Siren's Song by Mary Weber Read Free Book Online Page B

forward to Eogan.
    ON THE AIRSHIP, HE’S STARING AT ME, TALKING TO ME BECAUSE AN Elemental will be Draewulf’s downfall.
    The airship shudders, and the sensation is answered by a matching shiver beneath my skin, in my veins, as Eogan’s voice emerges again through the wind and sea salt and snowcapped air. “When Draewulf comes to Faelen, it’ll be for you. Because your Elemental ancestors were the original rulers of Faelen. And you’re last in line, Nym.”
    The red raindrops are back, pounding my head again. I try to duck. To get out of the way, but their piercing glow follows me.
    â€œThe prophecy,” one of the red drops says.
    â€œThe queen knows of the prophecy,” another answers. “Reach back further. To the beginning.”
    â€œI don’t want to go back,” I tell it. “I need to move forward.” Always forward.
    â€œWe need the past,” the hammering drops say. “To help see the future.”
    What future? “There is no future if he can’t be stopped.” Doesn’t the bloody rain know this?
    â€œExactly.”
    STICK WALLS. SLATTED LIGHT. HEAT AND STENCH AND SWEAT COATING the air, coating my lungs, which can barely breathe. I’m gasping as if they don’t know how to work yet. They squish and ache and, oh, my body aches. I sneeze and blink and suddenly I’m staring up at a face that is brown.
    A pair of stormy gray eyes blink back. I smile. They smile. Then drop water on my cheeks—and I wail because it’s startling and frightening and I don’t want to see this woman cry. This woman I don’t know but somehow I must be a part of. Must have come from.
    And from the man hovering behind her.
    Why does he look so sad too? With that white hair and those sea-blue eyes that are beautiful.
    Are they mad?
    Footsteps outside. Tromping. Making angry sounds. And more cries are coming from somewhere.
    Why are they so angry? Is that what’s making this couple sad?
    â€œIt’s time,” a whisper says.
    The woman holds me closer, and I can feel how small I am. She squeezes me to her breast, and suddenly I want to stay here. With her. I want to nuzzle against her and sleep.
    â€œIf we’re going to get her out, it has to be now,” the blue-eyed hovering man says.
    â€œI know, I just . . .”
    The lovely woman is crying again. Then she’s handing me to an old lady in a scratchy cloth that makes me want to wail. Before I can, she pops a thumb in my mouth and swishes us out a small door while the sad lady stands, watching and crying, and the man holds her.
    The angry footsteps are growing closer.
    The old woman runs faster, weaving around hovels and trees.
    â€œHurry,” a male voice says.
    And suddenly I’m being shoved through a tiny dirt hole beneath a tall stone fence that looks made to keep people in permanently. “Poor child,” the old lady mutters. “May the Creator spare her.”
    â€œHalt!” a voice yells, but it’s too late because the new male hands that have taken me from the woman and already strapped me to their chest are working to mount a horse to take me away.
    â€œTo the Fendres Mountains,” the male whispers. “I know a man and his wife you’ll be safe with there, far from this blasted internment camp.”
    I lean forward and blink and try to catch my breath, but what the hulls was that?
    It’s no use, though. I can’t find the air. I don’t know if I ever will. I need to cough. I need to inhale and escape these memories and these red pelting raindrops that are abruptly fading fading fading.
    I choke and squint and stare around me as the darkness lifts and the raindrops slow.
    Not raindrops. Voices. Questions.
    Red Luminescent eyes dull around me at the same moment the throbbing in my head stops.
    I frown. What in—? “What have you done?” I demand of the three Luminescents in front of me.
    They don’t