Chapter 23: 23

"This is where you live?"

"My permanent residence is here in Hefeta.  It has been for quite a few years.  They've been the only ones who would even entertain the idea of possibly going against my mother and the curse that she placed on me, so I stayed.  I was good with a sword and was immune to the Siren call, but I decided to stay here with the rest of the men who aren't so lucky."

"So...your mother...she wouldn't like it, you trying to break this curse?"

Oren turned to me as we stepped further into his set up on the outskirts of Hefeta.

He'd built himself a modest wooden log cabin with the scent of cedar and oak invading my senses while I took in the large fireplace residing in the middle of the space.

There was only one room that contained a small kitchen, a living area and a large bed with a large, luxurious soaking tub off to the side.

The bed...gods, it was magnificent.  Covered in furs that looked so soft I could barely resist the twitching in my fingers for wanting to reach out and touch them, it was a canopied bed a few feet up off the ground and I had never wanted to rest in something so decadent before in my life.

"My mother is a goddess.  No one would dare say a bad word against her.  The last mortal who did was stricken with exploding boils all over their face.  No one could prove it was Adira who'd done it, of course, but it was obviously her handiwork."

I flinched as Oren's voice came from directly behind me, though I didn't dare turn around to face him.  Not yet.

"So, what exactly am I to do here while the rest of the community is at war?  Most likely with my uncle."

"Or the King of Valencia."

"But if it is my uncle, then why am I to be trapped in this cabin with you while they are all out there fighting for their lives against an evil I lured here?  How am I supposed to live with myself if someone gets hurt, and it's my fault?"

I did turn to him, then, taking in the small amount of space between us.

I hadn't forgotten my suspicions of him, nor had I let myself fall into his trap.  Although...

Maybe if I let him think that I'd fallen, just the smallest bit...

I raised my hand to place against his armor clad arm.

"I can't stay in here with you.  I have to help them.  Please—let me help them."

Oren stared down at me with some kind of fire lingering in the depths of his amber eyes.

Or maybe it was just the flicker of the flames in the fireplace to my back dancing in them.

"I can't do that."

"Surely you don't think that I wouldn't be able to help?  These are your people—you grew up with them, didn't you?  Then why are you sitting here keeping me under lock and key when you could be helping me to help them?"

"Didn't you just have this argument with Inala?  Your powers are untrained.  You could just as easily burn friend over foe.  And then how guilty would you feel, princess?  Tell me—would it make you feel good?  Like a real leader?  If your smoke burned Sabira, Inala, Erinna, one of the Elders?  Sigrid?"

I flinched as he said the young girl's name.

Oren's features softened as he brought a hand up to my face and slid a black gloved finger against my cheek.

I tried to pretend the chills weren't from him, but with the raging fire at my back, it was growing harder ad harder to keep lying to myself.

"Sit, Josephine.  Let me protect you.  This is what will keep Hefeta safe.  This community is all some people have.  Warrick's father fought and died protecting these Sirens from the King of Valencia.  They are my only lifeline to breaking my mother's curse; don't you think I'd do anything to keep it—and the Elders—safe?"

My breaths coming out in a strangled huff, I averted my eyes from his, unable to continue holding his gaze while he made solid points against me in our argument.  I hated being wrong, and also hated admitting it when I was.

"Fine.  I'll stay trapped in this cabin with you until the sun sets.  But the moment the sky goes dark and you transform, I will be gone."

Oren in was in front of me in the blink of an eye.

"Do you really believe I'd rather be stuck in this cabin watching over you like you're nothing but an untrained child instead of going out there to fight for these people—my people?  You were my assignment by the Elders, and it looks like that's still the case as I'm still here, watching over you."

"Well if you hate your assignment so much then why don't you just leave?  I'm sure I could find out a way to be helpful with the intruders."

His voice was a snarl in my ear as he leaned in closer, his lips

"You'd love that, wouldn't you?  For me to let you have the run of Hefeta?  Assert your misguided influence on the lot of them?  You know they won't be better off with you as a leader, right?  If anything, Olesia, Treasa and Velda would be downright idiotic to allow you to take over the mantle of this place."

