“If you had to choose, how far would you go?”
Revenge. She would take revenge. In this life, in the next, in any that would be given to her. Solely to put true terror into the cowardly figures who had seen her off with smiling faces. The same fear that her people had felt when the flames had engulfed them.
“If you had to decide, which life would you sacrifice?”
She would release them all, would put every single human through the same hell. Over and over. Like a cycle that no one could escape, while everyone thought they had reached the end and seen it all. The hunters would change sides and the hunted would take up weapons they never thought they would need.
“Won't you wake up?”
The silky soft voice, which to Salia's ears was like the distant sound of lovely sirens, was met with incomprehension at first. The water had long since filled her lungs and the death that held her tightly in its grasp was part of the blackness in which she lurked – for another chance.
“Open them...”
The request remained the same. Her senses bent, clinging to something she couldn't place, and simultaneously she took a deep breath. The whistling of her lungs reached her ears as she tore open her eyes. One blue, like the sea that had swallowed her in its magical glow, one milky blind.
For a moment, her body hung in mid-air and her head took two more breaths as she tried to sort out what had happened. Still clinging to her body was the scrap of cloth she had been left with; the useless bodice that hung down on her like a sack. Her body was unchanged.
“Salia...”
Hissing, one demanded her. Goosebumps chased across her senses and the silky soft voice that had so carefully released her from the darkness now consisted only of a distorted rumble of the sea. Vibration settled in Salia's pores, bringing rigidity that made her forget.
For a moment, her thoughts no longer mattered.
Instead, she turned, letting her gaze slide over her icy surroundings to notice pointed paws at her sides. Long, curved claws that trapped her like a hamster in a cage. Yet, there was something protective about it that dulled the shiver and brought the figure behind to the fore.
Her breath faltered.
For a moment, Salia thought she could no longer feel her heart beating. Her throat clenched, chasing sharp pain into her chest, while her shoulders trembled faintly.
A face, covered by linen, larger than the front of an ordinary house, stared at her. Every breath this creature took roared like the waves of a tsunami. Its paws held Salia fixed in one place, appearing to be the only thing besides its face that seemed to exist. The rest of the body followed invisible waves, seemed like thousands of scraps of cloth gathered together to create a ghost – a fairy tale that had caught up with her in death.
But it wasn't a ghost. It wasn't a fairy tale. And it probably wasn't even Death, whose obscured features clung spellbound to her. The strange heartbeat that warmly penetrated Salia was too clear for that.
Long, washed-out, light hair curled in the water. It was a long-forgotten fragment in the unexplored depths of Aywotoc – Salia couldn't explain the figure any other way. A being waiting for something she couldn't comprehend. Her mind went blank. Whatever lurked behind the veil, she would never be able to put it into words. Not when everything possessed an unreal touch from an unclear past.
Of days lived she had never been a part of.
“You understand.” The creature's growl was directed at Salia again. “Welcome to the waters of the long forgotten.”
You can read my mind? Cautiously, Salia tilted her head. Her body floated, she breathed entirely without gills, and though none of this was possible, the illusion of her surroundings seemed real. Real enough that she didn't want to break it. So she kept silent. Lips pressed tightly together, she didn't dare to make a single sound. All she could bring over herself were loose thoughts.
“It would be a lie to confirm, and yet it would be part of the truth.” The creature's claws moved closer. “The water does not forget. It filters, understands, and reaches on, child of the lost.”
What do you want from me? She tried not to be distracted by the gigantic hands, thin as spider legs; tried to face death with serenity. Everything that opened up before her was a second chance. Unexplored discoveries in an unknown world with uncharted beauties that no one would ever see. If she tried, if she could get back up there, she could go back and live on.
Back to the mainland where she would be hunted.
Her teeth gritted inwardly as she lowered her head.
“Centuries, I waited,” the creature continued. “Trapped in the depths of the sea, I, a siren of the lost. We are descended from the same people and yet we are of fundamentally different origins.” In one motion, it swung its hands aside, so the world around her was taken over by sandy soil. Tiny grains chased through the sea like a desert storm, clouding the view. “We are the ones who sought vengeance too late.”
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It seemed as if all at once they spoke the same language; as if revenge was all it took to understand each other. They were the same and yet they didn't belong to the same time. The only thing that had remained in those generations was hatred.
Tense, Salia found her way back to her question. What do you want from me?
“Of all those who met their end in these seas, you are the first whose hatred is so profound, so pathetic, that you would sacrifice all your lives for it.” Without further ado, the siren leaned a little towards her. “So I came to find out if you are indeed the figure who will make a difference. I want to find out if you can achieve something that will live up to your hatred. Just as it has been done before. I want to see if you can carry the suffering of thousands on your meagre shoulders.”
Salia had to tilt her head back to follow the siren with her gaze as it raised its head again. The massive figure took its distance, yet kept her in its cloaked gaze in every breath.
