The Sirens living in Hefeta were sadists.
That was the only thing I could focus on as I realized that the only way for anyone to enter their home by sea was for them to suffer through a near-fatal feat that left the visitors waterlogged, traumatized, and shivering from head to toe.
Inala hadn't let go of my hand from the moment we entered the water, but being plunged into the dark and deep abyss with a Siren who transformed in a flash of light that illuminated the mysterious darkness below our bodies at the bottom of the Strait of Barron, I suddenly wished for a less bright and attention bringing companion.
Because as soon as her light from the magic that transformed her body into her full Siren form encapsulated the depths below, I almost forgot that I was underwater and couldn't suck in a gasped breath in shock at what I glimpsed through the murky lens below us.
Bones.
Hundreds of thousands of alabaster bones littered the ocean floor, and they weren't animal remains, either.
I had just come face to face with a waterlogged skull before Inala's hand wrenched me away from the disturbing underwater graveyard.
I kicked and kicked my aching legs tight with cold and near frozen from shock, but still I propelled myself further and swam and tired to keep myself from blacking out altogether, either from the shock of the cold or the fact that there was so much death bobbing all around, I couldn't be sure.
We had switched directions and were no longer headed straight, from what I could tell, and instead traveled toward the direction of the divide between the Strait of Barron and the Gold Sea, but as soon as I realized that the plan was to retreat into calmer waters, my body decided to betray me.
My lungs burned and ached and despaired for even the tiniest bit of air, and yet Inala seemed to have forgotten that she towed along a mortal with Siren powers that didn't include gills or allow me to breathe underwater as hers did.
My chest, tight without air, stumbled and struggled to keep me awake and conscious even as the black spots crowding out my vision begged me to close my eyes just once, just to rest, even as the panic ebbed and flowed inside of me like a wave cresting to shore and then retreating back out again.
Tendrils of light entered the water in bright shafts that broke up the large expanse of ocean and illuminated tiny white flecks of debris floating around, capturing some of the less dense pieces of bone that floated right alongside us as Inala's strong body swished and sailed through the water, bright tail fins glittering in that small space of brightness.
My throat clenched, the dread and terror at running out of air only imploring the voice inside of me to attempt to rise from its slumbering home down deep inside of me, simply awaiting for it's time to awaken and seek out men for it's one and only purposeâkilling.
The only problem was that my voice could not kill an invisible assailant that was not sentient or alive.
The black dots turned into gray waves of distorted vision and even as the salt in the water stung and burned my eyes, something stirred in the low visibility in the area in front of Inala.
It sliced through the water and knocked into her body, slightly throwing her off course, but just as she turned in alarm to find me struggling and half conscious behind her towing arm, that unknown force slammed into me with the weight of a thousand gale force winds.
Air, sudden and choking, blasted into my lungs, but as I inhaled greedily and without reservation, the scent was the thing that I found the most curious.
The scent of homeâmy home.
Not Port City that danced with smells of bonfire nights and salty ocean spray, but something deeper ingrained in my memory.
Something that tugged at the very edges of my frayed mind and pulled me far, far away from that frigid ocean with Inala's hand tugging me more firmly into her body even as that bubble of air continued to keep the rest of the water from reaching me.
I was somehow completely dry.
My eyes stung, not from the brine in the water but the salt from my tears as that scent wrapped around me almost as surely as the air bubble cocooned me in safety and warmth, even if it held a cooling bite that threatened to send chills burrowing underneath the surface of my skin.
Warm and full, the smells enveloped me as I attempted to pinpoint its origins as smooth notes of fragrant wildflowers reached me, reminding me of the times my mother would pick them out in the fields above the sandy white cliffs protruding over the shoreline and lace them into the strawberry silver of my curled ringlets.
There were a myriad of scents underneath it, however, like the pocket of air surrounding me was made up of all of the scents in nature, the rich aroma of bark from the large pines in the Briars being the main undercurrent wrapping it all up, but there were more I recognized.
The sharp zing of fresh soil, the unmistakable hum of the ground after a spring shower, the calming potency of a swaying lavender field, the thick wafting of supple honeysuckle sweet in the air...each lilting scent encasing me as my senses erupted all at once.
Calls of various songbirds chirped in my ears, sweet and fraying, just as the sweet and tangy crispness of a fresh apple exploded across my tongue, making my mouth water and letting me forget that I was submerged deep underwater and had only been a few seconds away from losing my own life from going without oxygen for too long.
Just as the amazing and foreign yet all too familiar sensations had suddenly captured me without warning, they, too, left me in a flurry of braying wind and churning waves.