"And who do you think are most likely lying to you about being able to release you from your curse?  These Elders that you idolize so much for taking you in and giving you the promise of hope, when there isn't really any in sight?  What makes you think that a Siren community that needs to summon a god—oh."

He pulled back and arched an eyebrow before answering to the epiphany I'd just had.

"So, you figuring it out yet Princess?"

He spat my name from his mouth like it was poison.

"You think they're going to ask Nicos for his help in breaking the curse against your mother?  And you think he would actually do it because...because he protected Nalini's daughter from the gods.  He protected Hefeta, so you believe he would protect an ally of Hefeta as well?  And what makes you think a god would want to go up against your mother?  What makes any of you believe this god will actually be benevolent, and help us rather than slaughter us?"

Leaning close to my face, Oren's lips brushed the side of my cheek as he answered.

"None of us know exactly what will happen, but doing nothing is akin to signing our own death warrants.  We'd rather take the risk than lose without ever having tried.  And perhaps the god will deny me, and if he does, then I will take to the land once more to figure my own way out of my curse.  Nothing will stop me from trying to find a way.  Not even a stubborn, bratty princess with a sharp tongue and soft face."

I snorted at his assumption of me.

"If you'd had any idea of what I've endured—"

"I'm sure I can guess.  Dumped on the streets as a young girl, raised by your vain sister, killed your lover...it all seems very tragic."

My hand flew through the air on a path to Oren's face, but he gripped my wrist in his hand before it could make contact.

Instead, he pulled me forward until my chest slammed against his and my heaving breaths stirred the dark golden tendrils of hair hanging down his forehead.

Our eyes met, and I could've sworn heat that only belonged to me swarmed low and rampant in my stomach.

"If you detest me so much, then what was everything at the Serenity Pools, then, hm?  Why attempt to seduce me at all?  Why allow me to kiss you, when you so clearly—"

"Do not even try to assume you know the contents of my emotions for someone so complex as you Josephine."

My gaze fell down to his hand that was holding my wrist in his between us and then my eyes followed down his arm until I stopped on the injury I gave him.

"Ah.  So, this is all because I beat you at your own game?"

Oren flung my hand away from him and stepped away from me as if I'd burned him.

"No.  This isn't about any of that."

"Well, then what is it?  If you hate me so much, why not just kick me out?  Force someone else to watch over me?"

"Because I can't!  You have fallen under my watch and I refuse to—no, nevermind.  Josephine, go and sit on the bed.  I'm going to bring in some logs for the fire and assess what's going on outside.  If you move, I won't hesitate to go and hunt you down."

"I think you're just too scared to tell me what it is that's keeping you so indebted to me.  You hate me one second, and then you—"

"I do not hate you.  I don't.  Contempt and hatred are two very different things."

"Oh, so you hold contempt for me?  You do not respect me, then?  You know, contempt and hate are close enough for me."

I began to step away from Oren, but then his hand shot out and then he was there behind me, solid and steady and warm and in a weaker of moments I would've melted into him.  I could have—but I held firm and stared straight ahead, unblinking, unmoving, undeterred.

"Josephine Raphelia, you are the most stubborn creature I believe I've ever met."

I tried to yank out of his grip, but he tightened his hold on me.

"I am not a creature—I'm a woman, and right now, I want to go out there and protect the people that I didn't know I had.  The home I should have been born into.  The life I should have had.  I want to help, and you think all I'll do is cause more pain."

"I don't think you'll cause more pain—I know you will.  I know you want to help.  I want to as well, but with you being untrained, you know the risks outweigh the reward here.  I'm sorry, I can't let you go."

My body slumped against his arms and then his hands came to my arms and soothed them up and down, up and down, until the stress leached out of my body and was seemingly absorbed by his own, like he was taking the turmoil I couldn't handle in that moment.

"You don't understand.  There were so many people I couldn't protect—my father, Peter, my sister—but I have the chance to protect these people here, now.  Maybe if I could save them, then I wouldn't feel like such a disappointment."

Oren's hands came up and encircled my head until my cheek was pressed against the cool metal armor of his chest.

His embrace was strong and indelible, a stubborn testament to his character that was slowly becoming unraveled the longer I spent with him.

