One Last Song

Copyright © Emmi Lawrence

Edited Dec 28th, 2014: This story has been removed and below is only an excerpt. The entire Siren Song novella will be available for purchase in January 2015.

Later, when Jieve had already fallen asleep and Wela was outside resetting the rodent traps around Mother’s garden, Rikel sat across from Kula, letting the constant movement of her hands drive away the desire to go see Caarafk. She glanced up at him now and then, but mostly kept her gaze on her lap.

“Wela will stop you if you leave,” she said finally. “You might as well go to bed.”

“Are you coming?”

She shrugged.

After another moment, he asked, “How do you do it? How do you sit here day after day and never even go to the water? You don’t go to the docks. You don’t even walk along the cliffs. It’s like you’re not song sick at all.”

Kula’s hands froze for a second. Then she continued without losing her place in the thin ropes. “You find something that is more important. When I was little, Father used to threaten to whip me if I so much as touched the water and I was more scared of him than I desired to find my siren, especially after he told me he’d sell me off to an old farmer from Vaisar a few years later.”

Rikel snorted. “No, he didn’t.”

“Yeah, why do you think we never got along? When I figured out he would never do something like that, I had an awful phase where I would sneak out. At first, I would just go to the cliff and sit there, listening. Then I would go to the Gamble and wait. No one ever came.”

“Gods,” breathed Rikel. “You don’t still do that, do you?”

She shook her head. “Tarok caught me coming home one night. Reamed me until I was crying. The songs don’t have the same effect anymore, mostly because I know I’m not truly wanted.”

“What if your siren had met you there and did still want you?”

She didn’t glance up from her work. “Then I’d probably be dead.”

This is only an excerpt of Siren Song. For more excerpts you can go to the Excerpts page.