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Her breath smelled of dead fish and it took all my willpower not to recoil from her.
“How iss thiss for candor? Leave or I will have you killed.”
My heartrate picked up another notch and my stomach turned uncomfortably but I would be damned if I showed her how much her words affected me. Even her lisp didn’t take from the threat her whole persona spat out at me.
“Hmm,” I pretended to think, tapping my nail against my teeth, regarding her as if deep in thought and unaffected by her terrifying presence. “I wonder if threatening a vissy is treason on Leandar?”
She shrank back, her eyes with pupils like a snake’s narrowed. “A what?”
I forced myself to smile to drive my triumph home, “A vissy. Myles will make it official tonight.”
The tip of her tail swished back and forward so fast, I swear I heard a rattling sound coming from it, but I was sure it was only my imagination.
“You’re lying,” she said, trying to convince herself.
“Come to the feast tonight and find out, Sssarissssa,” I exaggerated the esses in her name for good measure, getting a sick satisfaction from her shock and anger. “Myles and I will be happy to have the queen of the sirens bear witness.”
“You’re oversstepping yoursself, human,” she warned. “Drowning accidentss unfortunately do happen, quite frequently ass a matter of fact,” she had regained her composure faster than I had anticipated. “Sso, take care, little human. And congratulationss for ass long ass your marriage may lasst.”
With a laugh she slithered off, leaving me standing there, nerve ends exposed, while seething with anger. I wasn’t a fool, I would take her warning seriously. But, she had also aroused my curiosity.
Was this what she and her kind did to any females coming to Oceanus to keep them away?
“Are you alright, Lady Niara?” One of the guards asked. I doubted they had fully understood Sarissa and my interaction, for them sirens were alluring creatures. At the most our little spat must have looked… off, enough for him to ask me.
“I’m alright, thank you. Sirens and humans don’t cohabitate well,” I assured him, downplaying the meeting. I didn’t want Myles to be informed, he had much more pressing matters to worry about right now than his ally Sarissa threatening me.
The dragoons took me to the pier, where I found I wasn’t needed at all. The Leandars I had been training were doing a good job and had even found ways to improve the original design, something I had shied away from. It worked though. At least on the pier, underwater we would have to test it.
They had also exchanged the plastic oxygen hoses with metal tubes that wouldn’t be easily severed by a blade or ripped by a siren’s claws.
After my encounter with Sarissa earlier, I began to wonder what Myles already suspected, I doubted him readying himself for a war with the sirens was only to renegotiate trading terms.
Which reminded me again how little I knew of the man I was about to physically bind myself to, after I had already submitted myself to him. Just thinking of him made me all warm and tingly though, brought color to my face and heat down in between my legs.
It was astonishing how quickly I had accepted this whole idea of reincarnation and soul mates. But if there was one thing I was one hundred percent sure of, it was that Myles and my destinies were irrevocably linked.
Just as I had always taken on the responsibility for Horn, the first seeds of caring for Aecor and Oceanus were beginning to germinate in me. I had liked Myles’s city from the moment I had stepped foot on it, but now it was becoming to mean more to me: A new home.
I had been a baron’s daughter and sister all my life and now I would be a vissy. I felt ready to take on this new responsibility, my purpose was to be with Myles and together our purpose was, in this life, to protect Oceanus and I was ready for it. If it meant fighting Chrymphten, Sirens and a volcano, even all at once, we would meet this challenge head on.
Before the feast began, the Vissigroth of Syalm would perform Niara and my binding ceremony. Since both of our fathers were dead and Niara’s brother was human, as the oldest Vissigroth in our group the choice fell to him.
It was still hard for me to believe that I had found my querilly, that I was getting bonded. From the start I had felt an unfamiliar pull toward Niara, unlike any I had ever encountered before. She had drawn me in like no other.
What astounded me the most was though, why I hadn’t known from the moment I had first laid eyes upon her who she was? Why had it taken weeks upon weeks before I recognized her?
Because she is different in each lifetime and you have to get to know each other first, a soft voice whispered, nearly bringing me down to my knees when I recognized the goddess Fraysa.
I felt as if someone had embraced me with their warm breath, I felt incredibly light and loved.
“It will be my honor,” the Vissigroth of Syalm, Wyltham said, bringing me out of my momentary out of body experience.
“Thank you,” I bowed my head in respect to him and he blessed me by placing his hand on my shoulder. “It is always good to see two young people finding each other again.” He smiled, caught up in his own reflection.
His vissy hadn’t come, I heard she was ill. “I hope Vissy Lynna will be better soon.”
“The gods’ willing,” he acknowledged.