I was once more underwater, out of that protective bubble of air, but it didn't matter, because Inala was resurfacing and bringing my body with her.
The waters encapsulating us were rippling with glittering gold, the liquid moving as if silken oil gilded in a honey sparkle gloss that flowed through my fingers like satin.
I suddenly forgot how much I missed that protective bubble of air around my body for the moment because I didn't need it as much as I had underwater, though I would most likely revisit that memory until the day that I died, however many hundreds of years that might take.
White Sea cliffs adorned the shoreline and I was struck with a sudden sense that I had been to this very place once before.
"This...this is Hefeta?" I asked Inala, breathless and exhausted.
She dropped my hand and my body and began to swim closer to the shore, but not before looking back at me to respond, a certain playful wickedness in her ethereal eyes that hadn't been there in the short amount of time I'd known her.
Perhaps finally being home gave her comfort, a reminder that all she'd endured hadn't been for nothing.
"The one and only. The Motherland, the Siren homeland, it goes by many names, but the best name is whatever you want it to be. This can be your home, if you let it."
Home.
When was the last time I'd felt something like that?
Oren's golden head popped up above the surface of the water and I choked on a sharp inhale.
He looked...absolutely stunning.
He shimmered in the afternoon sunlight, the epitome of all things bright and pure, as if he were the old god of the sun himself.
I knew better, however.
If he were a god, he would've be the god of beauty, that fact proven as his sinful smile reached my eyes and turned my stomach inside out with a simple glance.
He was a forbidden entity, something I'd have to reach into the deepest depths of my blackened soul in order to extricate my want for him and steal it back for myself.
He couldn't have that need, that desire, because I would need it, along with every other emotion in my arsenal, for when it came time to face my uncle, something that I'd been thinking far too much about since the news had broken about him and what he carried.
The only way to truly kill a Siren was to dip a bronzed blade into the blood of their victim and stab them directly in the heart, and apparently my father's brother, a man I'd never met (or couldn't ever remember meeting, at least) had both my dead father's blood and a bronzed blade.
He intended to kill me just as I reached the point in my grief where I realized that was not what I wanted, where I realized that I was still worth something even despite the awful things that my gift had forced me to do.
And if traveling to Hefeta with other Sirens was what could help me control the hunger that the gift inside of me craved, then I would do it with a smile on my face, or maybe a grimace, but I wouldn't complain...too much.
Perhaps only to Oren, who'd stolen me away in the first place.
Oren swam up to me and I realized that I hadn't even been treading water, the golden liquid keeping me suspended without having to ever swim except to move in a certain direction.
He had a precarious look on his face, like he was gauging my reaction, as if he were expecting something more than what I was giving him.
"So? What do you think?"
A loud horn pealed across the shore and the waters, slicing into my ears with such a painful ferocity that I could only imagine the Sirens ashore were not happy to see us.
One by one, their figures appeared, dotting the white sands that decorated a dazzling beach peppered with sparkling rocks the same color as the water we pushed through in order to reach it.
"I'll let you know when I know myself."
He chuckled and seemed to gauge the distance from me to Inala before shooting forward and grabbing me around the waist.
I couldn't help the flutter in my stomach at the action.
"I can swim, you know? And it's not like this ocean would let me drown."
"That's not why I'm holding you, Josephine."
"Then whyâ"
"Because if they aren't friendly, I'll be swimming with you back to the boat."
The boat...that was currently being towed to shore by frantic currents the Sirens were no doubt helping along with the air magic flowing in their veins that I'd never witnessed up close.
"What do you mean, not friendly? Weren't you the one who was so adamant to bring me here that you kidnapped me?"
"You say kidnap, I say liberate. And anyway, I haven't had any correspondence with the community here in Hefeta since before I left to retrieve you. We don't know if the King of Valencia's forces have infiltrated the ranks here."
"Why would the King of Valencia think to infiltrate the Sirens here? What do they have that he wants? Last I heard, he was busy searching the whole of Avanth for me."
"Knowing your heritage, he might have already tried to beat us here, believing this to be your next stop. Have you ever wondered why he outlawed singing in Valencia, trying to extend his influence to Avanth as well?"
"He knows how lethal a Siren's call is, obviously, and music is like bait to them. They can't help but sing to the music they hear, which is another reason I don't believe I'm an actual Siren, because I've never had that problem."
Oren merely grunted, as if he didn't dare deign that statement with a response, instead watching for Inala's head bob of confirmation once she reached the shore that things were in order for our ascent to land.
"Come, little Siren. Your home awaits."
The World of Irena: