I close my eyes for a heartbeat and reach for it.
And it rises to meet me.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Thepoweranswersinan eager rush, like a barrel overflowing with water after something heavy is dropped into it. It slides through me like a current finding its path, filling spaces in my body that feel entirely too small to hold it. My hands go cold when it presses against my sea-formed bones.
Now.
I have to sing now, give it an outlet, like I did when I sang for Sable.
I open my mouth and let the first note slip free. It vibrates through ribs and spine, through the soles of my feet and into the ship, as if it was trying to find its way back into the water.
The cave returns the sound in a soft echo. It doubles, triples, then repeats itself all over again, like the voice of Sable’s shadow often did. This is not a coincidence, I find. This place is made for the song of a siren.
Match’s eyes widen when his shadow surges forward, detaching from his frame completely. It reaches for me without hesitation, as if he knows what I am trying to make him do. His dark hands claw at my arm, like a man slashing for the surface when he’s drowning and desperate to live.
It feels like dying.
I remember the words of Sable’s shadow and pull at another string of my power. My voice is steady as I focus on Match now, on his physical, shaking body. Return home. I try to command it, but it pushes against my song’s pull, writhing and twisting in the hold of my magic.
Match grits his teeth as his shadow finally lets go of me and surges toward him instead.
A sound escapes him, a strangled groan that proves his pain.
Sable’s voice cuts through. “Hold.”
Match's eyes flick toward the captain, then back to me, and he nods again, telling me to continue.
At the next note, my throat tightens. The power presses upward, demanding me to give it a way out, but I have to hold it back, and I'll have to hold it back for a while longer.
Match’s shadow buckles, then goes thin, crumping over. Its hands lash across the boards like hungry flames, reaching for the other shadows in desperation.
Then it snaps back toward him, like a rope yanked and dragged by force.
The young pirate jerks as if struck in the gut and lets out a wheezing gasp. The shadow slams into his feet, pours up his legs, and finally, sinks back into him. His eyes roll back for a second, as dark as black pearls, then snap forward again.
Some of the other pirates gasp at the sudden calm of him, and I force my voice back into a hum. Match looks up at me, eyes shining, then nods timidly, before stumbling out of the line.
A soft touch at my elbow makes me flinch.
“You did it,” he whispers into my ear.
I can’t look at him, because if I do, my siren might decide that he’s next. I have to keep my promise, and the only way to do that is through control.
I swallow through the throbbing ache in my throat and focus on the line ahead.
The next man steps forward.
He’s older than Match, thicker in the shoulders. His shadow stands beside him already, not surging or trying to escape. Instead, he looks steady and immovable, as if he has grown roots into the planks.
This might be more difficult.
I draw in another breath. The power is still there, coiled behind my sternum, but it doesn’t feel untouched or infinite. The salt-fed weight inside me shifts, and suddenly I become well aware of the edges of it, the limit I don’t want to reach.
His shadow is trying to anchor itself against my pull, so I just pull harder and take another string. My voice threads through his will, and finally, the shadow shudders.
It returns to its owner in a slow, reluctant sweep. He backs away without a word, and the next man steps forward.