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CHAPTER 1

The tide pulled gently at Riella’s hair, creating a silvery cloud around her face. The reef was warm from the relentless Zermetic summer and she lingered in the sun-dappled outcrops of coral with her two best friends. Tiny orange fish darted playfully around her tail while she collected rubbish from the sea floor.

“I miss wrecking their ships,” Galeil Sent via siren telepathic connection.

“We all do,” Sent Mareen in reply. “But we must hold back from aggression, as the elders ordered. Against pirates, at least. Slavers are still fair game.”

“Killing slavers is fun,” Sent Galeil. “But pirates put up more fight.” She paused. “What if we accidentally punched a hole in the hull of a Dark Tide Clan ship?”

“Then you would accidentally start another war,” replied Mareen, sending an impatient sigh alongside her telepathic words. “And really, the elders are right. We belong in our world and the land-walkers belong in theirs. We ought to leave each other alone. If only they’d stay out of the sea.” She unhooked a piece of garbage from the coral and grimaced. “What is this?”

Mareen flicked it into the steadily growing pile of garbage they were collecting in a discarded fishing net.

“Who cares?” retorted Galeil with a giggle, a stream of bubbles erupting from her mouth like a string of pearls in the aquamarine water. “Do you miss fighting, Riella?”

Riella forced herself to concentrate on the conversation running parallel to her private thoughts. She rolled over in the water to face her friends.

Mareen’s vivid orange hair flickered in the light like an underwater flame while she meticulously removed fishing hooks from the fins of a nurse shark. Mareen’s purple tail was three times the length of her upper body, beating rhythmically and instinctually against the current to keep her stationary. Thin ribbons of blood rose from the shark’s wounds, dissolving into the saltwater.

Meanwhile, Galeil turned backward somersaults through the water, her dark hair touching the end of her green tail to form a perfect circle.

“I don’t miss holding wounded sirens in my arms,” Sent Riella.

“I suppose,” Sent Galeil, coming to a stop. “But surely you miss attacking their ships. Tearing up their sails. Singing to them,” she added, with a vicious gleam in her piercing violet eyes.

Riella giggled. The others joined in, and soon their giggles transformed into unhinged cackling. Singing to a male human, when a siren was angry enough, shredded his eardrums.

“It was entertaining,” conceded Riella, sweeping her lightly-webbed hands through the water, enjoying its cool, gentle resistance. She smiled. “I always enjoyed making them scatter like rats across the decks of their ships.”

Mareen released the shark, now free of hooks. It nudged the siren’s hand in thanks before swimming away into the cobalt-blue depths. “Ah, you speak like that, but you’re soft on humans, Riella. You linger on their vessels whenever you get the chance. You converse with them. And no one listened more avidly than you during our land-walker lessons with the elders. Don’t pretend otherwise.”

“I’m not soft on them.”

“You are,” chorused Galeil and Mareen. “The only words we should reserve for humans are threats,” added Mareen. “To be swiftly carried out.”

Riella fixed them with a glare. “Curiosity isn’t the same as being soft. I believe it’s a good idea to understand the enemy, that’s all.”

Her friends raised their brows at each other.

“Here,” Sent Mareen, swimming to the garbage net and tying it closed with a length of fraying rope. “Since you love humans so much, you can be the one to deliver this to the boat we passed a way back. But hurry, because we must return to Zydenthis for Thera’s ceremony. Every pod from the realm will be in our city.”

“Our little Thera has come of age,” Sent Galeil, smiling wistfully. “She really needs to hurry up and get her first kill.”

Riella and her friends had their first kills before coming of age at twenty-one. That was three years ago, and they’d had many kills since, thanks to the bloodiest war between sirens and pirates in living memory. The war had ended, but grudges remained.

“She will in time,” Sent Mareen, darkly. “If anything’s certain in our world, it’s danger. That’s what happens when we allow humans to traverse our waters.”

Riella grabbed the top of the net. “For now, I’ll return this garbage to them. See you both soon.”

She swam off with the net in hand, her powerful tail and body undulating to propel her through the crystalline water. Her long blonde hair streaked along behind her like a pale ghost and schools of fish shifted around her in synchronized harmony.

The boat was a shadow on the surface, floating over deep waters. Half a dozen lines ran from the vessel and disappeared into the blue abyss.

A mischievous giggle escaping her mouth in a bubble, she tugged one of the lines. The humans responded quickly, the line growing taut as they tried to reel her in, believing she was a catch. She held the line steadily in place, toying with them.

Then, without warning, she yanked the line hard. A fishing rod splashed onto the surface of the water, the line going slack. She cackled, knowing the sound would travel up to the men. By now, the humans would know a siren was in their midst. They would haul in the lines, or perhaps simply cut them, and head straight for shore.

As the dropped fishing rod sank near her, she caught it, along with the line, and swept them into her net. The boat still hadn’t moved. Riella frowned, wishing to chase them. It was more fun when there was a chase. The humans would do everything in their limited power to make haste in their vessel, while she swam lazy laps below until she felt like making her presence fully known.