Page 22 of Siren Problems

CALDER

T he cave is older than memory.

Black stone carved by salt and time, sloping down into the belly of the sea. Bioluminescent moss veins the walls like an underwater galaxy, and the air thrums with low, eldritch vibrations—music too deep for ears, but not for bone.

She lives here. Of course she does.

Nerida.

My mother’s sister. My aunt. The last true tide-singer of the Eastern Deep.

And the only one who knows how to unravel this curse without unraveling me along with it.

I step onto the threshold.

Her voice reaches me before she does. “You’ve grown tired of silence, then?”

I flinch.

Because it isn’t just a greeting. It’s a scalpel.

She emerges from the dark like she’s poured from it—all silver scales and skin that shifts like dusk over water. Her hair floats behind her like strands of black kelp, and her eyes... gods, her eyes are mirrors. Not literal. Worse.

Emotional.

“I need answers,” I say, and my voice comes out hoarse. Worn. “About Lysira.”

“Ah.” She tilts her head. “So it is her again.”

I nod once, throat tight.

She gestures for me to sit by the singing pool. I do, sinking onto the cool stone. The surface of the water pulses with rhythm—slow, heartbeat-deep, matching mine. I hate that I find comfort in it.

“She was once your consort,” Nerida says without looking at me. “And she is the one who bound you.”

“Why?” I croak. “I know I broke an oath, but?—”

“You didn’t just break it, Calder.” Her tone sharpens. “You shattered it. You left the Siren Court at the height of its power. You loved her and then turned your voice—your sacred voice—against them. You used it to save the humans she called prey.”

I clench my fists. “I made a choice.”

“And she made hers,” Nerida replies. “The curse she crafted was no simple silencing. It was a soul-braid. She didn’t just take your voice—she stitched it into your heart. Bound it to your guilt, your self-hatred, your silence.”

I stare into the glowing water.

“And now?”

“Now, it will only unbind if you give something freely.”

“What?” My voice is barely a whisper.

“Vulnerability.” She finally looks at me. “A truth spoken without armor. You must voice the thing you most fear. Only then will the braid loosen. Only then will the curse crack.”

I swallow. My mouth is dry.

“She said I was her storm,” I murmur. “And I left her to drown.”

Nerida’s eyes soften. “You never drowned her, Calder. You drowned yourself. And now you’re crawling back to the surface.”

I think of Luna.

Her fire. Her fury. Her faith.

“She’s not Lysira,” I say.

“No,” Nerida agrees. “But she might be your undoing in a better way.”

A pause.

“Are you willing,” she asks, “to let her hear who you really are?”

I close my eyes.

And for once, the silence inside me doesn’t feel like safety.

It feels like a prison.

I don’t go straight back to the surface.

Instead, I let the ocean hold me—suspended in cold, heavy quiet beneath Nerida’s grotto. The pressure wraps around me like weighted cloth. Not crushing. Just... insistent. Like even the sea itself knows it’s time I stop hiding from what I am.

There’s a ridge here I used to come to after battles. When I was younger. Angrier. Drenched in salt and shame and the kind of grief that doesn’t make noise—it just hums beneath your bones. I used to think the silence down here matched me.

Now I see it mirrors the prison I built with my own hands.

Not one spellbound by Lysira’s curse—but one I reinforced every damn time I swallowed my truth and pretended it didn’t hurt.

Gods.

I don’t even know when it started, this obsession with keeping everything buried.

Maybe it was after I saw the first human drown and did nothing.

Maybe it was the day I used my voice to drag a ship away from the rocks, and realized what it felt like to save someone instead of seduce or destroy.

Maybe it was the day I met Luna—loud, brilliant Luna—who didn’t shrink back when I growled, who pushed harder when I snapped, who cracked me open without ever asking for permission.

She doesn’t know it, but she’s already undone me in more ways than the curse ever did.

She looked at me like I wasn’t monstrous.

Not pitiful, not broken. Just... frustrating. Complicated. Worth figuring out.

And for someone like me, that’s more terrifying than any curse.

Because I’ve clung to the belief that silence is control. That if I just kept my distance—physically, emotionally—I’d never be dangerous again.

I’d never hurt anyone.

But Luna makes me want.

To be known. To be forgiven. To be held without consequence.

I drift lower, toward the old trench where Sirens once gathered to mourn. Coral bones twist from the rock like pale fingers. It smells like time down here—dark and deep and endless.

This is where I used to scream underwater.

When the curse first took hold, I would dive so deep my ears rang, and scream with everything I had. Soundless. Ineffectual. Just pressure in my throat and fire behind my eyes.

Back then, I thought silence was punishment.

Now I know it was a wall.

And behind that wall was the part of me that still believed I had something left to say.

I hover in the middle of the trench and close my eyes. Salt stings my eyelids. My hands curl loosely at my sides. Not fists—just readiness. Not resistance—acceptance.

I think about the truth Nerida said I’d have to give freely.

Not facts. Not exposition. But a truth with teeth.

One I’ve never said out loud—not even to myself.

It comes slow, soft, but real: I want to be loved.

Gods, there it is.

It makes my chest hurt.

I want to be loved—not feared, not revered, not tolerated.

And I want to love back.

I want to say her name without thinking it’s a mistake. I want to touch her without fearing I’ll corrupt her. I want to believe I deserve even a scrap of what she offered so freely.

But I don’t just want her.

I want to speak again.

Not just in magic. Not in siren-song.

I want to say things that matter.

To wake up beside her and mutter curses at the sun. To fight and make up and share food and stories and space. To grow old—even if I never age.

To exist with her in ways that feel ordinary and alive.

I let the thought settle.

It’s the first time I’ve admitted it—not just the curse, but the life I’ve refused to live.

Because it’s safer to ache in silence than to risk the sound of your own longing.

But I’m done with safety.

I’m done with shadows and control and pretending that keeping quiet makes me noble.

It makes me lonely.

And I am so damn tired of being alone.

The current nudges me forward, gentle now. As if the sea, too, is tired of my pretending.

So I turn, slowly, and begin the long ascent toward light.

And as I rise, I whisper—soundless still, but truer than any chant or spell: I want to be free.