Page 8 of Siren Problems
CALDER
T he ley current pulls strange today.
Tense. Fractured. Like it’s waiting for a scream.
I stalk the shoreline out of habit more than purpose. The sea’s quiet, but the quiet feels wrong—tight with anticipation. It’s not just the weather, though the clouds have been flirting with a storm all morning. It’s her.
Luna.
She’s down at the old tidepool ruins again.
The ones I warned her not to touch.
And she’s touching something.
I spot her crouched near the edge of a sunken rock altar, elbow-deep in seawater, gloved hand wrapped around something gleaming and half-buried. Her brow’s furrowed, that focused scowl she wears when she’s figuring out a puzzle. The tide creeps in around her boots, but she doesn’t move.
I see the relic before she does.
Silver. Sea-stamped. Edged in siren script.
No.
No, no, no .
“Drop it.”
My voice cuts through the wind like a blade.
Luna startles, whipping around, but she doesn’t let go. “What—Calder?”
I close the distance in a few hard strides. The closer I get, the more the relic pulses. It’s faint—most wouldn’t notice. But I do . It’s singing to me. Or maybe remembering me.
She holds it up, blinking. “It was just wedged in a tide crevice. The scanner flagged it. Some kind of talisman?”
I reach out and snatch it from her hand.
She gasps. “Hey—what the hell?”
“You shouldn’t have touched this.”
“It’s metal, Calder, not a cursed diary!”
I turn the thing over in my palm. The edge is cracked, but the sigil in the center—my family crest—is still intact. Trident and spiral. Siren royalty, etched in binding iron.
I haven’t seen it since the day they sealed my voice.
And suddenly, the tide isn’t the only thing rising.
“Calder?”
Her voice breaks through the roar in my ears. I glance up, and I know she sees it—the change in me. The tightening. The way the ocean behind me rears like it’s waiting on my orders.
“You need to leave.”
She straightens, eyes narrowing. “You’re not my boss.”
I growl. “I’m not asking.”
Her mouth opens. Shuts. She studies me, and I hate that she looks concerned . That she steps forward instead of backing off.
“This relic... it’s yours, isn’t it?”
I don’t answer.
“Why is it reacting to you?”
Still, I don’t speak.
“Calder.”
“Because it remembers,” I snap, louder than I mean to. “Because it’s mine . Because I used to wear it when I sang storm calls and blood treaties and love songs that could drown armies.”
She flinches, but not from fear. From understanding .
And that makes it worse.
“You were a prince,” she breathes.
I laugh. Bitter. Ugly. “Was. Now I’m a warning tale mothers whisper to their sea-witched children.”
Luna crouches again, her voice lower. Softer. “I’m not trying to break you open.”
“Then stop poking around in my wreckage.”
She stands slowly, soaked up to her knees, but unflinching. “You can’t keep locking every truth underwater. Eventually it drifts back to shore.”
I throw the relic into the waves.
The sea accepts it with a hiss.
Luna watches it vanish.
“Why are you so scared of what I’ll find?” she asks, not accusing—just... wondering.
“I’m not scared of you,” I say.
It’s a lie.
Because I am .
She sees through too much. She listens too closely.
And I can’t afford to care about someone who makes me want to be known.
Without another word, I turn and walk away.
The waves lap behind me, gentle now.
But I feel them waiting.
The cliffs rise like jagged teeth behind the cove, wind-scoured and ancient, older than any map dares to mark. I climb them without thinking, boots slipping on moss-slick stone, hands scraped by sharp shale. The wind up here cuts deep and cold, like it wants to peel the skin off your thoughts.
I welcome it.
It’s easier than feeling anything else.
Below, the tide churns around the rocks where I left her— where I lost it. The relic, the control, the last sliver of calm I’ve been clinging to.
I press the heels of my palms into my eyes and curse under my breath.
Why did I let her get that close?
Why didn’t I take it when I had the chance—to warn her off, to shove her out of this storm before she gets swallowed whole?
I lean against a boulder, wind howling past, and force myself to look down.
She’s still there.
Luna.
Kneeling where I left her, watching the surf like it might give her answers if she just stares hard enough. Her hair’s plastered to her cheeks, strands tangled in her lashes. Her hands are limp at her sides. She looks smaller now, quieter. But not broken.
She doesn’t run.
She doesn’t flinch.
She doesn’t treat me like I’m the monster the council warns against, or the ghost everyone’s politely agreed to ignore.
She looked at me and asked me to be honest.
And gods help me... I wanted to be.
I dig my fingers into the rock, the sharp sting a poor substitute for the chaos in my chest.
She’s the first person in decades who hasn’t looked at me with fear.
Not when I warned her off or when I yelled.
Not even when I let the sea answer me.
There’s something dangerous in that.
Because if she keeps looking at me like that—like I’m worth understanding—I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep lying. To her. To myself.
And I can’t afford to open that door.
Not when I’ve spent a century sealing it shut.
Below, Luna stands. She doesn’t look up. But she walks the shore with purpose again, boots splashing in the tide, already scanning the rock pools for more evidence. For more truths.
She’s relentless.
She’s brilliant.
And she’s going to get herself killed if I don’t step in.
But I don’t move.
I can’t.
Because right now I’m not Calder Thorne, brooding fisherman of the Bluffs.
Right now I’m what I was before— prince , voice-binder, heir to a forgotten throne made of salt and silence. A man who once believed he could save a world with song.
And I remember what happened the last time someone believed in me.
I failed her.
The sea took her.
And I paid the price.
I close my eyes, the wind cold against my face, and swear softly in the old tongue.
Luna Wilder is a problem I didn’t plan for.
And if I let her in, this whole place might unravel with me.
But gods...
She’s still there.
Still watching the tide.
Still not afraid.
And that scares me more than anything else ever could.