Compass and Blade by Rachel Greenlaw

Author:Rachel Greenlaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Published: 2024-02-20T16:52:41+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Time stops. I look at each of the sirens, waiting for the one pinning me to strike. My chest is on fire, lungs almost empty, and the world around me begins to fade. Knowing these are my final moments, I feel regret that I never found out where I belong. Who I am. That I only tasted freedom oh, so briefly. That I didn’t save my father from his fate. I ready myself, waiting for the dart of that vicious knife. I will take one of them with me if I can. I clutch Agnes’s blade tighter, even as my body shakes and sways. I will avenge my mother and make them pay for her death.

But the one pinning me to the rock lets me go, drifting backward to the others. I falter, finding my mind filling with the cadence of sorrow. With a siren song that echoes my own grief and rage. The creatures are singing. In shock, I recognize the familiar notes, the way the sounds weave around and through each other. It haunts my dreams. It’s the song that came from my mother’s locked chest all these years.

“That’s my mother’s song,” I splutter with the final pocket of air held in my chest. And even though I should be drowning, even though all the air is spent, I find myself relaxing. As I listen to the melody, the notes weaving in and out, I find my body does not need that sip of air. Being down here, I suddenly wonder if I am capable of more than I ever imagined. If this is another reason why my mother left this chest here for me to find.

The singing stops abruptly. For a moment, the creatures waver, faces turning to one another as though a silent conversation is taking place. Then four of the five sirens leave, disappearing between the folds of rock. One stays behind.

She sweeps closer, reaching out a hand. Again, her voice echoes inside my head. Her voice is sweeter now, softer as it washes through me.

Is it you? Mira? We didn’t recognize you. You are so unlike her, yet...

I blink, taking in the creature’s transformed features. Her eyes no longer flash an unearthly crimson, but instead smolder like embers. Her face assumes a more human shape; her fingers no longer end in claws. She touches my arm lightly and I flinch, all the pain that I locked away so long ago resurfacing. I wonder if we can communicate without speaking. If I can somehow speak as a thought, and she will hear me.

Were you there that day when she died? I say in my mind.

I turn accusing eyes on her and she withdraws her hand. She understands. Somehow, in this place, she can hear what I’m shouting in my head.

Yes, I was there. But we didn’t kill your mother. How could we turn on one of our own?

Her words explode in my mind.

I tried to save her. Tried to warn her. But...

One of our own.

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