THE SIREN’S STEAL

The young mermaid tilted her head, watching the visitors to her father’s palace watch her through the glass of her tank. One young child had the audacity to tap at the enclosure. She snarled in response, cocking her head, and wincing as she felt the drag of her new curling horns.

The leering crowd peered at the young princess, whispering behind their long, pale fingers. Claws curled on Aritsa’s own hands. Claws where a delicate princess’s fingers once extended—fingers that once had been able to play the most beautiful music. She had been able to sing too. That was before she had tried to steal from the king of the sea.

As punishment, he had stolen something back.

Aritsa sighed. Her freedom was something she had never thought she could lose. Once, she had been royalty. Now, she made for an interesting exhibit. The horns, the claws.

The sharpened teeth. And who couldn’t help but notice the red hair—all other mermaids had colorless, pure locks framing their faces.

All of these new things she had gained when she had made a deal with her aunt.

“Who’s that?” one merboy wheedled, looking up beseechingly at his parent. The youngster’s clear hair floated above his head like a cloud, swishing as he looked back and forth between the disgraced princess and the older mermaid holding his hand. The adult frowned at her offspring’s words and lifted her chin imperiously.

“That’s the littlest princess,” she muttered. “A traitor and a thief.”

Aritsa smiled, allowing them to see her fangs. The parent quickly tugged their child on, swimming away with a sharp snap of her fins.

Littlest princess, indeed. Traitor? Perhaps. Thief? Ah, well that depended on whether you considered it stealing if the item in question had already been stolen.

And they had happened to forget her more flattering titles. Siren. Witch. Those words swirled deliciously over her tongue—now forked, she supposed, but all the better to sing and make music with. Music that wasn’t beautiful like she had once thought beauty should be. Now, she could sing with a raw tone that could cleave mountains and carve stars. That was why she had done what she had.

She cast her eyes down, the weight of the past few years heavy. Lighter though, than the nigh-on meaningless existence she had led before apprenticing herself to her aunt. Her father had forbidden it, and whatever he said—well, it was the law of the sea.

The king of the mermaids was a god in his own right. Ruler of hurricanes, master of tsunamis. Voice of the sea. King to the merfolk’s realm. Aritsa’s father. She had challenged him by pledging herself to her aunt.

Aritsa had numerous sisters as well—none of whom had visited her in her tank since she had been sentenced. All of them were ahead of her in line for the throne. All of them were beautiful, talented politicians whose sharp smiles and even sharper wit had earned them places in their father’s court.

Not Aritsa, though. All she’d had was her music.

And an aunt who had chosen a more alternative route after her brother had ascended the throne. She had given her life over to the dark magic of the sea. A sacrifice many mermaids would never consider. To become a siren was to go directly against the will (and law) of the king—the god of these waters. He spoke for the seas, and for years all of his daughters had listened and obeyed. To not do so was unholy.

Aritsa had been heretical. She had spoken against the Voice of the Sea, and now she was in a tank—little more than an animal on display for the entire kingdom to gawk at.

She remembered it well. The night she made her decision had been a dark one. A quiet one. Nothing stirred the sea floor, and only the barest of starlight had filtered through to the topmost regions of the sea. She swam to the furthest reaches of her father’s realm, farther than she had ever dared venture with her sisters before.

Aritsa had heard tell of a witch who lived at the barest edge of habitable ocean, claiming the magmatic lava tubes spewing foul clouds of smoke into the sea for her own. Aritsa had only ever heard of one witch—one, because all of the others had been sentenced by the king. Sentenced to death for their blasphemy against their god.

A witch’s fate was not a kind one. Aritsa figured this tank of hers was his way of sparing his daughter.

She swam up to a small gaping hole in one of the lava tubes. Peering in, all she could see was the beckoning glow of a soft, bobbing purple light.

“Come in, my dear one. Come closer,” a soft, thready voice whispered.

Panic shot through Aritsa’s body, but still, she swam closer, drawn to the promise the stories held. Promises of power. Of strength offered up in return for her giving up a life where she proffered reverence and devotion for her father—and what a simple matter that would be to give up.

Aritsa swam closer, gasping as the purple light exposed her aunt. Horns, years-heavy with curls, spiraled down to her neck. Claws that were honed into needle-like points extended beyond slightly wrinkled hands. Hair floated around her face like blood spilling from a wound. Aritsa paused, staring at her aunt’s face… her aunt’s surprisingly kind-looking face.

Her aunt smiled, carving out clearly well-worn wrinkles from having worn the same expression many times before. She held out her hand. Aritsa stared hard at that extended, open palm, wondering in that last moment if she truly did have the courage that had given her strength enough to come this far. That night, Aritsa took her aunt’s hand.

The sea witch told her how wrong the merfolk were. Her voice was entrancing—smooth and silky, like the warmth of the sun filtering down into the searingly cold waters at high noon. She told Aritsa how their god was a false one. He spoke with a voice that was not the Sea’s. That Voice, Aritsa’s aunt told her, was a different kind of power altogether.

