Mantis was paralyzed into silence for a few heartbeats. Then she found words. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came looking for you. I arrived yesterday, by the Nell,” the siren replied. “Your companion, the boy, mentioned this place once. I knew nothing else, but I thought it would be my best chance of finding you again, to come here.”

  “But why?”

  “I need your help.”

  Mantis blinked. The surprise stole her ability to speak.

  Yilenn looked miserable. Her face was pained and dispirited, her complexion paler than it had been and her lips of soft rose were slightly downturned. She’d wrapped the large rectangle of cream-colored fabric around her body to cover her near nakedness, her fins poking from beneath the hem of the improvised garment.

  Her feet looked a lot like any other human’s in their shape, but the resemblance stopped there. As her legs, they were covered in iridescent blue scales, and from the webbed area of her toes and the surrounding edges of her feet protruded the long and thin, semi-translucent appendages thinly boned by cartilaginous needles within. The dark blue of her tail-legs faded into a gradient that culminated in pale, pearlescent grayish blue, like the crest of a wave, at the tips of her long and wide-spanning fins, and vertical stripes of indigo, cerulean and teal ran the length of that satiny skin.

  As she was entirely barefoot, her delicate fins stretched uncomfortably along the dirty wooden planks of the floor, catching and folding in on themselves from the roughness of the surface. That had to be very unpleasant for her.

  “I have your shoes. Let me bring them to you. And clothes,” Mantis said. “Then we can talk.”

  “Thank you.” The siren looked desperately grateful. “I shall wait here.”

  Mantis went to find Leroh and their horses. He was in the same spot where he’d been, crumpled on the ground and sobbing quietly. Teela approached him.

  Yilenn’s shoes were compressed into pathetic, deformed versions of what they had looked like before Mantis had hastily crammed them into her already-full pannier, but they would have to suffice. Mantis took them out and used her hands to try to restore them to their former shape, tugging and bending and pushing at the stiff fabric with her fingers. When she eventually had to call her efforts good enough, she held them under her arm and dug in her saddlebags again for a change of comfortable clothes. The siren’s voluminous dress remained stored in one of her bigger bags but, for now, a simple tunic and leggings would be better, she thought.

  After grabbing a waterskin, a thick slice of stale bread, some cheese, and an apple from her food supplies, Mantis turned to leave.

  Teela said under her breath, “I will stay here with my brother.” She’d sat beside him on the dirty ground with her legs crossed and raised a hand to clasp his shoulder.

  She looked so young, and so sad. Her plump, smooth cheeks were flushed with suppressed tears and her big brown eyes were lowered and uncaring, not awake and observant as was usual for her. Her misery was like cold emanating from the hardened earth in winter, reaching out to suck the warmth from Mantis’s very bones. It was almost unbearable to be near.

  Mantis gave her a slow nod. “I’ll be back shortly.” Then she left without looking back.

  The little house Yilenn had found for herself was small but well-kept, with a freshly thatched roof that had miraculously survived the surrounding fires, and nice varnished timbers. After a single hard knock on the heavy pine door, the siren called out from inside, “Come in.”

  She was seated at the dining room table with her legs lifted onto a second chair that she’d pulled out in front of herself, keeping her fins carefully off the floor. “It bothers you, then, to drag them on the ground,” Mantis observed with her gaze on the intricate things dangling sadly off the chair.

  “Yes. They are very sensitive, and the skin clings to dirt. I was thinking of fashioning something out of this tablecloth to cover them up.” She grabbed an edge of the thin linen spread atop the round table at her side and lifted it assessingly. “It frightened the unsworn outside to see me bare.”

  “Here, drink some water.” Mantis walked a few paces to stand in front of her and deposited the waterskin in her creamy, slender hands. Yilenn brought it to her mouth and gulped down deeply five, six, seven times, then lowered the bag to her lap with a sigh. She seemed drained of liveliness.

