The Siblen & The Siren

Chapter One-3

Isidor suddenly straightened.

“Do you hear something?” Isidor said, sounding wary.

Winter tilted his head. Singing? He straightened as well, realizing, his neck prickling. Then the wind shifted. He strained, listening. Nothing.

“It’s gone,” Isidor said.

He and Isidor looked around uneasily. Isidor grabbed the lantern as Winter moved away from the rail. They went into their cabin, shutting the door. Better to be prudent so near the straight. There were legends of sirens boarding a ship from the water, hunting that way. They doused the lantern, laying back, neither of them able to sleep yet, but not talking, either.

Winter looked out the porthole. He felt it in his heart that Maren was gone. He had for awhile. But now he wondered. Coming to Nanine had been the last task before grieving him. Neither of them had actually expected to find him here.

#

Winter picked up a pebble and tossed it irritably off the low cliff into the sea below as he walked. It was their fourth day on Nanine and all the anticipation had faded and disappointment had replaced it. Nanine was just like all the other islands they had searched. They had found no sign of Maren. Maren never would have made it this difficult. He was probably gone from here or dead.

The low cliff they walked found a bottom at the same level as the sea and they began clambering up and down huge rocks on the edges of the shoreline to the west of the cove, having explored all the shore and quite a bit inland east of it. They had started with the reasonable assumption that if Maren settled on an island he would stay near the cove, that being the only way off of it, the only viable landing spot.

But they had found nothing. Island and more island. Trees. Birds. Big green leaves. More trees. Winter hated islands, hated being sticky. If he never saw another island, that would be fine. Insects. Snakes. Heat. Winter had packed things to camp that they carried, their next step to search inland in this direction. They’d sleep rough tonight in the forest, the day getting late. Isidor remained annoyingly cheerful.

The surf crashed to their left, that endless sound, Sága’s fingers playing on everything it found, the sea’s rhythms. They climbed up and down the huge rocks that jutted from the shore and out of the sea in towering forms, great sprays of water crashing that he and Isidor avoided, sometimes timing it, the shoals alive with creatures you found wherever the sea met the land. Seasquirts. Mussels, fanworms. Five-finger fish. Barnacles. More rocks, more waves. A woman.

Winter stopped, Isidor walking up beside him. Winter put his arm out quickly, hitting Isidor’s chest, pointing. Isidor looked.

There was a woman sitting on the rocks far ahead and higher, on a natural shelf, massive waves breaking at her feet. She was looking out to sea, perched on the overhanging cliff in profile, her legs off the edge, her feet on the rock face under her, her toes pointed down. Her feet were bare. From here all he could see was that she had red hair, a long fall that obscured her face, wavy.

What was a woman doing on Nanine?

Winter was trying to see her, peering, walking forward, Isidor doing the same. She was very still. It was like she had just appeared out of nowhere. They crossed a patch of sand onto the higher rocks, climbing, getting closer, keeping their balance on the uneven surface.

She suddenly turned her head. She must have spotted them, although she was still too far away to see her face well.

They moved toward her quickly as she got to her feet, pivoting in their direction, the wind coming up and stirring her red hair, lifting it, very long. She was wearing some sort of shapeless dress that came just below her knees. She began backing away. Winter stopped, Isidor doing the same beside him. She went still again. Winter slowly walked forward, the woman staying where she was now, watching them. They got closer. He could almost see her.

The tide sucked out, withdrawing from the rocks below to their left, rolling and gathering again. A great wave crested the cliff, crashing between where they walked and the woman, obscuring her, a spray of froth and seawater that rose high and then fell to crash onto the rocks, scattering and withdrawing.

She was gone.

“What—?” Isidor said next to him, looking around, and Winter spotted her.

“There,” Winter said, pointing, setting off after her, the rocks slowing them.

She seemed to have little difficulty, going lightly. Then she was running ahead through the sand straight for the tree line and the dense forest, huge leaves and undergrowth, her red hair a beacon. She looked back once. He still couldn’t make her out. Winter jumped from the rocks to the sand, pounding after her, Isidor behind. She disappeared into the forest.

They followed her straight in, going fast, slapping away leaves, trailing vines. They ran for awhile in that direction, not seeing her. Winter finally slowed, breathing hard.

“Where is she?” Isidor panted behind him.

They’d lost her. Winter turned around in a circle and froze, Isidor seeing and turning as well. She was standing not far, very still again, looking at them.

#

Winter stared, almost not believing what he was looking at. The whole of her struck him first. Beautiful. Her hair was red, a true red, deep and dark and rich. Redheads were unusual, sometimes seen in Alveria, even more rarely in Caska. She had that coloring redheads sometimes did, her skin seeming almost translucent, the blood close to the surface.

Her cheeks were flushed a delicate pink from running, contrast to the red of her hair, freckles across her nose, her lips full, also pink. Her features were delicate, large eyes under sweeping dark red brows. Winter blinked, peering at her. The irises of her eyes were so strange, not brown, too pale, the color of honey. She was delicate all over, wrists and ankles, her jaw fragile. Winter was still staring at her, Isidor was. She didn’t look real.

