Someone was shaking me.
My head bobbled back and forth on my neck like one of those toys Marlisa had bought me from the market after escaping from a family that had taken us in only to use us as their glorified slaves.
The toy's head had bounced back and forth on its neck, the eyes dull, lifeless. Haunted.
"It'll be alright, Josie. We'll find another mommy and daddy that want us more than they did. No one can pull us apart. No one will keep me from you. I promise. From the sleepy stars to the happy sun. Alright?"
My fingers were still stained black with soot and my back still sore with lashes. They hadn't been gentle with their punishments on me, but had cherished Marlisa like she were a fragile, beautiful flower to always be protected.
I never told her why the father of that first family we'd been apart of had died the night before we escaped, of how I had caught him with his hand too far up on Marlisa's knee one night at dinner while I sat by the stove and ate the scraps they were willing to throw my way.
The anger had flooded me, suffocated me.
Why hadn't they wanted me? What was so special about Marlisa?
It was the first time I'd used my gift in anger, in rage.
I had tried to direct it at Marlisa, when I snuck into her room that night, only to find the father creeping near her room in the hallway.
He was struck dumb by my song and dead by the lethal call inside me.
So many close calls with men who didn't know how to keep their hands to themselves.
So many men who didn't understand that the word 'no' actually meant 'no', and not 'maybe', or 'in a little while', or even worse—'what are you doing to me?'
So many men that I'd protected her from, but it only took once for me to fail her completely after saving myself.
One more thing to add to the ever-growing list of things I'd never forgive myself for, and I had an eternity to live with them.
"Is she even conscious? Can she hear what we're saying?"
The world around my memories grew dim and fuzzy and for once I was grateful for the light to chase out the shadows I so gleefully welcomed in the night.
"What happened Oren? We all saw the lightning, we all heard the call of the prophecy in our minds. It is part of our link. What did she say?"
Flashes of gold and daylight flooded in through the hazy fogginess I had once been drowned in and the Sirens around me stirred as I sat up and immediately regretted it.
Black spots danced in my vision while acrid bile swam up my throat.
The pungent scent of cinnamon was too much for my stomach to bear as I reared back and retched over the side of what I hoped to be the bank of the Serenity Pool I had been near when the ordeal started.
Someone's hand was touching my back, rubbing what should have been smooth circles onto me, but it only made me shudder in disgust as the sweet smoke permeated the rest of the smells around me.
"Don't touch me," I barked out at no one in particular, but once that hand receded and the scents around me abated, I could finally inhale a clear, refreshing breath coated in salt water mist.
"What happened? What was the prophecy you foretold, Princess?"
Warrick was there, strong and steady with a skin of water in his hand and I bypassed the question in order to gulp down the contents of fresh water down my throat.
My head pounded to an unsteady rhythm that was not the same beat in my heart and my throat had been ripped threadbare.
I was, for once since my short time of knowing him, grateful of Oren's presence as he filled the others in on the words I'd foretold.
"The prophecy said, 'Before the Harvest comes, the songbirds will fall. The wolf of the winds will have his run, but the shadows swirl before their call.' I'm sure it means that there are other forces at work with the summoning—there are certain players who might not want us to summon Nicos."
"Elder Velda, Elder Treasa, Elder Olesia."
Warrick's voice announced the arrival of the three Elders of Hefeta, and my bones locked up inside of me.
If only I could see aside from general outlines of the forms around me, then perhaps I wouldn't have been so quick to flinch.
"Princess Josephine. You've certainly caused quite a stir since you've arrived. I believe it's time for you to start training right away, especially if what the prophecy you spoke of makes it clear that we will need to move up our timeline. The summoning of Nicos' wolf will happen in no less than seven days. That should provide you enough time to hone your skill, learn the phrases needed for the chant, and ready yourself."
"How am I supposed to ready myself if I can't even see properly?"
The moonlight that had seared through my pupils and irises had done a phenomenal job of rendering me almost completely sightless.
"Oh, it's a burden to not be able to see? I wouldn't have thought any type of weakness would be accepted by a prospective Elder?" Soraya's voice came from somewhere behind me.
I would've rolled my eyes at her words had the action not been comparable to pouring hot lava onto them.
"Soraya, thank you for coming. I'll need for you to attend to our Princess' eyes, and then prep her for sensory training. She's depleted most of her power through a new prophecy the Goddess of the moon must've given her, so the burning mist she emits when singing shouldn't burn anyone nearby too much," one of the Elders said, but by the nastiness in her tone, I could only assume it to be Velda, the Elder who had seemed to sneer down her nose as me upon my first arrival to Hefeta.
Treasa had been quiet the entire time, as had Olesia, but I'd already spoken at length with Olesia.
