Page 18 of Siren Problems

CALDER

T he cave hasn’t changed.

Still smells like kelp rot and stormwater. Still buzzes at the edges like old spells barely holding their shape. Still echoes like something down here remembers when the ocean was young .

I strip to the waist and step into the pool.

It’s colder than I remember.

The water bites, sliding over old scars and fresh regrets, but I don’t flinch. If I’ve come this far, I’m not backing out because the water’s angry.

“Come for absolution?” rasps the eel, coiling from the depths like smoke made flesh.

“No,” I say.

“Then why do you stink of loss?”

“I need answers.”

She laughs. Dry. Cruel. Hungry.

“And you think I give them for free?”

“I came to offer a truth.”

That stills her.

The Oracle Eel moves closer, her face a blur of fins and impossible eyes. “A truth freely given,” she echoes. “Not bartered. Not twisted. Are you sure?”

No.

But I nod anyway.

“Speak, cursed prince.”

I exhale slowly.

And then I say it.

“I loved someone once.”

The water shifts, but she says nothing.

“I was young. Reckless. Full of power and promise and pride. She was the Sea-Warden’s daughter—sharp as coral, with a voice that could command whales. I swore myself to her. Swore I’d return after the war.”

I close my eyes. It hurts. Even now.

“But I didn’t.”

The cave groans, the pool rippling with weight.

“I didn’t go back. I couldn’t. Because by the time the war ended... I’d broken the court’s sacred law.”

The eel watches, unmoving.

“I betrayed the Siren crown,” I whisper. “To save a human fleet.”

“You chose them .”

“I chose mercy. ”

“And she cursed you.”

“Yes.”

Silence falls like a tidal wave.

“Why?”

I laugh bitterly. “Because I couldn’t stomach more blood. Because I watched children drown, and I had the power to stop it. And I used it.”

The eel circles me now, slow and deliberate.

“Your voice was the blade.”

“And the balm,” I murmur. “And the bond. It was everything. Until it wasn’t.”

“You loved her.”

“I still do,” I whisper.

“Not the one who cursed you.”

“No.”

“ The one who might leave you. ”

My stomach turns.

Because that’s the worst of it, isn’t it?

I feel it slipping already—Luna’s presence, her touch, the spark in her when she looks at me like I’m more than the silence.

I don’t know how to hold on.

I don’t know if I should.

The eel pauses inches from my face. “You gave your truth. Now take mine.”

I brace.

“You do not lose her by loving her,” she hisses. “You lose her by fearing that love.”

The cave brightens—just once, a pulse of moonlight from nowhere.

Then all goes still again.

I stand there a long time.

Alone.

Wet.

And somehow... lighter.

Because I said it.

And maybe that means I’m ready to say it again.

To her.

I turn to go, the sting of truth still raw on my tongue. The cave feels heavier now—denser, like the weight of what I admitted is still circling in the shadows.

But just as I set my foot on the first ledge of stone, her voice slithers through the dark again.

“Not so fast, stormborn.”

I freeze.

Her tone has shifted. Not the hungry rasp she used when I first entered—this one coils around my ribs. It knows me now.

“You think confession frees you,” she says, rising once more from the pool like smoke wearing flesh. “But you forget. Magic that binds the heart does not break with simple honesty.”

I narrow my eyes. “You said one truth earns another.”

“I did.” Her grin flashes, serpentine. “But I did not say it was the final truth.”

The pool shimmers. Warmer. Louder.

And her face—if you can call it that—stretches wider, more ancient.

“You have given pain,” she says. “But your silence— your voice —you still keep that chained.”

I shift, suddenly feeling the weight of the silence I’ve carried not as a shield, but as a debt .

“You said the curse is tied to grief,” I murmur. “That it feeds off guilt.”

“I said it feeds on you, ” she snaps. “It lives in your lungs like a drowned oath. You did not lose your voice. You buried it.”

The words hit like cold.

I flinch.

Because somewhere deep, I know she’s right.

The magic that took my voice didn’t just rip it from me.

It demanded I give it up.

And when she cursed me... I let it happen.

Because I thought I deserved it.

She drifts closer, until I can feel the temperature drop where her magic presses into mine.

“Only a freely given voice can break what love once bound.”

My pulse stalls.

She sees it. Smiles wider.

“You gave your voice in love once,” she whispers. “To someone who broke you.”

“I trusted her,” I rasp. “And she cursed me.”

“And now you trust no one,” the eel hisses. “Not with your power. Not with your heart. Not even with a whisper.”

I clench my fists.

“You think if you stay quiet, you stay in control,” she continues. “But that silence— that fear —is the cage, not the key.”

My chest tightens.

“You speak nothing,” she says. “Because you think if you say something wrong again, the world will burn.”

I can’t breathe.

“You loved. You were wronged. And instead of healing , you turned your own voice into a punishment.”

I take a step back.

The cave spins.

“You kept your silence so no one could twist your words,” she says. “So no one could use your love as a weapon again.”

She rises higher. Her coils reach the ceiling now, undulating like smoke stitched with lightning.

“But you forget,” she whispers. “A gift locked away is not safe. It is rotting. ”

The words strike something primal in me.

Because the truth is, I haven’t just feared the curse.

I’ve clung to it.

Used it as a wall between me and anyone who might touch what I buried.

Because my voice?

It wasn’t just power.

It was truth.

And giving it to someone... meant giving them everything.

My heart.

My history.

My name.

The eel lowers her face to mine again. “You want to break the curse?”

I nod.

“Then give it again.”

My voice catches. “To who?”

She tilts her head. “To the one who sings in your silence.”

My heart stutters.

Luna.

“Speak,” she says. “Not as weapon. Not as command. As offering. As invitation. ”

The pool glows faintly. I feel warmth radiate from it.

“Only a voice given freely can undo what was bound in chains of fear.”

I stagger back, breath shallow, limbs shaking.

Because suddenly I understand.

This curse—it’s not a leash.

It’s a wound.

And if I want to heal...

I have to open my mouth again.

To choose my voice.

Not in rage.

Not in defense.

But in love.

Real , terrifying, heart-laid-bare love.

The kind Luna would accept without flinching.

The kind she already gave me.

My knees hit the rock as the truth crashes into me like a wave too heavy to resist.

I whisper her name.

It doesn’t echo.

But it resonates.

Deep in my chest. Deep in the cave.

Deep in the curse.

And the Oracle smiles.

“Good,” she says. “Now go earn her ears.”