  Mantis took the waterskin back from her and went down to a crouch. She reached to grab Yilenn’s left leg by the ankle. At the feel of her scales, a little gasp escaped Mantis’s lips. It was like warm, malleable glass under her fingertips. She proceeded carefully, slowly lowering the blue leg to rest on her bent knee with the fin cascading down to the ground. As Yilenn had said, the unusual, smooth skin was spotted with grime, ash, and dust from the streets. Mantis brought the mouth of her bottle to the uppermost part of her fin and slowly poured a fine stream of water down to rinse all the filth off. As the clear liquid slid through the streamlined surface of the siren’s impermeable skin, it carried with it all those impurities easily, falling in a trickle on the floorboards underneath.

  When Mantis was done with the one foot, she placed it back gently on the chair and picked up the other with an equally light touch, setting out to cleanse the right fin just as thoroughly as she’d done the left.

  Then, seemingly very swiftly, she was finished.

  So she thought it wise to dry her off a bit before the final step of the shoes.

  With the soft, dark cotton of the tunic she’d brought, Mantis bent to delicately wipe away the lingering moisture off the damp sheets of shimmering satin as best she could, trying not to irritate or pull on any part of the limb. Only when that was done did she finally stand up to regard her work.

  Yilenn was watching her oddly.

  Her blue eyes were wide, made to appear even wider by the angle at which she gazed up at her. Her mouth was hanging open and her lovely white teeth showed a little through the parted center of her lips.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Put your shoes on,” she reminded her.

  Yilenn grabbed the piteous shoes from where Mantis had placed them on the table with a gentleness they did not deserve and brought them to her feet. Then began a process that Mantis was a little ashamed to call fascinating.

  She knew the footwear caused her discomfort, and that walking in two legs demanded a steep price from the siren, but the methodical way in which she folded and rolled her fins to fit into the soft fabric of the poulaines was undeniably interesting. It was the grace with which she accomplished the awkward task that she couldn’t peel her eyes away from, the practiced effortlessness that only an act performed thousands of times could grant.

  In no time, the things were on her feet, the procedure completed.

  Yilenn drew a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. “That’s better.”

  Then she stood and let her curtain drop.

  Mantis tried looking away. In fact, she bodily turned herself to the side to avoid staring, but her fast eyes drank a quick sip of the sight before she managed to wrench them away.

  Yilenn was wearing her translucent shift, only substantial enough to make it inaccurate to call her naked. Falling just past her hips and clinging tightly to her form, the blue gauze did nothing more than offer the excuse of a garment worn, a part covered. But could one call a part in near-full display covered? Could one say she was clothed if every contrast, every line and color of her perfection was vividly visible and nearly shining through the meager material, demanding to be admired?

  Mantis didn’t look.

  Soon enough, Yilenn informed her that she was done.

  “I brought you some food,” Mantis put in uncomfortably, pulling out the second chair the siren had been using and sitting down a bit rigidly to face her.

  “I thank you,” she said, and her teeth flashed in a little stiff smile as she reached over to pick up the red apple from the small pile of supplies. Her first bite of it spilled two thick drops of juice down her chin that later fell onto her chest.

  “You wanted help with something?” The words came out of Mantis in a rush.

  “Yes, I did. I do.” The siren swallowed and reached up with her free hand to scratch her neck anxiously. She bit her lower lip for a moment. “I need to know how you were able to defy your God.”

  “Why?”

  “Because mine decided my breeding time is upon me, and I’d like to defy him.”

  That took Mantis’s breath away. She’d not been expecting those words, and it horrified her to her core to hear them. Then a deeply troubling connection started to form in her mind.

  “Tell me this is not my fault.”

  The red-haired woman did not reply, and in her silence Mantis found her answer.

  Mantis’s head dropped forward and she pushed her brow into her palms with her elbows supported on her knees.

  Why were these things happening in succession like this? Was it possible to do absolutely everything wrong?

  She knew the answer to that, too: She’d gotten involved with too many people, formed bonds that brought nothing but trouble.

  “It’s not your fault.” Yilenn’s melodically accented voice was like a lullaby. “I chose to help you, and he didn’t like it. He’s punishing me for the disloyalty, and for my thoughts regarding him. This isn’t your doing. It’s mine.”

