Josephine's voice kills any man who hears it-except for the assassin sent to capture her for the king that's been chasing her all her life...but what happens when he decides he doesn't want to hand her over and keep her for himself instead?
...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Josephine Reginn Raphelia—you are our only chance at summoning a god. That's why you were brought back to Hefeta—your home."
Olesia's words ricocheted around the room like a canon fired from Valencia.
Her eyes still held that unearthly shining yellow, her rigid posture that of a queen, though I'd never seen one up close.
"It's true, Josephine. When we tried five years ago, we almost did it, but when the dust settled, there was no God there."
"Why in all the Everworld would you want to summon a God?!"
My near shrieking voice forced a wince out of everyone in the room aside from Oren, Soraya and Olesia.
The Elder raised her hands before finding her gaze back to me.
"Look around you. All of this was invisible to your eye coming in from the sea, and it is invisible to anyone else coming from all sides—including on land. Yet—somehow, the King of Valencia was able to take away two of our three princesses. How do you think that happened, child?"
"I'm not sure, I've only been here a few hours. If it's invisible, it would've had to have been someone with powers of their own—"
I cut myself off before remembering the exact reason why the King of Valencia had hunted me so mercilessly across the countryside. Or, had that been my uncle?
I didn't have the mind capacity to wonder about my father's vengeful brother at the moment, though, as Olesia finished my thoughts for me.
"The King of Valencia is known for stealing those with peculiar powers in order to harness them for himself. He's been after Sirens to use as his own personal assassins since he came to power over a hundred years ago. We know he's not mortal—but we haven't a clue of his actual heritage. No one has seen his face in years. He's nothing but a ghost with soldiers who are able to seek and destroy at his command. We've depleted our power reserves. We can no longer fight back without sustaining losses."
"Elder Olesia, if I may?"
Warrick was a braver soul than I by interrupting Olesia like that, but she let him continue to speak, nonetheless.
"Ever since you were taken by your parents all those years ago, Josephine, more and more Sirens have been vanishing. We honestly believed your mother had been taken and you and your sister had perished somehow until we received word of two young women around the right ages with a bounty on their heads by the King of Valencia himself. That's how we knew that it was real and that you two were still out there somewhere, alive and well. We had to bring you home."
"Right. You had to bring me home to do some kind of magical ceremony that would have me slicing my arm open and performing old, dangerous magic to summon an actual God. I'm starting to feel as if being on the run would be a better fate than being left to the whims of an old god who feels no remorse or human empathy."
