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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Elise Kova
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February 6 - February 10, 2024
“I’ll be all right. I can handle men like him,” I reassure her. “I heard that,” Ilryth says dryly.
My chest rises and falls, but I don’t feel water. I don’t feel air. I’m not the woman I was. More magic than flesh… I’ll never be her again.
“My treasure room,” he says, only after I look back to him following a long silence. “Treasure?” I balk. The thought was so quick I couldn’t adjust my tone to be more polite. There are a few things of value here, certainly. The crons tied up, for one. Some of the navigation tools are worth some pretty silver to the right buyer, those that aren’t ruined by the seawater. But most of it…is random waste.
“Lady Lellia, Goddess of Life, is wedded to Lord Krokan, God of Death. Together, they complete the circle and maintain the balance.”
“Sirens wield magic through our songs, for song is the language of the soul. There are common anthems—ones which we all know. Personal ones sung in the tongue unique to our bones.” He reaches forward, as if about to touch me, but refrains. His fingers ghost over my skin. The sensation of the water moving between us is like a caress and I am momentarily captivated.
“I will see that the hymns are written across your body.” He motions to the markings on my skin, a single finger dragging against my collarbone. “But placing them on your soul is something only you can do through singing them yourself. And every word you sing will come at a cost. You will have to make space for this new power. And when you—” “Enough. Say it plainly,” I demand. Firm. But not harsh. I know when a man is stalling. “Every word of the hymns of the old ones that you learn will eat away at your mind—at your memories. And you must let it happen. Otherwise you will go mad from trying
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It’s that memory of the creek. The first time Charles told me I was beautiful. The first time he kissed me. “Kulta’ra.” With a word like a sigh, that singular moment in my history slips through my fingers, gone forever.
There’s a blank void shortly after the first time I met Charles in the market, but before him asking for my hand. What was there? Something…surely. Something to do with him. A wicked smile crosses my lips. He thought he had marked my soul. But I unraveled his hold on me legally. And now, I will eradicate all memory of him. My life’s only regret might be Charles not knowing just how easily I could expunge him.
“They do. Red is for strength. Blue for luck. Black for truth. Green for vitality. Magenta for promise. Yellow for prosperity…”
He finally releases my hand. I’d forgotten he was holding onto it yet am painfully aware of its absence. Why does it feel so natural for him to touch me when it is proclaimed to be forbidden?
Not on me. The lighthouse. But that’s his priority; it’s understandable…it’s what keeps Tenvrath safe. Of course it’d be the focus. He’ll ask about me next, I’m sure of it.
“Do not insult our customs,” Fenny says curtly. “Just because you are designated for death doesn’t mean the rest of us are. Don’t be so selfish as to think that your actions don’t impact the rest of us.” “Selfish?”
Humans need to breathe air. Live on land. Need to see unfiltered sunlight… I’ve already lost so many of those things that connected me to my humanity—my mortality. I need something left to remind me that I’m not just magic. That I’m still Victoria.
“Do I look like a man who can be told what to do?” No. And, dangerously, I like him even more for it.
“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.”
“But…we siren slowly forgot the words of the old ones. Lady Lellia’s songs were harder to remember than Lord Krokan’s.” He stares out at the nothingness with a sad expression. I remember in his memory when he lamented not hearing Lellia’s words. “It was postulated that the roots died when we stopped paying homage to her. Then, with Krokan’s rage allowing the forces of the dead to bleed into our world, the roots began to rot; it is now solely Lord Krokan’s domain. The balance is off. This is Death’s grave.”
“Perhaps because we’re in the Natural World. Or perhaps because…I am closer to you than before.” Horror seizes me. This can’t be happening. Especially not here and now. “What do you mean?” “We’ve sung together.”
“You’re right. But whenever you are ready to—want to discuss what you’ve endured…I will be here for you.”
I leave it behind. How many times in my life will I just ignore everything that I once had—once was—to become someone new? Is there any part of me that’s actually…me? Or am I nothing more than a shape-shifter, becoming whatever I need to be to survive?
“And it was all an illusion, wasn’t it? If not him, then you. If not you, then your god. Surely I’m more than a thing to be claimed. That can’t be all there is for me…there must be more.”
“I hear you. I feel you as though you are near even when we are oceans apart.” His hands run up my shoulders to cup my face. “So tell me, who is ‘he’?” Every muscle in my body goes rigid. I am tense from head to toe. I can’t… I won’t…
Slowly, the light fades. The outlines of the undersea carnage of the Gray Passage are nothing more than hazy glows left behind whenever I blink my eyes. But the light is not entirely gone. It clings to me. It is within me…it is…them. Thank you, I hear in the back of my mind. The words are little more than a butterfly’s wings. Brief and fleeting. Gone the moment you feel it. But…it almost sounded like Jivre.
“How did you know it mattered so much to me?” While it wasn’t a secret, it also isn’t something I’ve told him. He shrugs. “Ilryth,” I say with a probing tone, so he knows he’s not getting out of this. “There were a few times, when you were setting sail, that I caught glimpses of you.” “You visited me?” I whisper. “Why?” “You fascinated me.” He gestures to the room. A room of seafaring “treasures.” Even though I had my suspicions, I also had my doubts; it couldn’t all be because of me…could it? “Besides, I had to make sure my protections on you were still strong,” he adds offhandedly.
