SONG of EMBER

23

DELUSIONS

🙜

"What is… this?”

The creature gestured with a single hooked claw, her stony eyes upbraiding Ky Veli as if she were a disobedient child. Ember stared at her mouth, mesmerized—the words did not align with the movements of her lips.

“Must you dishonor your beauty in this way?” she crooned, combing her fingers through her hair. “Why would the noble daughter of Yaniveli cloak herself in the raiment of lesser beings?”

He thought at first that the sirena’s speech was delayed, like an echo, but with each passing moment it became clearer that the words she spoke were entirely foreign to Ember: too many rounded vowels, subtle throat movements, and tongue-against-teeth syllables. His intense curiosity as to whether this marvel of understanding was siren magic at work or the enchantments of the well was dampened as Ky swayed into his field of view, touching a small rip in the fabric of her trousers.

She tugged anxiously at a loose thread, the muscles in her face pulling tighter. Less afraid of her now that he knew she could not see him, Ember curiously brushed his fingers against her arm. They passed through without effect.

Everything here was as insubstantial as the servant of the oracles herself.

“Surely you were not singing for your own pleasure.” Ky’s voice was scarcely more than a breath.

“Certainly not,” murmured the red-haired sirena—condescendingly, he thought. “My songs have purpose.”

“Where is the unhappy traveler?”

“He was happier than he had ever been in his short, wretched life. They always are, even until the end.” The sirena chortled; Ember shuddered. “You have come to partake of my spoils?”

Ky took a small step back. “I would not think of it...”

“Sit,” intoned the sirena, her gaze narrowing. She pointed a single finger—hooked with a wicked black claw—to the opposite side of the fire and smiled. A cruel smile; a mockery. “Eat.”

Ky slunk forward like a beaten hound, sniffing and wrinkling her nose. Her bat-wing ears hung low, twitching at each birdcall and crackling leaf. When she reached the other side, she lifted her head.

“It is very strong-smelling,” she whined. “No man would eat this. You have put stinky weeds in this soup.”

Ember approached with caution, pausing every step to observe the illusion of Ky.

Her mannerisms were quite different to his remembrance, even from the day she had peered fearfully out at him from one of his own fishing nets. There was no defiance, nor playfulness; a groveling sort of submission weakened her posture, which Ember found both distasteful and alarming.

“Men have neither our tastes nor our appetites,” sneered the sirena, winding her fingers through her thick red mane. “Eat, Kyveli, eat.”

The name slipped from her tongue, soft and alluring.

Deceptively so, Ember decided—for there was an undercurrent of threat, like a rumble of thunder from far off, and a dangerous glint in her coal black eyes. He slowly followed Ky to the other side of the fire, where he crouched on the leaves (or rather, upon the flagstones near the well) and kept his gaze firmly on her face. She paid him no mind. He did not exist, for all she knew, and he wondered what she would think if she knew he was watching them both.

“I am not hungry,” muttered Ky, pinching her lips together.

That Ember did not believe. He had known her long enough to be sure she would never willingly turn down a proffered meal.

Yet she knelt before the glowing embers, staring nervously into the pot. It was a lightweight utensil suitable for cooking meals on the road, and when he glanced round the clearing he noticed the edge of an empty blanket bunched against a tree trunk. Someone had very deliberately covered it with leaves, and the sight left a bitter taste in his mouth.

“You are always hungry,” murmured the other, dipping her fingers into the pot and hooking a bit of meat on the end of her claw. She popped it into her mouth and chewed, smirking. “Eat.”

“This is not—” Ky hesitated, throat bobbing slightly as if she knew the words she wished to speak, but could not or dared not utter them. “This is not—our nest. Let us leave at once.”

“We shall leave when I wish to leave. Or have you forgotten that I am the elder?” The sirena grinned at her, licking one fang. “Come, sup with me.”

At last Ky sniffed the stew again.

“We will eat quickly,” she relented.

“Why hurry?”

Her big black eyes darted around the clearing, and she held a hand over the stew pot. “I do not like it here. That is all.”

“Hmmmm,” said her sister, and though it was only a vision from a forest far away, the single note resonated throughout all his body with a power that transcended time. “As you say.”

Slipping into a more relaxed demeanor, Ky picked a bit of meat from the pot and chewed vigorously.

Ember pressed a clenched fist into his stomach and scooted backward on the cold tiles, fighting the urge to be sick. It was impossible not to piece together what was happening, who this fierce woman was, and—worst of all—what was in the stew. Broth dribbled down her chin and her fangs flashed in the dying firelight and she gulped down the accursed meat.

He winced and glanced away.

“Some of our clan have been wondering,” murmured the sister, “about you...”

Ky ate faster.

“Not I, of course, but others have. You should not make yourself so scarce, sister. You have not been yourself since the heretic was slain.”