Treasa was the mystery, the wild card. The woman who'd let her hair go gray while the other two of her sisters had yet to embrace their age.
Would she be a friend, like Olesia, or foe, like Velda was shaping up to be for me?
"It would be my honor to help train the Princess so that her unworthiness does not taint the ceremony to summon the great Nicos, protector of Hefeta and Sirens along with her."
No one spoke after Soraya's words.
"What? It is true. She is unworthy now, untrained and wild. She needs someone to help keep her power in check or she will end up burning the very God we wish to summon with her freakish hell fire mouth."
Wow.
"If only you could be mute as well as blind—then maybe we'd all not have to suffer the fate of hearing your words upon our ears."
It was a low joke, a blow to Soraya's inability to see that must've caused her to be the way she was—as obstinate and disparaging as she might be—though that was no excuse.
I opened my mouth once more to apologize before someone barked out a peal of laughter that had a few more joining in on the joke.
Laughter that had to belong to her own brother, Yuni, but then the familiar husk of Inala's voice and deep chuckle from Oren joined in as well.
No, this wasn't what I wanted, for them to laugh at Soraya's blindness like it was allowed to be made into a pun.
It was something akin to someone poking fun at the fact that I was an orphan, or had killed the only love of my life.
Strong arms came underneath my own to haul me up off the ground before I could have a chance to rectify my words, but when I registered just who, exactly, was helping me up off the ground I jerked away from him rigidly.
"Oh. Did it suddenly become a few degrees chillier out here?"
Yuni's joke was ignored, most likely because those around didn't want to incur the wrath of a demigod who shifted into a beast under the light of the moon, but the subject of my disdain for said beast was suddenly on display for anyone to see.
"Come Josephine, I will walk you to your training with Soraya."
Cool, leathery fingers closed over my wrist as a figure, clad in what I could only make out as a red blob but yet knew as the robes of the three Elder sisters, led me away from the group of people l'd somehow come to know as my friends.
Not Oren, nor Soraya and Yuni. But Inala, Sabira and Erinna. Maybe even Warrick, if I could have a conversation with him not regarding the summoning of an ancient god.
However, my criteria for someone to become my 'friend' was most likely extremely different than the other's.
So long as they didn't try to kill me or insult me at any given moment, I could assume that we would be 'friendly' with each other.
Alright, so, that would actually discount Inala seeing as though she attacked me not once, but twice during our first initial meetings, but I was giving her a pass on those.
They didn't count—she was being tortured and starved in a cave and hadn't seen another being for the old gods knew how long.
The Elder leading me was Olesia, but without my sight, I stumbled and wobbled on legs akin to that of a newborn fawn trying out walking for the first time.
"Why can't I see?"
"When the powers of the Gods flow through us, it renders us blind for hours and hours afterwards because of the immense strength it takes out of us. You're lucky you're even still alive."
Olesia's words were short and sweet, but in no way were they comforting.
I found myself longing for Marlisa's warm voice singing to me as we were young children, the fun tales that she would spin in order to get me to fall asleep without crying and disturbing whichever family had finally decided to take us in.
Once she hit the age of fifteen, however, she stopped relying on the families and we started relying on ourselves instead.
Sure footed and picking pockets, we made quick work of the higher echelon of society, but it was that fateful day that we were caught and forced into the stockades that still haunted my memories.
It was the day that we were blindfolded and shoved into a brothel that turned my stomach sour at night.
But, worst of all, it was the sounds of Marlisa sobbing herself to sleep every night until she met Draven that boiled the blood in my veins and cracked open the skin of my palms as I clenched them in attempts not to go out and slaughter every man in my sight.
Those were the days where I couldn't tell innocent from evil, from good and bad, nor could I discern the shades of grey in between the black and white of it all.
Tripping my way down the lush green carpeted ground below my feet, Olesia kept a firm grip on my arm despite her older age.
"Just a bit longer. Oren, would you mind?"
His cloying scent clogged up my nose and stunted my senses, but I didn't refuse his help as he ended up on the other side of me and linked his arm with mine opposite from Olesia.
"Ah, here we are. Josephine, please don't struggle too much."
"Wait, what—"
There was no warning before my body was picked up and flung onto a bed more comfortable than any I had ever laid my tired and weary back on before in my entire life.
"What are you doing?"
"Oren, please hold her still."
"Sorry about this, Princess."
And though he was no Siren, he still used the title they'd given me, although the tone with which he used in speaking to me felt more like a mockery than any kind of show of respect from him.
Something sharp was placed around my neck, the metal piercingly cold, as if the material had sucked all the warmth from my body and absorbed it, only it was still hungry and was searching for any light left inside of me.
