the siren's call | felix lee

iii.

You woke up early this time, as you had spent most of the previous day drifting in and out of an odd limbo of hunger and fatigue. You hesitantly tried to open your door, and to your surprise it swung open easily. There were no guards outside your door, and you assumed they had departed sometime during the night when you were asleep. You closed your door behind you and looked back, feeling a sudden urge to check, and you felt as if a rock had dropped into your empty stomach as you ran your fingers over the nail marks on your door. They had nailed your door shut, and at some point removed them during the night. That was why you couldn't make the door budge an inch. The holes were continuous and consistent all the way up, and even on the opposite side that was already attached to the wall.

You rubbed your arms, trying to calm the uncontrollable goosebumps that had appeared. Hesitantly, you walked to the dining hall. Your entire family was sat there, eating in silence. No one said anything as you walked in, feeling awkward and out of place. Even when you sat down in your seat, no one bothered to say a word. Your mother's gaze flickered to you once as you dropped the dish full of bread, and you swore a faint smirk made itself at home on her lips, but as soon as it appeared it disappeared, and her expression was back to being stone cold, reminiscent of the marble statues in the garden outside. You tried to pace yourself, but your stomach had never felt so empty, and you stuffed yourself full of everything in sight, stopping only to take long, greedy sips from your tin cup of water.
"You eat like a pig," your brother teased, jabbing you roughly in the side with a butter knife. "Oink, oink."

"Junho," your mother said sharply, and your brother shrunk down back into his seat, retracting the knife. She then turned to you. "But he's right, a royal cannot eat like a dirty pig. Would you rather go out to the barn and eat with the animals?" She dabbed at her red lips primly with a white cloth napkin, wiping away invisible crumbs.

"No, ma'am," you mumbled, swallowing your food and trying to ignore the anger bubbling in your throat yet again.

"The pig is turning pink," Junho jeered, regaining his confidence. "Is the dirty hog mad?"

You clenched your fists around your fork and knife, face burning with embarrassment. Your mother didn't stop Junho this time, instead watching you with amusement as you flushed even darker, trying to keep your rage in. "Short tempers do not bode well," she said, sipping from her goblet.

"No they do not," your siblings chanted, "no they do not."

You had long since lost your appetite, both from your mother's beady glare, and your brother's unsavory comments. You placed your fork and knife down and sat in silence as your family finished their breakfast, a disturbingly smug silence overtaking the room. Servants and maids began filing into the room to clear the table, and your parents got up and left, probably to go sit on their thrones for no real reason, just to feel a sense of gross superiority. Junho slunk out of the room, and you didn't even want to know what he was up to. Your sister Jaehee stayed at the table, pushing around the cold eggs on her plate and ignoring you completely. She didn't even look up when you stood up and exited the room, a specific goal in mind.

You were going to see that siren again, and your mother's petty rules weren't going to stop you.
You began to walk up the long, winding staircase up to your tower to fetch your book, but a maid grabbed you by the arm, pulling you backwards. "The mistress wants you to fulfill your royal duties," the maid said timidly, her shy voice contrasting heavily with her tight grip on your forearm.

"What duties?" you asked dumbly, slightly annoyed that your plans were interrupted. "I did everything yesterday."

The maid's eyes widened and her eyes darted back and forth for a moment, between you and the floor. "The mistress says you are to be assigned more duties since you 'seem to have so much free time'. Her words, your highness." She tightened her grip on your arm, clearly afraid that you would run off if she let go.