I did not cry when they cut my son out of me.
I did not cry when they ripped him out of my arms every single time once my breasts were emptied from his suckling mouth.
I did not cry when they whipped and tortured my husband before my very own eyes.
I did not cry when I witnessed my sister being tortured just the same.
I did not cry when he took me to his bed when the crude stitching on my stomach had barely stopped bleeding at the slight pull of skin.
I did not cry as he took my body for his own and sucked my very soul from my body.
But when first he walked in...when I spotted the face my father once sported before his untimely death, with a bronze blade in his hands dripping with scarlet blood, I cried.
I cried for the life I should have had and the love that should've been given to me.
I cried for the happiness that I'd once had but thrown it all away for my misguided prejudices.
Because my sister? The young woman whom I'd raised from a small child? She was no monster.
No, the real monster was before me with a leering smile on his familiar face.
He plunged the blade into my chest, and I cried.
I cried for the pain and the anguish, but also for my long lost sister that I'd never be able to apologize to for my mistreatment of her.
I cried for our father who'd befallen the curse of a family line that he'd known the risks of.
I cried for the little baby boy that would never know his mother's love.
I cried for the love of my husband rotting away in a jail cell beneath my feet.
But in the end, I cried for the woman I would never get to become.
Oblivion blackened my eyes, but the sweet release of peace never came.
Again and again, he slammed the blade deep within my chest, and still no relief washed over me.
My cries turned into despair, then desperation.
"Kill....me...."
My words were rasped out in a wet croak, blood filling my lungs and chest as over and over again, my uncle tried to carve my own heart from my body.
"You're far more resilient than the Sirens, just like your sister. I wonder why that is."
My uncle turned away from me, the jagged scar cutting across his cheekbone seemingly more fresh than the others on his body.
It looked as if it had bubbled up and festered from the inside out, like some kind of malicious burn.
"I wonder who your whore mother bred with. It certainly wasn't my brother who created you. I wonder what would've caused my poor brother to play father to two bastard children."
I didn't have it in me to spit at him. The energy was simply gone. Depleted. Dissipated like smoke on the wind.
"What are we going to do with you now?"
I almost begged for him to kill me again...almost. But some shred of dignity that resided beside where I held love in my heart kept me from doing so.
He couldn't hear the raucous beating of my heart in my chest as it simply kept on going despite all the damage it had taken.
He didn't listen to the squalls of my newborn child down the hall.
And when he pulled up my skirts to take me against the wall once more, his hot breath steaming the inside of my ear with his rancid stench, he couldn't hear the promise I sang to myself in my mind.
It was the same song Josephine used to sing as she took down the men who had hurt the both of us.
It was the song she had sang the night after our first replacement father had attempted to have his way with me as just a young girl.
She thought I hadn't heard, but I had. I had watched him slump over in his own blood as she took him down for what he'd almost done to me.
And it was the same song she'd used to murder the men who'd taken my innocence from me on the ships we'd almost been sold on.
Again and again, she'd saved me. It was time I started learning how to save myself.
For Josephine. For Drevan. For my father. For my newborn baby boy that I'd only just thought up a name for.
Ewan.
The vengeful wrath of the mighty gods of old, Ewan was the name of a warrior with bravery in his heart and adversity in his past.
I did not struggle against the rope binds on my wrists.
"Maybe you'll be useful for something after all, since that screaming bastard didn't ruin you, only your stomach, but that can be covered up."
Bile rose up in my throat from his words, but still I did not respond.
"We could say the child is ours, then announce our marriage. Your sister would have to come sniffing around if she thought she could save you. What do you think of her, that snake of a bitch that calls herself your sister?"
"I...Iâ"
He finished. He pulled back to study my face intently.
"I hate her. She...killed everyone. Mâmy father, her lover who was my bâbest friend. She nâneeds to be....stopped."
His yellow teeth nearly glowed in the dark as his cracked lips spread across them in what I assumed to me a smile. I couldn't be sure.
There were dots behind my eyes and my breathing was much too fast.
"Good. I was hoping you'd be useful to me. Maybe I won't have to keep you chained to the wall at all times. You could even live in my rooms...once we annul your marriage, that is. Can't kill that husband of yours yet. He's too good an incentive to keep you on your best behavior. You know I won't hurt our child. What, do you think I'm a monster?"
Whatever was left of my heart shattered and crumbled to the ground.
I shook my head in what I hoped was an eager fashionâsummoning every last drop of self preservation inside of me to seem like a woman desperate to please her captor.
He must've been pleased with my reaction, however, because he snapped his fingers and suddenly a woman was there, sponging off the nearly black blood from my chest, neck, arms and legs.
Then they were tending to the birthing wound on my stomach.
How I'd survived that gruesome night...I shuddered at what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life and blocked out the memories of my screams as they echoed on the wooden ship walls that had once surrounded me.
I liked to believe my screams had called to the Sirens that had come to rescue Josephine after we'd left.
"Thank...you."
My uncle smiled once more, the nightmarish glint in his eyes sending chills down my spine, but I refused to be afraid of him any longer.
What more could he do to me that I hadn't already endured? I had nothing left to lose...when it came to myself. But not the ones I loved that still breathed.
I would have to be careful not to give my true allegiances away, otherwise it wouldn't put only myself in danger, but everyone here in my uncle's captivity.
"We'll need to be careful when the king visits. Maybe he'll even invite his newly betrothed to our engagement party. Stir up the rumors for us, and then your sister won't be able to help herself to come and try to save you."
And my son. And my husband.
That was exactly what I was counting on.
There was no way my uncle would be immune to her Siren call.
She would come, and she would rescue us.
She would come.
She had to.
And when she opened her mouth to sing, I would be directly beside our uncle with a dagger in my hand ready to slit his throat the moment she did.
He leaned down to press his lips to mine, and this time I didn't gag.
This time, I kissed him back, and that night...
That night, my son was delivered to me.
He slept in my room the entire night.
The End.
***
Author's Note:
Songbirds & Sirens is officially over!
This labor of love wouldn't have been possible without my amazing readers, so thank you to everyone who has read this story!
There will be bonus chapters to come before the next story in the Trilogy comes out!
I am going to start posting book 2 in this series, Songfire & Shadows, July, 2023!
Until next time my lovely readers,
Kristen :)