“For you, Victoria, anything.” The words crash upon me like a wave, carrying me back to that moment just on the other side of the Fade. The moment where I realized, undeniably, that I would like to kiss him. As I stare into Ilryth’s warm eyes, it dawns on me that these urges might not entirely be one-sided. But…acting upon them would be our undoing.
“I enjoyed trying to see where you’d end up next, even if my traveling pools wouldn’t permit me to always follow, or your lighthouses wouldn’t allow me to stay for very long.” I can almost hear the smile in his words. “At least I could be there before you crossed the Gray Passage in your world, trying to ensure you had all the protection I could offer.”
“I was so lonely for so long, but I was never really alone, was I?” A dam breaks in me. Tears I thought I’d long since stopped crying come forth. My hands release his shoulders and fly to my face, covering it, trying to hide from the world. Trying to hide from my shame for not realizing it sooner.
“You don’t have to repay someone for their love. It’s given freely.” “But—” “No buts. That’s it. It’s that simple. If someone loves you, truly loves you, it’s because they want to—because they can’t imagine a world in which they don’t. Because you make their soul sing just with your mere existence.”
“Not because of it, in spite of it. Who we are is independent of the trauma that tries to mar our souls. It is a part of us, it might teach us, but it does not define us.”
“You are new to our world so you are ignorant, and you are marked for the old gods, highest of holies, deserving of reverence…but I will not tolerate disrespect, especially from a human. You will show me appropriate decorum.” I narrow my eyes slightly. “We’ll see about that, Ventris.”
“And we will get what we need from you, one way or another.” “You want me to fear you.” My words are soft as silk, but as strong as steel, and I am not backing down as he continues to try to loom over me. “But I don’t.” “Then you forget your betters.” “No, I know that you need me to engage in the anointing. You can’t force it upon me. I must learn the words. And I also know it’s too late to find someone else. There are only a few months left until the summer solstice.” I ease away with a smug smile. “So let’s cut the posturing, shall we?” Ventris looks as though bubbles might come from his
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“Yes, what of that touch?” I interject just as quickly, pinning Ventris to his shell with my stare. “In fact, I was touching him. It was necessary for transportation through the pool and nothing that could anchor me to this world. But”—I continue speaking even as he tries to get a word in—“what of you grabbing me? Was that necessary? A touch those same knights of yours could corroborate?”
“I told you once that we all have a song in our soul.” “Yes…and you can hear mine?”
He’s going to ask me about who made me feel unworthy. I’m already trying to string together what I remember around the voids of my mind the words of the old gods ate through. Who would’ve thought that whatever it was that I so desperately wanted to forget, is now something I’m trying to remember. “What is the purpose of the cloth that adorns your ships?” “Excuse me?”
“I do not expect my heart to survive meeting you unscathed. Though, I’ve known that for years.”
“Is it shameful to admit I was wondering?” He hums in thought as he eases off me, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. “Only if it’s shameful to admit I am all the more excited by your wondering.”
The first Human Queen, even, was said to have come and planted a tree to shade the old goddess of life. Lady Lellia sheltered under it, and then became one with it. “As the tree grew, her song seemed to waver. She rooted into the world, but her people faded. The dryads vanished. Her song hasn’t been heard in thousands of years.”
I can’t help but look over my shoulder, back at the tree and its mysterious door. Ilryth called it Lellia’s home…but what if it is her prison? If it is, what does that mean for the Eversea, for the sirens, and for the relationship of the god of death with the goddess of life? Is Krokan husband, or captor?
“She must be delighted that one of her own has returned. She is singing hymns of your joy and—” “The song didn’t sound joyful, Ilryth. It sounded painful,”
“The roots, in the trench, you said they were severed.” “To try and stop the rot.” “And who dictated all of this?” “Duke Renfal.” It is not lost on me that the man who was in charge when Krokan began raging was the same man who led the carving of spears from tree cuttings. I stare at my hand as the tingling fades away, trying to choose my next words as delicately as possible. I know I’m treading on dangerous ground, but I must ask all the same.
What did Duke Renfal have to gain from weakening the Lifetree?
“Love shouldn’t hurt,” I murmur. “Victoria—” “He does not love her.”
For five years, our souls have been bound together in an unconscious duet. Our movements were in tandem, even worlds apart.
“Thinking of all the reasons I could not go to you—should not…shouldn’t even want you. And yet.” He shifts, deepening the kiss once more. “For every reason I thought of, I wanted you all the more. When it comes to you, every no becomes a yes.”
“You know how sisters are.” “I do not.” Stillness overtakes him. His wide eyes stare at nothing. The man looks as though he has been stabbed in the gut.
“Why…are you going through with this sacrifice?” The question has a slight tremble to it. “Because it is my honor to be the offering for Lord Krokan,” I say. “The hymn commands it.” “Is there any other reason?”
“I cannot lie with a woman who has lost her sense of self.”
“Have you seen Ilryth lately? He hasn’t been showing up to his meetings as expected.” My brow furrows. “Who?”
The moment I lay eyes on him everything else falls away. 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. Who is he?
When he has finished, he holds his hand before me. A single dot appears on my shoulder that encompasses his whole song, then he eases away.
But now he hovers before me. One steady look from him and the world comes crashing back to me. I want again. I feel again. The memory of him lingers on me, grounding me here in this place. Just as they all warned it would. He is my tether to this world and will always be. I know that immutable truth in my soul.
