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January 6 - January 12, 2025
TECHNICALLY, I’M A MURDERER, but I like to think that’s one of my better qualities.
I’m still not quite cold enough for the ocean that birthed me.
“Look at you,” he whispers. “My monster, come to find me.”
My monster found me and I’m going to find her right back.
My fins are gone. My mother has damned me. I want to die.
“How did you get the map?” she asks. “My charm.” “No, really.”
“Ever the cynic.” “Ever the pirate,” she retorts. “You say that like it’s an insult.” “You should assume,” she says, “that everything I say to you is an insult.
We continue on that way, swords arcing through the air, our breath ragged. Soon there’s sun in the distance, or perhaps even moonlight. Everything is muted and as Lira swoops her blade down on mine once more, I let it all fall away. My mission, my kingdom. The world. They exist somewhere other than in this moment, and now there is only this. Me, my ship, and a girl with oceans in her eyes.
Every action will betray. Every choice will slaughter. Despite what my mother says, I seem to be the exact kind of monster she wanted.
“Poison?” I muse. “Were you keeping that around for your future wife?” “It’s not lethal,” Elian says. For a killer, he seems oddly offended at the idea. “And no.” He pauses, then turns to me with a half smile. “Unless you were my wife.” “If I were your wife, then I’d take it.”
“What would you be losing?” he asks. “If I married you?” I stand to tower above him, pushing away the unraveling thing inside me. “I suppose it would be my mind.”
Some people burn so brightly, it’s impossible to put the flames out. Thankfully, that’s just what I need.
“You can’t just kill everyone you don’t like.” “I know that. Otherwise you’d be dead already.” But it’s not true. It almost surprises me how untrue it is.
I reach out my hand to pull her up, and the look Lira gives me is nothing short of poisonous. “Do you want me to chop it off?” she asks. I keep my hand hovering in the space between us. “Not particularly.” “Then get it out of my face.”
Always a prince, never just a man.
always an angel never a god
“I think I understand why the original families didn’t use the crystal back when it was first crafted,” he says. “Genocide doesn’t seem quite right, does it?
“People don’t tell secrets because someone needs to know them. They do it because they need someone to tell.”
How strange that instead of taking his heart, I’m hoping he takes mine.
“I can assure you,” I tell Yukiko. “The next time I face her, I won’t even blink.” I feel the compass jolt against my hand and, slowly, the pointer shifts.
Any human who takes a siren’s heart will be immune to the power of their song. Only Elian didn’t need to take my heart; I gave it to him.
“I don’t like you because you’re nice,” Elian says. His forehead touches mine, his lips hovering a breath away. “That says a lot about your psyche.”
The fire blots out and the smoke clears, and in the abyss of charred snow and melted gravel, two armies stare back at us. Human and siren, side by side. Waiting for their prince and their princess to deliver the promised end.