"I'm sorry, but this is for our own good. We don't want to be burned alive like those men from last night, too. Prepare yourself, Josephine. This is going to hurt."
Olesia's words sent a shockwave through the participants in the room, and just as a door opened and clanged closed with new arrivals, someone's fingers pried open the skin of my eyelids until they were gaping wide, unseeing outwardly.
"What the Everworld are you going to do to her?"
Inala's concern for me must've warmed me from the inside out, because the piercing metal around my neck flared and sucked it right out of me.
I shivered so hard the collar nicked the skin of my neck and warmth from my golden blood seeped down and must've splashed onto the magnificently comfortable bed beneath me.
"Now, Soraya."
A groaning creak sounded, and then molten liquid splashed into my eyes.
Oren's body kept me restrained, but none of them were prepared for the force of my voice as it came shrieking out of me.
But I was the one unprepared for it to stutter out and die just as quickly, as if the collar they'd placed on me had effectively stunted my powers from the outside in.
Panic swelled and swelled until my heart beat against my ribcage like a ferocious caged animal.
I supposed I was the caged animal here.
The room became filled with the pulsing energy of my silent screams.
Not even my voice could save me from the pain this time, so I gritted my teeth and took it, just like I took the whip to my back after breaking a plate at my first home.
Just like I took the men harassing and touching and taking.
Just like I took being forced to dance in the stockades with linen sheets shoved in my mouth so far they touched the back of my throat to keep me from singing the song that would kill them all.
Just like I took the smack of my mother's palm against my cheek after finding the love of her life, dead at her feet and me swimming in a puddle of his blood.
Just like I would take the pain given to me, because I would relish it.
I would reform the pain into something sharp and lethal inside of me just as deadly as the notes that escaped my mouth, because if I couldn't bring back the men that I loved, then what was the point of all this power anyway?
Maybe I could save someone else from the grief dancing in my mind to a merry tune that kept it alive and fed until it grew into the shadows that haunted me with its sharp teeth every night, taking the form of Peter with his warm hands around me.
My demons were shaped like the boy I loved and caressed my face and whispered sweet nothings in my ears and kissed the tip of my nose, the shell of my ear, my lips.
They parted my hair and inspected the strands with a strange reverence shining in their eyes that looked just like Peter's.
So I would take the pain.
I would swallow down the bile and the song wanting to rip through the binds constricting my throat—desperate to destroy its host if it meant to escape just one more time.
While my powers had no sense of self preservation, however, I did.
My power had no mind, but I could give shape to it, could feed my will into it and force it to do my bidding, for once.
I would learn to harness the deadly disease inside of me and forge it into a weapon worthy of someone the Sirens dared to call their princess.
The fire in my eyes abated and when I was able to blink away the flames, everything around me was left with a golden film atop everything, plunging the rest of the world into a gilded daydream void of dullness and bleak colors.
"How are you feeling?"
The collar released from my neck and I stretched, cracking the aching joints and flexing my fingers as Oren helped me up slowly from my position laying down.
The colors around me more crisp and clear, more radiant and vibrant than before, I glanced at Inala and gasped as I recalled her with how I once saw her.
Now, in screaming color and clarity, she was the epitome of beauty and terrifying allure that would surely drop any sailor to his knees before her song even reached their mortal ears.
"Josephine? Are you alright?"
I turned my gaze to Oren, not the least bit surprised that his elegance and otherworldliness had been enhanced due to whatever they had done to my eyes.
His skin danced to a glittering bronze sheen as his amber eyes seemed to glow from within.
"What happened? What was that?"
Olesia was quick to respond as she could most likely note the hysteria climbing into my voice.
"You're aware of the magic wielders in the world. We have many that visit us over the years. They created the collar to absorb powerful or dangerous magic. And the liquid we poured on your eyes was a combination of the three Elders' blood heated to a temperature high enough to promote healing. It is the technique we use when one of our own fall prey to a God or Goddess using them as a vessel for a prophecy or vision."
Everyone was staring at me like I was close to falling apart.
"Jo, are you alright?"
I turned to Inala's concerned face.
"I'm fine."
"Just fine? You're not in any pain?"
"No."
"So you're ready to start training, then?"
Olesia's deep red hair glistened with golden streaks sprayed upon them from my new vision.
Was I ready to train, to take control of the monster inside of me that I used to be so terrified of, so fearful of ever escaping?
Ready to stop acting like I was powerless and had no control over my body, my voice?
Yes. I was more than ready.
"I've never been more ready in my life."
***
Author's Note:
What did you think of this chapter?
What do you think will happen next?
What do you WANT to happen next?
What do you think is happening with her and Oren? And what about that mystery man from the previous chapter...?
Let me know what you think!
Until next time my lovely readers,
Kristen :)
***
The World of Irena: