He took a menacing step toward me. “I never hurt her. I never wanted to. I lived with regret over my service to Eusia for years because of my feelings for Ligea and did all I could to keep her safe. I kept her from the sea so Eusia couldn’t sense her. When she… when we… Ligea was determined to give birth to you in the sea. Despite how I begged her, how I demanded she stay on land.” The color drained from his face. “She slipped out in the night. We were on Seraf, at the old keep on the western shore. The mountain fort wasn’t finished yet. I realized too late she was missing from our bed. I should have tied her to the post like I’d threatened to, but I couldn’t bring myself to scratch her wrists with the Godsdamned ropes.” He scrubbed violently at his eyes. “When I got to the beach, the sun was just rising. The spume was still colored with her blood. You were screaming, lying up on the dry sand—like she’d tossed you to safety. And her wing floated on the breaking waves. Bits of her flesh still hung from its root. Eusia took her, but she didn’t kill her.”

“How do you know that?” I whispered.

“Our bond didn’t break when she left me. I still felt it. For years and years.” He looked up at me and I could just make out the sneer and dark amusement on his face in the fading light. His laugh came angry and low. “This might be the first time you’ve ever looked at me like I have a heart.” He shook his head. “Don’t be fooled.”

“Why didn’t you gut me and throw me into the sea?” I fought for balance against the rolling ship. “Why didn’t you make Eusia all-powerful? Get rid of us Sirens once and for all.”

“Eusia doesn’t want you dead,” he said in a snarl. “She kept Ligea alive as long as she could. And she’d do the same to you. She’d use you up slowly.”

I stared at him in slack-jawed disbelief. “Are you telling me that you kept me as a mercy? That you made me give my blood in that ritual so that I wouldn’t suffer like my mother did?”

Alarming anger filled him, bringing color back to his cheeks. “I did it for Ligea. Not you. I’ve kept my word to Eusia. I’ve fed her. But I swore that while our bond still lingered, I wouldn’t let Ligea’s daughter suffer her same fate.”

“Your bond,” I said. “Is it gone?”

He paused and seemed stunned by the question. As if he’d never before considered it. Eyes darting, he searched himself inwardly. Set a hand to his stomach. His voice went low and, unbelievably, a lovelorn look filled his eyes. “I can’t feel it.”

The change in him was instant. Intent built through his body, bringing him nearer to me.

“Where is Eusia?” I demanded, firming my stance.

“With all that you’ve learned while you’ve been away, you still can’t figure it out?” His shoulders rose. His weaponless hand curled into a tight fist. “I kept you up in that fort, away from the sea, as a mercy because you have always been so weak. You were so small when you were born, so sick. The sea would have swallowed you whole had I ever let you near it. Eusia would have plucked you from the sand with no effort at all. Even now, you stand there with a sword, letting me speak and asking me questions you should know the answer to.” He gave me a disgraced shake of his head. “Harden up. Fight.”

“If I am fearful and weak, it’s because of you,” I yelled. “You have made me this way.”

“And what will you do about it?” He held his dagger up between us. “Will you come back home with me where you’re safe, and we can pay Eusia for her blessings where she cannot reach you, or will you make me gut you now, and let her monsters carry you to her? I know the spell that will keep you alive until you reach her. The very one she used to save herself from death.”

The water had grown choppier, the troughs of the waves deeper, and it made the ship sway steeply. I met his gaze through the gloaming. My voice filled with steel. “Neither.”

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The sword’s weight combined with the rocking of the ship had me fighting to stay upright.

With all my strength, I hefted it and set the blade slicing down toward Nemea in a wide arc. He dodged. His hand flashed in my periphery, and then a bright striking pain lit my cheekbone. My head snapped to the side and the crown I wore went flying to the deck, where it landed with a wobbling roll. Sparks flew across my vision. I waited for the next strike, for the dagger to my gut, but it never came.

My face smarted, my eyes watered, but I found my footing. On the far side of the deck, Nemea paced. His shoulders were hunched, and he kept swiping his hand through his mussed hair, as if distraught.

“Is that your measly conscience, Nemea?” I yelled over the howl of the wind. “Did it hurt you to strike me?”

He shot me a glare. “No.”

I moved toward the rigging and grabbed hold. The storm threw the ship over the surface of the water like a loose flower petal. “I look like her. How can you not picture her face when you strike mine?”

The rain started. It fell sideways, plastering his hair to his brow. “Use your power and let this be done,” he said, over the crash of the waves.

“You want me to kill you?”

“You cannot understand my misery.” His voice cracked. “I lived all those years with an intact blood bond, never being free of the worry or the compulsion to keep her safe, and there was nothing I could do.”

“Nothing you could do?” Something inside me cracked. I hauled the sword up and started toward him. “How dare you try to justify your cruelty.” I charged, bringing the sword down just above his shoulder. He dodged again, swiping at me with his dagger. “All the ways you’ve terrorized me. You made me into what you wanted me to be—into what served you. You made me small and timid. You made me everything my mother was not so that you could use me.”

His eyes flashed. The dark was pressing in, making it harder to see the details of his movements. Nemea lunged. I made to move out of his reach, but the ship pitched and sent me stumbling directly toward him. He was more prepared than I was. He grabbed my hair in his fist and yanked me sideways. A scream tore up my throat at the pain.

Nemea seethed, his breaths coming hard through his teeth. “All I have done is keep you safe and require your obedience in return. Is that not how a God treats his worshippers? Is that not the agreement a king has with his subjects? How a father treats his child?”

He released my hair with a shove. I fell flat to the deck and the air rushed from my chest. Teeth bared, he took the dagger from his hip once more and fought the ship’s swaying to trudge toward me.

My power was swirling, an eddy in midnight water, eager to break free of its confines, but I couldn’t pull in a full breath, couldn’t focus on sending out a lure through my pain. Slowly, I rose to my knees and set all my intention on Nemea’s withered heart. He was right before me, dagger gripped in his fist, when I let my lure fly.

Silver light glinted off the blade in his hand as he reared back. I waited for him to freeze under my control, waited for the dagger to clatter to the deck… but my lure never sank in.

He lunged, eyes locked with mine. I sucked in a ripping breath as the dagger tip cut into me. Fire blistered through my middle, through muscles and organs. Right through the spot where my bond with Eusia sat.

A cry bubbled up in my throat.

Nemea froze. His eyes blew wide. The rain rolled down his stunned face like tears. “No,” he whispered, releasing the hilt of the blade like it scorched him. He shook his head, mouth gaping. “You tried… didn’t you? You tried your lure?”

I gave a weak nod. My hands went to my stomach, to either side of the half-pressed-in dagger. “It didn’t take.”

He nearly lost his balance as a wave crashed over the deck. It washed me off my feet. Threw me on my side. My gut exploded in agony as the dagger shifted and drove deeper into me. No scream came forth, no rush of pained breath. My body locked up instead, stiff from the consuming press of metal into my soft flesh.