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“Careful, Princess.” A firm grip on my elbow guided me back. “Just because her voice doesn’t work on women, doesn’t mean she’s any less lethal to them. Too long staring into her eyes and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”
“I—I don’t understand,” I cried. “A mermaid? A real mermaid? How can she be here? Mermaids went extinct centuries ago. Long before dragons did. She can’t be here!”
“And yet, she is.” Alisdair encircled her—his smile terrible to behold. “I told you, my queen. We found the vanishing island. A land where many an impossible thing exists,” he said. “It took some effort, and a few lives, but our soldiers brought her here—for us.”
“Us?” I repeated. “What are you talking about?”
Alisdair paused, pressing his hand to the glass. “She is all we need to win the war. Once I figure out how to harness her voice and use it at will—without killing myself—we will unleash it on the armies of Elva.
“They say a siren’s song is so beautiful. So enchanting. Its majesty consumes you.” He shook his head. “The second it ends, you realize you’ll never again hear anything so wondrous in your life, and that’s not a life worth living. A single verse of her song, little bird, and the men will turn their swords on themselves—wiping themselves up without a single drop of spilled blood on our side. My queen,” he breathed. “Our victory is assured.”
My eyes bugged, horror leadening my bones. “Stop saying our! That’s horrible, Alisdair. Worse than horrible! How can you even think such a thing!”
He turned a cool gaze on me. “How can I think to end the war quickly without sacrificing our people? What a ridiculous question. I could think of nothing else.” I blinked and he was in front of me—towering over me. “This is mercy, little bird. It’s what you once wanted of me.”
“This isn’t mercy, it’s insanity!” I shoved him back. He didn’t move an inch. “You can’t wipe out every man in Elva! Do you have any idea what that’ll do to the kingdoms?”
“Yes,” he said, smirking. “They’ll become matriarchies once again.”
“You—” I choked. “Wait, what?”
“Every vile person that fights to keep your women stunted and oppressed will find themselves on the other side of the veil, facing Meya’s judgment. Once they are, the kingdoms can start over. The forced magic bindings will stop, and the young, adolescent boys will be raised properly—without their fathers’ hatred and prejudices teaching them to look down on their own mothers and sisters.
“Elva will be cleansed, my queen, and yes”—he inclined his head—“there will be grief and tears and wailing, but you and I will lead our people out of the dark into the new age. All of Elva will be like Lumenfell,” he said, throwing out his arms. “Harsh, cold, brutal... but equal and free.”
I stared at him amid the shouts and barked orders from Foalan and the soldiers. “A return to the matriarchies,” I said slowly. “That is something you want?”
“Why would it not be? I was born in the old age, Princess. In the times of peace and equality. I can assure you,” he said, “it was a much better age than this one.”
“But, Alisdair—”
“You said you wanted the bindings, the oppression, and the wasting sickness to end.”
My throat tightened thinking of Mama slowly starving to death in a small, desolate room.
“That doesn’t happen without war. Without sacrifice,” he hissed. “So now is the moment you decide.”
I snapped up, eyes wide.
“Will you fight for your freedom, or die on your knees?”
I didn’t speak for so long, he turned away. “Can you undo the binding spell? Can you free my—?” The curse stolemomoff my tongue. “Can you free the women of Elva?”
“I can’t,” he said honestly. “I’ve tried to unbind you every night since you got here.”
I started. I wasn’t expecting that.
“It’s a simple spell, but a powerful one. The magic it’d take to free you would kill me, but this”—he raised his clawed hand—“has no such limitation.”
It took me a second to understand what he meant. “The beast curse?” I whispered. “It undoes the binding spell? That’s why all the women in Lumenfell are free?”
He nodded. “The binding is put on the person you are. But when you change, you become someone else. When that happens, the chains that were once on your soul simply... fall away.”
I looked into his eyes. “Elva would be a better place if the curse consumed the land.”
I said it. I hated myself the moment it fell from my lips, but... I wouldn’t take it back.
“Until, of course,” I continued, “we all turned into mindless beasts—swinging from trees and flinging our feces.”
