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I can't swim. The thought leaves as soon as it arrives. I'm not going in the water. Only putting my toes in it. I kick my shoes off, letting the sand settle between my toes on each step as I wander closer and closer to the incoming tide.
The voice calls my name again and I spin in circles, searching to find the person who needs me so desperately.
"Elva," I hear a normal voice call, and finally, I spot her. The Syren Queen sits on a throne of water, only a few feet from the shoreline.
"Valta," I respond kindly. "Is everything alright?"
"Everything is fine, my dear. Though I can't quite hear you. Can you come a bit closer?"
With a few more steps, the water crashes over my ankles, nowhere near as cold as I expected. While it's certainly not warm, it's pleasant, and I imagine how lovely it would feel on a hot day, lounging in the shallow water as the sun rains down.
"Elva," Valta's voice is suddenly much closer. "I need you to focus."
"Focus?" I ask. "On what?"
"I need to know what the king has said about the missing Syrens," she tells me, her ethereal voice more song than spoken. "Please."
The sound floats into my head, wrapping all my thoughts in a warm embrace. Nothing could be bad here with Valta. I can tell her everything, and she'll take care of it.
"There are missing Syrens?" I ask. "That's not good."
"No, it is not," she agrees, a bite in her words as she appears even closer. "But the king must know something."
"Why would Kairon know something?"
The embrace becomes a vice, squeezing my skull until I scream. "Tell me. I know the king trusts you. Tell me what you know. What is he doing about my missing Vanya?"
I scream in agony again, trying and failing to clutch my head. Why can't I reach my head? Only then do I notice that the queen was not coming closer to me, but in fact, I was moving closer to her, and now I'm neck deep in water, trapping me in place.
"Please!" I beg, the word hardly more than a shrill cry. Water splashes into my nose, and I choke on it, the sensation entirely foreign. "I know nothing, I swear."
"But the king trusts you," her voice wavers as the pressure on my head decreases.
"Apparently not enough to share that with me." I cough, trying to expel the salty water from my mouth and nose.
She shrieks, and the water lifts me up until we are eye to eye. "You have to know something. Think. What about conversations with that man who works for him?"
"I'm not allowed in his private meetings with his advisors. Why would I be? I'm from an enemy nation," I explain, though she knows all this.
With dramatic flair, she rolls her eyes. "You and Kairon are no more enemies than I am with the sea itself." I choke again, this time on the words that she spits my way. "The two of you are nearly one already. You move in sync, like the waves. You always find each other, like the tide and the shore."
I shake my head, not ready to hear what she's saying. "No, we are just working together for peace."
With a musical laugh, she condescends, "Peace is impossible when there is a power imbalance. As long as there are those with power and those without, violence will rule. But you paint such a pretty picture of a better future. I'm almost saddened to know that you might not live to see whether it comes to fruition."
"Valta, please. I need to go back to shore," I explain. "I can't swim."
"Yes, I know that, my dear." She sighs. A long, thin tendril of water leaps from her throne, wrapping around my neck like a leash as she creates a makeshift seat for me at her feet. "But Kairon will come and find you, and as long as you're in the water, you're perfect leverage. If he kills me, you fall into the depths, and he has to drag your drowned corpse back to shore to mourn you."
An invisible weight presses on my chest, and goosebumps break out across my skin. I am going to die out here. Being above the water for the time being does nothing to ease my fear. If anything, it's worse. I'm just waiting for the inevitable drop.
Movement on the shore draws my attention. Kairon, with his horrifying mask and a small armada of his guards, run toward us in sync, the perfect machine moving closer and closer. They're just far enough that I can barely hear Kairon shouting, but I can't tell what he's saying. "Please," I beg again. "You think he's going to choose to save me over keeping his secrets? Be realistic. He'll kill you and let me drown just to spite us both!"
Her laugh fills my head again. "No, he won't. Unfortunately, for you anyway, The Horned King seems to have finally found something worth caring for."
The seat and leash around my neck have me firmly in place, too far away to reach out and touch her. I'm not sure it would even work anyway, or if Syrens are like the Fae and immune to my abilities. All I can do is helplessly sit and wait, hoping Kairon's need for peace outweighs his vengeful impulses.
"This doesn't have to end in violence, Your Majesty," her voice floats along the water to him, the musical quality a sharp, biting sound, far unlike the way she used it to summon me here. "Tell me what you know about who has my Vanya and she lives."
