Page 32 of Fractured Souls
“I would disagree,” Draven said, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “I would say you’re overwhelmed.”
I scowled. “That would be dramatic. They’re just books…books that detail an entire society’s history and cultural nuances that were completely removed from existence because peoplesuck. Well, suck would imply something far less than the genocide of an entire species—but whatever, right? Why would I feel weird about reading about them?”
Draven arched a brow at my sassiness.
“Fine. Yes, I’m feeling overwhelmed. Happy?”
I let out a surprised noise as Draven tugged me on his lap and wrapped a hand around my waist, his lips brushing my shoulder. “I don’t like that you’re overwhelmed, but I love that you were able to tell me.”
Damn him for being so sweet.
“Yeah,yeah, it’s like we love each other,” I murmured under my breath. He chuckled, drawing the others’ attention from around the room. Huffing at Adriel’s pointed look at the books on the table, I opened it on the surface in front of me, staying in Draven’s lap.So freakin’ bossy.
“I do love you,” Draven agreed softly. I smiled and leaned back into him, loving his casual yet intimate touch.
I let my eyes scan over the aged pages in front of me, noticing that the border along the edges of the paper appeared to be a language. The signs and symbols matched the ones on the papers Zander was enthusiastically poring over, his attention hyper-focused.
I wanted to ask him what was so interesting—it seemed like he’d already know a lot of this stuff from personal experience—but I knew I was using it somewhat as an excuse to not focus on my own research.
I also had a feeling that Zander hadn’t truly participated in siren culture while he’d lived here because while he seemed to know the important factors playing into their history, the cultural nuances, like their daily life, seemed irrelevant to him.
Or at least theyhad.
Now he appeared to have a renewed interest, and I had a feeling it was because of me.
It was also possible that I was totally wrong about that, though.
Shaking my head, trying to remove that train of thought, I submerged myself into the text, expecting to feel even more overwhelmed…but instead I found startling clarity.
Whoever wrote this book had clearly understood how to write because the way they laid everything out, even five pages in, was easy to follow. After reading through a few pages, I skipped over the rest of the introductory pages describing the contents of the book, flipping past the mythos of the cosmos god and the sirens’ creation—which I was already aware of—and stopped when I came to a section on siren society, specifically the name of their home village within the Elven realm.
Unymelenora.
I couldn’t even begin to try to pronounce that, but it was noted as the first village inhabited predominantly by sirens within the Kingdom of Day. Why did they feel the need to live only there though? Was it a matter of feeling accepted? Had it been a choice or had they not felt welcomed elsewhere?
Zander appeared by my side, ignoring Draven’s rumble at another male being near me. “Before the Kingdom of Day fell into chaos, it existed much like other kingdoms. Different types of elves lived within their own villages, and Unymelenora belonged to the sirens.”
“Why the separated villages?” I asked curiously. I mean, they were all Elven creatures…
“I think it started off as simply living with others that understood the type of magic you had, but it transformed into something much more rigid and isolating.”
“What do you mean? Like they couldn’t live in the other villages even if they wanted to?”
“Correct. In fact, the mixing of elven types was considered fairly taboo—especially once everyone realized that the union of a star elf and water elf created a siren.”
“That bad?” I mean, I know people hunted down sirens but…
“Having a siren offspring wasn’t always viewed as a particularly good thing. For a long time they were revered and honored, but as time went on there was a lot of animosity and resentment towards them—and it was fueled by individuals’ desires to pin them as scapegoats for most of the Kingdom of Day’s problems. Which were few as it stood.”
“I see.” I ran my finger over a drawing of three sirens gathered around a house, a woman holding a baby on her hip. It was a simple depiction of daily life, and I couldn’t help but notice how happy they all seemed to be.
“Wait,” I said as a thought suddenly occurred to me. “Is it possible to have a siren from the union of two sirens? Or just water and star elf?”
“Oh, it’s possible,” Zander answered. “In fact, the families of pureblood sirens created after generations of only mating with other sirens were some of the most powerful. They even ruled for a period of time, before the anger towards them developed.”
Fascinating.
“They also lived the longest, their lives spanning thousands of years. Unfortunately, we’re not aware of any who are still alive today, but their family crypts are in the Kingdom of Day.”
