A Duet with the Siren Duke (Married to Magic, #4)

by Elise Kova

Come to me. It’s a whisper, in a language I feel more than I know. The words shiver across me. Sink into me.

His voice—his song—it feels as if my very soul aches for it.

Mischief dances in his eyes like sunlight on the sea floor.

He feels it. He must. Because his fingers press into the stiff fabric of the corset that covers my stomach, as if he’s trying to grip the need he’s placed in me.

“I exhaust you?” I call after him as he swims away. “Most definitely. You seem to require all my energy and attention these days; I can think of nothing else but you.”

“Good.” He smiles and it is as if dawn itself has broken over this dark, forgotten corner of the world.

His eyes open and in them is all the sadness in the world. Enough to drown the seas. “I hear you. I feel you as though you are near even when we are oceans apart.”

I could spend a lifetime giving to you, and it wouldn’t be enough,”

I try to shrug as though none of it matters. As if he’s not still holding my face with both his hands as gently as I would hope for him to hold my heart.

“When you make my soul sing with notes I never thought possible.”

“I do not expect my heart to survive meeting you unscathed. Though, I’ve known that for years.”

His fingers tighten around mine and he brings my knuckles to his lips. “Then you shall have me.” “Are you sure?” “I am.”

“I will be at your side every second you are on this plane.”

I will be at your side until the very end. Mine will be the last song you hear.”

Ilryth’s song is a part of me now, written on my soul.

I do not breathe, and yet my chest burns as though he has stolen the heartbeat from between my ribs.

This is the only thing I know in the world—this need of him. This want.

“I love you,” he whispers softly. “I love you too much to kiss you, to have you, if your mind isn’t with me.”

A slow, delicate melody trills in the back of my mind. It’s sung by a lone singer, somewhere deep in my soul. A song that’s just for me… And for him.

One steady look from him and the world comes crashing back to me.

He is my tether to this world and will always be. I know that immutable truth in my soul.

But I will remember him. Even in the farthest reaches of the Abyss, where the sunlight has never touched, when all else fades away…there will be the light he has placed in my heart.

Sing for me, my heart says. One last time, sing for me. Sing for me, he seems to echo, just as he had all those months ago.

“Why are you here? You can’t be…shouldn’t be.” Those two words continue to define us. The sight of him is ripping me apart.

“I can’t believe I sacrificed you.” His fingers slide against mine. “My songmate.”

He finishes it for me. “It was the song of our souls, harmonizing as one.” “You, me, we were destined to be together?” I realize I’ve spent so much time learning about the old gods that I’ve learned very little of what “songmate” means. Though, falling in love hadn’t been my concern.

“Ilryth.” His name is a caress on the back of my mind. “I love you.” The smile that spreads across his face is brighter than the midday sun. “And I love you.”

“Goodbyes between us are pointless. I already stole you from death’s Abyss once.”

“If these are our final moments, then let us make a song that will echo into eternity,” he whispers across my face.

Longing and despair swell within me, replacing any hesitation or sorrow with a burning that threatens to consume me. I cannot pull him close enough—grip him tightly enough.

They sing tales of the human who took the mantle of a goddess. Of her lover who descended into the sea and was never heard from again.

Ilryth is as handsome as when I first laid eyes on him. As ethereal as I imagine myself to be now. His markings are the inverse to mine, but identical in all other ways. He is my match, my mirror and counterbalance.

“I was wondering when you would return to me.” He opens his arms and, without need of any other invitation, I run to him.