Page 4 of When the Wicked Sing
Mariana turned her eyes back to the beach. Mortals shuffled out of the fog toward their fate. Her breath hitched when she saw their glazed eyes and slack hands, enchanted by the haunting melody.
The mortals of these islands were taught to believe that if they heard the song of the sea under a full moon, they were worthy sacrifices to the underwater goddesses. In return, the sirens would keep their fish ecosystems thriving and the reefs clear of unwanted predators. They had no idea it was cursed sirens falling victim to the Scourge and its promise of eternal life.
The instinct to protect them unexpectedly overwhelmed Mariana.
This was what Astra wanted to stop.
Astra had advocated for the end of the culling.
Under intense scrutiny, Astra decided not to accept the Scourge, to live forever. Mariana had always admired her eldest sister’s decision and knew the queen did too. Astra was Cybele’s firstborn, and as Astra began to feel her body change, with slight wrinkles near her eyes and wisps of gray in her hair, she pushed heavily for a peace mission to the fae realm as an emissary to restore Sirenia. Cybele only allowed it because it was Astra’s final wish. Astra would have lost her ability to transform her tail into legs and walk on land in a few years. She’d felt that if she didn’t die trying to save their people, she had failed in life.
A siren would reach her life’s third and final stage at around five hundred years. This was when they had to choose between the path leading to death or the Scourge’s path to immortality. The Queen of the Sea was an exception to this rule. Cybele would not begin her descent into the final stage of life until Mariana, who had inherited the power of the sea, had matured. If a queen chose to put off producing an heir, she could live for hundreds of years before her instincts gave her no choice but to reproduce. Cybele had witnessed two generations of sirens being born and dying before finally giving birth to Mariana. Now, her mother would soon begin to grow old.
The first sign of an aging siren was the fading of her magic, when the power to control mortals with her voice would weaken. Her body would wrinkle, and her scales would turn gray. Half a century later, the Goddess, Amphitrite, would guide the siren’s soul on their journey to peace. This was a siren’sinevitable ending—before immortality became essential to survival.
Before the Banishment, the Scourge was considered evil, for all it did was take away a sister everyone loved, replacing them with a husk, a ghost of who they were.
Despite Queen Cybele’s firm disdain for the Scourge, she allowed the cullings to keep the siren population from declining. The fewer warriors they had, the less protection they had.
The Scourge offered a path to eternal youth and strength for any siren willing to endure its curse. By accepting this fate, a sister’s soul would gradually decay, her organs and eyes would turn black, and she would lose not only her ability to walk on land but also to reproduce. Stripped of her very identity, she would become a neurotic, soulless creature, confined to the sea for all eternity—all for the sake of immortality.
The Siren Witch’s head bobbed up from the waves, her headdress dripping seawater. Renowned as the most powerful cursed siren alive, she alone had been permitted to study and practice the dark magic unlocked by the Scourge, despite Astra’s objections. As the queen’s only blood sister and most trusted advisor, her growing power commanded profound respect from all cursed sirens and ensured their obedience.
Astra had always made it clear that she did not believe in how sirens changed their views on the Scourge, even as a survival aid. She rejected that excuse, claiming that the Goddess would have shown them the way to a safer world, but instead, sirens have lost their way. She’d once said that sirens were created out of love and sacrifice and that to steal anyone’s life, anyone’s soul, to achieve immortality was reprehensible.
The Siren Witch strongly disagreed with Astra, insisting it was the path to unlocking a siren’s true potential.
Why did it feel so wrong if it was that easy to justify the culling?
Shivers danced along her spine as Mariana watched the scene ahead. She could feel the sinister energy radiating from the song.
A dozen mortals entered the water. Then clawed hands reached up and gently pulled them down into the waves.
“Calliope,” Mariana breathed, recognizing the sister who had guarded her when she was young. “What is she doing here?”
Aurora gripped her hand in support as they watched Calliope kiss a man with a heavily bandaged stomach. They looked like two lovers lost in their own world. Then, a white glow formed within the chest of the mortal man and slowly transferred itself through their locked lips and into Calliope.
Every embraced mortal within the pack began to slacken, their hands and legs no longer working to keep close to the siren kissing them.
They were dead.
Mariana’s vision began to blur as her eyes unexpectedly filled with tears.
When the glow faded, each siren released the lips of their mortal and pulled their lifeless body down into the darkness of the sea.
“Where are they taking them?” Mariana whispered in alarm when they all disappeared underwater. “They don’t let their families bury them?”
Aurora shook her head, fear in her eyes. Mariana found it hard to believe Aurora was afraid of anything. She was theirbest warrior. She was known in the fae realm as an assassin, the Scarlet Serpent.
Aurora hated that name.
After the Banishment, she’d worked tirelessly to forget it. She took a vow to never kill ever again except under the direst circumstances. Instead, she devoted her time to becoming an armorer, choosing to protect her fellow siren sisters with nearly indestructible armor made from scavenged basilisk bones. It was her legacy.
“We have to go. The sun will rise soon, and I want to find out what happened to Astra’s Guardians. The witch said she’d give a report after the culling.” The hitch in Aurora’s voice as she slid down the rocks made Mariana pause. Guardians had been wearing sun-protected armor when they were discovered dead near the entrance to Salus.
“Rora?” she said gently, causing her sister to go still and meet her gaze. Mariana wanted to tell her it would all be okay, but she knew that was a lie. None of this was okay. “Thank you for coming with me.”
What Aurora had done by being there for her in that difficult moment was worth more than just a thank you. Still, by the slight tilt of Aurora’s lips, she knew her sister appreciated it.