Then Winter saw the necklace she wore. A small rectangular Tal, sitting vertically on her neck, a Siblin necklace. All Siblin wore one. He did. Isidor did. Winter’s gut sank. Maren.

“I’m going to try to grab her,” Winter said to Isidor in a low voice.

She wouldn’t speak Siblin. He didn’t know what language she would speak. Nobody lived here.

Winter stepped carefully toward her, his hand out, a staying motion. He took another. She was still motionless. He stepped again, a branch breaking under his boot. At the small crack, with no warning, she bolted.

Winter cursed and ran after her, Isidor right behind him. He could see her smaller form darting ahead of them, going through things easily they had to clamber over. She’d taken this way deliberately. Their size was slowing them.

He burst out of a particularly dense patch, Isidor right behind him, and they’d lost her again. Winter turned in a quick circle, catching her out of the corner of his eyes on the half-turn, a flash of red hair in sunlight. Almost, but not quite fast enough. Winter sprang after her, catching sight of her. She looked back once and veered sharply ahead of them toward the side of the cliff, beginning to climb nimbly, lighter than they were. But they were faster and stronger and Winter had her in his sight now.

She suddenly disappeared. Gone. Winter slowed, panting, staring. Then he kept running, going to where she had been before she wasn’t there anymore. There was a fissure, tall and thin, reminding him, for an uneasy moment, of the openings in the cliffs on the black rocks where the sirens lived. The angle coming up had obscured it. She’d gone underground.

Winter plunged into the fissure, Isidor right behind him, quickly slowing to a walk and running his hand along the wall as they lost all the light, black as night in here, not knowing what they would run into, how deep it was. They couldn’t hear her in front of them. Winter’s mind chose that moment to offer the memory of the singing they’d heard, thoughts of sirens and nests having him wishing they had a lantern.

But sunlight showed up again not far, not a cave but a tunnel, to his surprise, opening up on the other side.

It went straight through this part of the mountain. When he came to the plateau on the other side, below the opening stretched a small sweet valley, sheltered from the worst of the weather and warm with sunshine. Hidden. This was a place you could keep secret.

It was ringed in mountains. Winter didn’t see any sign of the woman, but she couldn’t be far. He could see a long way from here, above the tree line. He scanned and then spotted it. A dwelling in the trees, the grass roof just visible and not far.

She’d brought them home.

Winter ran down the path, the way easy to follow, making straight for the cabin. Someone obviously used it a great deal, the path worn and clear. They were faster than she was and he knew where she was going, Isidor at his heels.

Maren wouldn’t take that necklace off. If it were Maren’s mark on the necklace she wore, Maren was dead. She might at least knew where his body was, how he’d died.

They caught up with her before she got there. He signaled Isidor, who stayed on the path. Winter made a wide arc, going fast, getting in front of her and backtracking on the trail, slowing around a corner. He heard her light footsteps on the trail, her quick breathing, directly before she ran right into his arms. He caught her, turning with her momentum, getting behind her and wrapping his arms around her and holding her.

She immediately began struggling wildly to escape him, throwing herself forward, pushing against his arms with her hands, her hair whipping all around her face and his face as she landed a glancing blow with her head, cracking on his cheek.

“Hold still,” Winter grunted in Dorsan, rearing his head back, trying not to get hit again. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

Dorsa was the nearest settlement, the language she would be most likely to speak, although she certainly didn’t look Dorsan. She didn’t look anything. He’d never seen a woman who looked like her. She didn’t seem like she understood what he said at all, struggling as hard, just not able to move as much as he got a better hold of her. She wanted away from him. Winter just intended to keep her until she calmed down, until they could figure out how to talk to her.

Isidor arrived, breathing hard. They all were. The woman’s heart was hammering against him. Scared, she was scared. He felt badly to frighten her, but they wouldn’t hurt her. Siblin didn’t hurt women. She knew what had happened to Maren. He just wanted to ask her questions. Isidor slowed and then stopped, staring at her.

“Winter—,” he said.

“Let’s get her to the cabin and see what language she speaks. It’s not Dorsan,” Winter said to him.

“Winter—,” Isidor said, his eyes fixed on her, Winter finally noticing his expression.

“What?”

Isidor stepped forward, hesitated, and then reached with both hands gingerly, capturing her head, forcing her to tilt, pulling her hair back and exposing her ear.

Winter looked down at the peaked tip, a delicate blunt point, everything about her coming together in his head in a moment, all the tales and legends. Her strange beauty. The color of her eyes, their shining, blank quality. Her crude dress. Where they found her, on the cliffs staring out to sea. That strange stillness.

She’d been waiting for a ship. She’d been hungry, hunting. If they’d brought The Singsong to Nanine just a few days later, she would have stood on that cliff edge and—.

Winter clapped his hand over her mouth. Isidor jerked his hands off her, his face reflecting disgust.

“She’s a f*****g siren, Winter.”