Through a full mouth, she confessed rather meekly, “I do not think he was a heretic.”

“Then perhaps you would do well not to think at all! What else would one call such a liar?” hissed Ky’s sister. “His delusions would have sown dissent amongst our clan. False hopes, false stories. A false fish, he was.”

To that, Ky had no answer.

She did lie to me, was all Ember could think. She lied… she lied…

His fingers shook, but he clenched them around the knife and swallowed hard, glaring at them both in turns. His stomach churned, yet an acute interest in what was being debated kept him rooted to the ground. It was plain that he was hearing two sides of a many-faceted story, the complexities of which escaped him. But perhaps the well would reveal—

“His delusions were pleasing,” Ky mumbled around a full mouth. “Did you not find them pleasing?”

“Don’t be such a halfwit,” snapped the sirena, pawing another handful of stew into her gob and grinding her teeth together loudly. She flicked a bit of broth at Ky, who flinched. “He was an elder, but a mad one—and he went awry in the end, like all the frailminded fools before him—fah. Hidden mountain kingdoms, men who know of magic… only you could believe such a tale. Eat, and be satisfied. It is all you shall get from this one.”

Something—the words, the tone—made Ky stop chewing.

She glanced up furtively.

“This man,” remarked the red-haired sirena, “did not fear me as he ought. Perhaps he had seen you lurking about, sister? You have been a shadow in these woodlands of late, have you not?”

An expression of tightly controlled fear, which Ember remembered from their encounter with the book, passed over Ky’s face.

“I am sure, Silveli,” she said, swallowing visibly, her neck jerking like a bird’s, “that you are mistaken. I keep to myself.”

“When you wish to,” Silveli murmured darkly.

There was enough of a lull for Ember to pick apart the name. Ky’s parting words on his doorstep had indicated that Veli denoted family, or perhaps had something to do with the clan her sister had referenced; Sil must be this creature's given name.

He wondered what it meant. Something vile, no doubt.

“We spoke for some time as he prepared his supper; what a shame he never got to taste it. All is not lost for us, however! He shall sate our appetites far better than the last bony wastrel you found,” chortled Sil, digging her fingers into the pot. “Besides, I think this shall make for a beautiful adornment when I attend your ceremony… don’t you?”

And she quietly reached into her tresses, twisting a strand which Ember now saw had been braided and looped around a tarnished silver ring. It flashed in the firelight.

At this, Ky’s head snapped up, as if someone had yanked her by the hair.

“Oh, yes, we had a lovely conversation.” Sil glowered from over the pot, her thin smile doing nothing to soften the expression. It chilled the marrow of his bones. “His name, his profession, where he walked yesterevening—and whom he hoped to meet tonight. He told me everything, you see.”

A shiver ran through Ky from her shoulders to her toes, which she curled and tucked beneath herself, retreating inward.

“He did?” she whimpered, her cheeks still bulging with stew.

“He did.” Sil stuck a finger in her mouth and sucked it thoughtfully—though Ember guessed it was only the pretense of recollection, and she was instead deciding which details would elicit the most entertaining reaction from her sister. Her eyes narrowed. “Bren was his name, I believe.”

No sooner had the words been spoken than Ky put out her tongue, the mouthful of stew slopping back into the pot.

Sil’s smile stilled. “You were going to present his body to the elders, weren’t you? Your ascendance is tomorrow… certainly you weren’t planning to show up empty-handed.”

A gentle hiccup echoed through the clearing and Ky’s lower lip trembled for a moment. She covered her mouth with one hand, claws pricking her cheek.

Sil laughed—a hollow laugh which rang out loud in the clearing with such delight that Ember could have killed her where she sat. The potent herbs with which she had flavored the stew, together with the floral musk of two sirenas, must have made it difficult even for Ky to smell out her trickery.

Bren.

Now he had a name.

Someone Ky had known—someone she had eaten.

She had, it appeared, eaten many before him.

He clenched the knife in his hand and watched, silent, sweating.

“What did you think to accomplish with this dalliance? I did warn you not to humor your prey; men are senseless creatures, and my silly sister is all too easily easily led astray by mortal mischief. You might have laid claim to him beneath the crescent moon, and shared your rewards with the rest of us; instead, you partook of our meager portions while we yet hungered!” Sil licked her lips. “An offense against our clan, which I have rightly remedied. Thank me, sister.”

Ky began to quake, body swaying like a leaf in a wind. Sil leaned over the fire as her lips peeled back in a snarl.

“Thank me, Kyveli.” A gutteral warning—verging on a growl. “Thank me.”

Her quivering mouth formed soundless words.

“Louder, Kyveli.”

“Thank you,” hissed Ky, her face as pale as the oracle’s bones.

“Now sit and eat the rest of this. After all these days you have waited for a taste, why waste a single bite?”