“The Sea is not a person,” the witch said, her voice swirling around Aritsa like the softest of whalesong. “It is a presence. A power that lurks. A wave that crashes and takes with it our very souls when we die.”

“Do you worship this presence?” Aritsa asked. The witch snorted, even that sound pleasant to the ear, as she released Aritsa’s hand and swam to the back of the cave. Aritsa’s eyes tracked the witch, although she dared not follow her.

At the back of the cave, a rich blue tarp embroidered with gold stars hung, draped over a rocky set of shelves. The tarp was tied back to expose the shelves’ contents, each stuffed and some overflowing with numerous books. Some had spines boasting gilded calligraphy and others were fragile-looking and appeared old enough to fall to pieces if anyone tried to read their pages.

Other shelves held a conglomeration of curiosities. She saw stuffed lizards with winking marble eyes and a framed collection of pinned coral, the color of which ranged from the darkest black to the most pronounced scarlet. On the end of one shelf lay a stitched rawhide drum, with obsidian rimming its edges.

Her aunt came back with an arm-full of glass bottles. “Worship this presence?” she scoffed. “The Sea is within all of us. I don’t care to worship myself, thank you very much.” Aritsa grinned. More and more she was liking this woman.

In her aunt’s arms were potions of varying colors. She bit the cork of one and spat it out, freeing an emerald liquid that filtered into the water. Aritsa’s aunt allowed it to swirl around her, breathing deeply.

“What is that?” Aritsa asked.

Her aunt tilted her soft face. She pointed a clawed finger through the viridescent cloud, swirling it with a twitch. “With this potion comes knowledge, my child. I took on this burden when I was just about your age, and with it came… this.” She gestured to the cave around them, hovering her hand by her horns rimmed by that scarlet hair.

“Some would say that it’s a sin, what I’ve done,” her aunt continued, her silvery voice clipping low, just for a moment. “But I call it justice.”

“Justice?” Aritsa intoned.

Her aunt nodded. “For all of the innocent years I spent as a princess back in my brother’s kingdom. We listened to our father then.” She released the remaining bottles, allowing them to float, and then gently sink to the floor. Her eyes glazed over, wandering far away to a time distantly past.

“We spoke using his voice. We acted with his will. Now? Ah, well I saw that what he called evil was good for me, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a power to be desired to make one wise. I took for myself the voice the sea offered.”

She swam up to Aritsa’s face in one swift, cutting movement. Aritsa barely dared to breathe, gaze wide as her aunt’s words brushed against her skin.

“Do you want what the sea can give you?”

Aritsa swallowed then. “What does the sea offer?”

A beat expired in which neither women spoke. Only the ever-caressing movement and pull of the sea passed between them. An almost silent sound of color and life.

“This, my child.” The sea continued to move between them. “This,” her aunt whispered again, the sound so beautiful and so gentle.

“The Sea offers its voice and its wisdom. It asks for our loyalty, and for that, we gain its strength. Do you dare take what the Sea offers? In return, you’ll gain power, and with that we obtain knowledge. You see, my child—that is what all gods fear.”

Aritsa cast her eyes downward and breathed. “I want it. I’ll take it.”

Her aunt had asked for little. A pledge. A promise.

A sealing bond between Aritsa herself and the waters that were her home. In return, she would gain a Voice from the Sea. A new song to herald herself with. In a flash of purple light, claws stretched themselves from her fingers. Fangs fell from her mouth, gleaming. Her head pounded with the added weight of horns that she reached up and touched, the gesture causing movement in the water that then swirled her red hair in front of her eyes. A soft gasp escaped her lips as she saw that the strands were deeply pigmented like blood.

“Now, speak,” the witch told her.

Her voice had been like the wind. It felt easy—easy as breathing. A gently trickling warble wavered into existence in the cave, far from her sisters and far from her father.

Far from the tank Aritsa was in now.

She had gone back to the palace, aware that she had broken the rules, but eager to see her family again. She thought they might forgive her. She thought that they might still love her.

After her trial, they told her that, yes, they did still love her, yet they still had shut her in this tank. Bound her new form behind these glass walls, sealing off her new voice from the rest of the world.

They called her a thief, taking magic from the sea, even though Aritsa now knew that her voice had been a gift freely offered. They said Aritsa’s new magic was evil.

“What is this you have done?” her father had asked, eyes wide with shock and betrayal, after Aritsa had told him of her visit with her aunt. “What trickery from my sister is this?”

“Nobody has deceived me,” Aritsa spat back, the sound sharp, like the rolling thunder of crashing waves.

“You have stolen from the sea,” the king lamented. “This cannot be forgiven.”

They pushed her into this tank and locked her away.

She knew she needed no forgiveness for what she had done.

Stolen? Oh no, the sea had offered itself to her—a fruit on a platter, and she had eaten gladly.

And one day, she wouldn’t be in this tank. Forever was far too long to remain silent. One day, she would be free, and on that day…

The Sea would sing.