There was silence between them, a tense stillness that made Salia lower her eyelids. Briefly, she let herself fall into the blackness, breathing in consciously and out with even greater awareness. Her body remembered, throbbing in her hands, her shoulders, her face. She remembered the others, the woman who had collapsed beside her and set the boat on fire. Behind her, the warden's preaching with the wish that one day a hero would come to eradicate the misfits of the land. Whips snapped. Children cried out for their mothers, eventually to pass away in silence. Starved and abandoned in the face of dozens of hands that had done nothing.
Then distorted faces holding dead bodies in their hands.
Mouths contorted and tears dried.
Wild smiles, promising toddlers that strangling them would make them die faster.
The cold on their skin and the shame of being paraded in rags like an animal. The strange feeling of being grabbed by the horns.
Half in thought, Salia raised her hand to feel the hard horn on one side. Grooves nestled rough against her fingertips. They had always been a part of her and yet she had felt a fleeting instant of shame when she had hit her nose in the boat. Somewhere between indifference and disgust, she had felt embarrassment. Just for a second. So trivial that it was only in those breaths that she noticed it.
“What do I have to do?” This time Salia spoke her question, allowing the surrounding illusion to collapse and the siren's linen cloth to press against hollow cheekbones that showed a distorted smile.
“Show me you have the will to fight, even in the face of death. Even when your body has no strength left and your will has long been broken. You have no more than a few moments in which to breathe.”
It wasn't an offer. It was a challenge that Salia only understood when the siren reared its massive body and then, all at once, threw itself at her with vigour.
Unsure how to move her limbs, Salia tried to find a direction. A way to evade. But her body was too cold, too rigid to obey. The wave that crashed down on her as the Siren's body whizzed along millimetres above her, the linen threatening to trap Salia, and squeezed the breath from her lungs. Air bubbles robbed her of the rest of her vision. Fabric threatened to drown her, even though the oxygen was still hers.
Perhaps all this was merely another way of suffocating. Another way of dying cowardly.
Heart racing drove Salia's arms, made her struggle. She slapped against linen, against rags, freed herself from the tangled mass that had taken her in. The water instantly became a part of her, carrying her body around to follow the siren's body.
The claws that made the creature cut through the liquid roared in Salia's senses with every movement. Still, she kept her gaze fixed on the massive figure that came hurtling back at her in a wide arc.
She wouldn't last the ten minutes if she let herself get caught in the linen again. So this time she swam towards it, ready to grab it if she had to. It was the only chance.
But it was no game. It wasn't a little fight to find out if she was any good. It wasn't an attempt to show that she wanted to survive.
It was a challenge of death.
Before Salia could dodge, one of the razor-sharp claws cut through the flesh of her upper arm. Blood drenched the water a spongy red, pain coursed through her body like a thousand knife stabs. She tore open her mouth, but no sound came out. Only bubbles swirled around, carrying life away and leaving Salia behind. Similar to the moments, to the pain that had come over her when her nails had been pulled in a dark room full of insects. Nails she was still missing and had completely forgotten in this previously peaceful place.
The pain in her upper arm faded in the same blink of an eye, while the tearful gazes within the water weren't noticeable. Instead, Salia's attention wandered to her hands. Shaky, unsteady fingers of a teenager who hadn't reached the end yet.
She hadn't yet reached where the lost and forgotten wallowed.
She could still fight.
Her hands clenched into fists. The throbbing in her upper arm came to the fore again, but this time, there was no uncertainty. There was only one goal. A single desire that shot flame-like through her body and made her grind her teeth.
Revenge.
She had been shamed enough, had taken enough, had seen enough to demand more than she would ever be given elsewhere. There was more she could have than death. More she could choose than her downfall.
She was worth more than that.
People would see it. This siren would understand. The erect hairs on Salia's body, the icy skin contrasting with the fire in her belly – the rage would engulf her and Salia would use it as a weapon. If she wanted revenge, she had to fight. She had to eliminate anyone who stood in her way, no matter if it meant the death of Couvia's entire army. Even if it meant sacrificing her hands, her fingers, her entire body, she would bring about a new age.
The heat inside seethed. This time unrestrained, eager, willing to burn until there was nothing left of her. Even in flames, she would bring salvation to her people. She would protect her kind and let the demons flourish.
“Then show me!” The siren's movements had stopped. Its claw still carried a thin thread of blood as it pointed to some debris Salia hadn't noticed before. The sand had been too dense and her attention too spellbound.
But the calm that now lurked in her mind as her fingers twitched, ready to rip the linen from this beast's body, made her glance at the spot shown.
A place where a spear stuck deep in the stone of forgotten ruins.
Splendour, beside which rested a protective shield.
The legendary spear.
The fairy tale that people preached.
She could become a heroine.
The saviour of her people and the monster of a new story.
And all at once, Salia felt the first smile in months on her lips.