  “What happened?”

  “He didn’t care for how you got around his time limit with my assistance, I believe.” She paused and looked off into the distance for a few moments before continuing. “When I went to him with your offerings, he took notice of me. I just meant to drop them off into the abyss; it’s what we normally do. He never comes up; we don’t see him. But, this time, he rose.”

  “No,” the word escaped Mantis’s mouth.

  “He said I was growing old and would soon lose my siren’s beauty, become useless. Then he sent forth his command. I’ve never experienced anything like it.” Her wonderful eyes searched to meet Mantis’s gaze. “He thrusts me toward them, to men, especially those of strong nature. I can sense them, among the Sea folk but also the unsworn. There are some with…brighter souls. I couldn’t explain it… He makes me want to mate with them, as if I desired them, but I know I don’t. I don’t want this.” She clenched her fists and brought the back of her hand to her lips pensively. “I don’t feel like myself. It’s as though…I’ve taken a drug. My mind wanders. I don’t… And it’s a punishment. So I won’t do it. I must defy his command. I can’t do it. I won’t!” The volume of her voice had steadily risen with every new sentence and culminated in a near yell at the end.

  Mantis only watched her, hopelessly sad.

  “There is no special technique. I just resist it.”

  Yilenn’s eyebrows rose. For a time, she said nothing. Then, “You just resist it?”

  “Yes.”

  “But, but how? How do you manage? When he orders me to drown an innocent child or a man, a helpless old person, I…don’t want to do it. I’ve tried fighting the urge, but I always give in. He owns me. He has control over me. I can’t imagine ignoring that compulsion. How can you just ignore it?”

  “My Goddess owns my soul, too, Yilenn. I suffer for it, and she always ends up getting her way, eventually. But I can endure it for a time, if I really want to.”

  “She did not get her way last time, not when I was there. You gave me those lives, and I could see how badly your master hungered for them. But you fought her, and won.”

  “Yes, I suppose.”

  A dark silence reigned for a dozen heartbeats before Mantis released a pent-up breath and spoke again. “I’ll do what I can, then.”

  Yilenn lifted her eyes to her, a glimmer of hope in her face. “What do you mean?”

  “Come with me. I’ll try to keep you away from the men, or them away from you. Maybe, if you resist the push for long enough, he’ll relent. Perhaps he will leave you alone, if you continue to refuse him.”

  Yilenn did not respond. There wasn’t anything useful or clever to say. She knew—they both knew—that it was a naive dream to cling to, a nothing plan. And yet they both wordlessly agreed, then, to pretend that it was something, for there was nothing else to wish for at all.

  After the siren had finished eating her fill, they left the little house behind and walked in gloomy silence to the children and their awaiting mounts.

  If Leroh was surprised to see their odd acquaintance there, he didn’t let it show. Teela remained uncharacteristically quiet.

  The day was bright, uncomfortably so, as if the Sun intended to rub salt in their wounds with his burning vitality. The sounds of the poor surviving wretches laboring to clear away the destroyed majority of their town reached Mantis’s ears, and the terrible combination of burn and decay her nose.

  She dared to say what was certain to be painful for Teela and Leroh to hear, “I will take you back now, if we’re done here.”

  Leroh then lifted his head from where he’d kept it hanging downward with his shoulders curled in. From the ground, he looked up at Mantis and met her gaze straight on, eye to eye, without fear, a thing he’d rarely—or perhaps never—done before. His lips trembled, but he did not speak. Instead, his sister cleared her throat and said in an emotionless, hoarse voice, “We need to go to our mother, in case she’s alive. Leroh has other loved ones who were taken. We must try to help them, if they live. Please.” Mantis frowned at her, shocked and a bit outraged. The girl stared back with nothing but weariness in her youthful face. “Please.”

  Please.

  Mantis closed her eyes and bent back her head to face the blue skies above with a blowing sigh that could have put the Wind herself to shame.