from princes, and since the ship is the only vessel on which the Adekarosin prince sails, she decides to take his heart while her cousin takes the queen’s. Though Lira is still two weeks away from her birthday and therefore not supposed to steal a heart, she notices that there’s a prince aboard the ship. They stalk a human ship, and when they are close enough, they begin to sing their hypnotic siren song, which will lure their human victims into the sea and to their deaths. Lira, a young siren, is tasked with taking her younger cousin Khalia out to hunt for a heart for her birthday. ![]()
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