Dirty Lying Sirens

Chapter Forty Five

Madeline

The procession from the tower was truly bizarre. The dragon opted to stay in the tower, which was probably a good thing considering the line of people that came out to watch. Dimitris strolled ahead, followed by Gavin and Caroline. The pair of them were not from Atlantis, and as such attracted a huge amount of attention. Not to mention the wrapped item in Caroline's arms, which was the source of this entire project.

Caspian held my hand as we walked in the back near Nikkos, and I was happy not to have the attention on me as we went. It felt like everyone was out to see what happened when Dimitris's mysterious artifact was put into place.

When we finally reached the square in front of the senate, I saw the new addition to the fountain right away. It had originally been built as the center point of the island, at the highest point, too. It's where the ancient sirens sang to begin the bubble that saved what of Atlantis it did, and it was in the very center between the towers where we sang now. And, on the top of the fountain, now sat a gilded cage of runes and wires.

"What is that?" I asked.

"To house the amulet, the relic," he answered.

The procession reached the edge of the fountain where all the other senators, the basilli included, stood in wait. Ashana and Calliope were present, as were most of the other sirens standing in the crowd behind them. It was a matter of a few minutes for Gavin and Caroline to walk forward and do their wordbinding. A fascinating process to watch, as Calliope recited an oath with them in a sing-song voice, and Ashana layered her sway heavily to a tune under their words. When the process was done, Caroline stood in the middle of the open space.

"And here it is, the artifact you requested," she said with a flourish as she removed the cloth wrapping. I felt it, as did the other's around us from what I could tell. It was . . . suffocating. It wanted to be out, to be used. There was no explanation for how I would know that, but the shared look I held with Caspian told me enough.

Besides the power it clearly held, it was proportionally huge. More like holding a frisbee than what I would have thought of as a necklace. It had a long chain, enough that it might even go around the neck of something like the dragon they rode in on. It was round with three polished stones embedded in it of different shades of green.

"If you would put it in the structure, Caroline," Dimitris gestured to the cage-like contraption that now sat on the top of the fountain.

The fae nodded, stepping onto the fountain's edge, then bracing a foot on the next level up as she leaned in and put the amulet in the cage itself, and the pressure emanating from the relic faded away. Almost, but not completely gone if you got too close to the fountain. I had a feeling we would all be keeping a few feet back from it from now on.

Dimitris began speaking in Atlantian, and Caspian murmured the gist of it in my ear. The plan now was for the sirens to sing to the amulet, using the same sway we would to move the water out and away from Atlantis. If this amulet could hold our sway with little or even no maintenance, the sirens would be free to become more regular members of society. And Atlantis as a whole would finally be able to look outward, no longer hiding in the bubble completely. 

There would be no joining the world's nations all at once, of course, but a secondary reason to invite Gavin and now Caroline here was to set in motion the meeting of outsiders. We would be able to selectively invite communities of beings, supernaturals they were called, to the island. Fresh blood, fresh interaction, new people and customs and life. And Atlantis could slip out. Our goods could finally be traded, our people could explore other lands and return with new experiences. This would change everything for Atlantis, and it sent a thrill through my heart to hear the possibilities.