"Maybe it wouldn't be too terrible to let you practice.  Here's the deal I'll make you—if you can conjure up your smoke and have it touch me without burning me, or allow it to move past me without hurting me, then I will take you with me outside into the fray of the battle to see what you could do to help.  You will not leave my side."

Leaning my head back to gaze up into Oren's eyes, I was sure my face was filled with wonder.

"You'd actually let me try it on you?  But surely you can't trust me..."

"You're right, I don't.  But I trust myself enough to be able to slip this collar on you if you get too out of control."

My eyes widened in horror as I spotted the very collar that had been placed on me once before in the corner of the room beside a plush sitting chair.

"Right," I quipped out nervously, stepping back and away from Oren's embrace as the reality of it all finally came crashing down on top of me.

I was either a weapon, or an asset.  But I was never going to be a protector of the people, and they were never going to treat me as such.

Suddenly, the strange stares and conspiratorial whispers from some of the more detached Sirens I'd met were beginning to make sense.

The indifference on Treasa's face and the flat out disdain on Velda's.

Soraya's disgust.

The fact that only a handful of the Sirens had seemed to take a liking to me and actually speak to me.

They were worried which side I'd fall on.

If I was a weapon they could control in time, or something to fear.

Something out of control.

"So, you'd like me to just start now, then?"

Oren took a few steps back, his towering presence taking up much of the room despite its large vaulted ceilings.

"Yes.  Take a few calming deep breaths, and then begin to sing.  Try not to let the gift take control of what you're singing.  I once overheard Olesia teaching the young Sirens how to control their gift, and she said it all had to do with the happiness and positivity in your heart.  The more you focused on the happy memories, the better the outcome, and the easier it would be to stop.  But the longer you dwell on the bad memories and the way your kind have been treated, the easier it will be to lure you into the power and taking it out on anyone in your way."

He made it sound so, so simple.  Just think of the happy memories.

If only I had more than a handful of those to rely upon.

But suddenly something sprung into my mind.

It was the most recent of my happy memories.

Inala, calling me her sister.

I clung to that feeling of her forehead pressed to mine, and the wash of our friendship and the bond between us lightened my heart until the song that washed out of me wasn't one of pain and sorrow, but of a friendship forged in the most unlikely of places.

My eyes closed, I focused in on the light coming from our bond as it unspooled in my mind's eye like a fissure of golden ribbon.

And when that ribbon grew tangled, I searched my heart for something else, something tangible and real.

And that was when honeysuckle burst across my tongue and the tartness of a green apple joined it.

Soft wind ruffled my hair, though there were no windows open in Oren's cabin.

The man from my dream was there, placing his lips on my forehead and pulling back so that ice blue eyes could meet mine in the darkness of my mind.

Shadows swirled around his face, obscuring it so that I couldn't see any longer.

My mouth drifted open wider, and Oren's presence in the room all but dissipated.

"Josephine.  I've been wondering when you'd come visit me again."

The landscape of my mind was dark and endless, swathed in black and inky shadows that twirled around my arms and legs.

Suddenly, they wrapped around my wrists and pulled them up high above my head.

I tried to tug them free, but they held firm.

"What are you doing?  Who are you?"

The shadows twitched and then suddenly they pounced, their cool tendrils wrapping around the sensitive skin of my neck.

There was no strict pressure, only a slight touch as if to let me know that whoever this man was, he was the one in charge.

My smoke poured from my mouth as it filled the cabin, but with my eyes closed, I could feel my consciousness extending to the smoke coming from me, as if my eyes were the smoke and I could see everything it touched.

"You'll know soon enough."

And then the facade broke, and I was standing in the cabin with Oren, my eyes wide and fully open.

There was a gaping break in the smoke around Oren, almost like a bubble of air was protecting him from being hurt by the powers I possessed.

The song that continued to pour from me was in an ancient language I couldn't understand, though some of the sounds were familiar to the chant the girls had tried to teach me for the Summoning.

My mouth closed and the smoke dissipated into thin air.

Oren's mouth twitched with a ghost of a smile.

"Good.  Again."

***

Author's Note:

What did you think of this chapter?

What do you think will happen next?

What do you WANT to happen next?

Plot twist ideas?

Let me know what you think!

Until next time my lovely readers,

Kristen :)

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The World of Irena: