Chapter 1

Every siren High Priestess has a Heart Core. The queen swallowed my sister’s. But she forgot about the second one.”

They gut my sister like a fish in front of me.

She's thrown into a basin full of pearls, her massive tail thrashing, casting this sick blue glow across every face in the room. Soldiers shove their hands all over her — rough, careless — tearing off her scales like they're peeling bark off a tree. Blue scales scatter across the stone like broken glass.

Then they slice her open.

A man rams his fist inside her belly, roots around like he's digging through a sack of grain, and pulls out a Core — glowing, pulsing, beautiful.

And just like that, they stop. Got what they came for.

All because some queen heard a bedtime story.

Somewhere deep in the Endless Sea, there's an ancient race — sirens. And inside every siren High Priestess, there's a Heart Core. Swallow it, and you'll be irresistible. Forever young. Forever beautiful.

Queen Seraphina heard that and lost her goddamn mind. Couldn't eat. Couldn't sleep. Had to have it.

So her husband — the great and mighty King Aldric — sent his army to the bottom of the sea to make his wife happy.

They butchered everyone.

Every siren they could find — ripped open, left floating belly-up in water so red it looked like sunset. My aunts. My cousins. My elders. All of them. Split open and thrown away like garbage.

And my sister — my Caelia — they dragged her out and cut her apart while she was still breathing.

I'm hiding beneath a reef, watching the whole thing. Blood in my eyes. Blood in my mouth. And every tear that rolls down my face turns hard — crystallizes into a tiny gem before it even hits the water.

Siren tears do that. They turn into jewels.

Mine are stained red.

The last thing I hear is Caelia's voice — soft, steady, even now — whispering to me from behind the rock where she shoved me to safety.

"“Don’t cry, little one. Just… stay alive. Survive.”"

Here's the thing the world doesn't know.

They think there's only one High Priestess per generation. One Core.

But this time, there were two of us.

My sister got the beauty. The grace. The Core that grants eternal youth.

I got something else.

I got blood that breeds monsters.

Mindworms — thousands of them — born from my own flesh, fed on my own bone. Creatures that burrow into your brain and make you see things, feel things, dream things that aren't real. Creatures that can fake a pregnancy. Creatures that can eat a man alive from the inside out.

I drag myself to shore. The Ancient Siren Rite — splitting your tail into legs — is supposed to be agonizing, and let me tell you, that's an understatement. It feels like someone's taking a serrated blade to my spine and just pulling.

But I do it. Because Caelia told me to stay alive.

And I'm not staying alive to hide.

I spend three months feeding the swarm. My blood. My bone marrow. Everything I have goes into breeding these things until a small silver-white serpent — barely the length of my forearm — coils around my wrist. It's eaten every other creature I've raised. Thousands of them. It's the last one standing.

I call him Fang.

And then I walk to the capital.

I disguise myself as a dancer, bribe my way through the castle gates with a handful of Siren's Tears — gems made from my own crying — and I buy every scrap of information I can get.

King Aldric's schedule. His habits. His weaknesses.

His routine walks by the lake.

That night, the moon lays itself across the water like a sheet of silver. I dance barefoot at the edge of Sunset Lake, my toes barely kissing the surface, sending ripples through the light.

The scent that rises off my skin — it's a siren thing. Sweet. Heavy. The kind of smell that makes you forget where you are. Hundreds of fireflies come spiraling out of the dark, drawn to it, swirling around me like I'm the center of the universe.

I know he's there. I can feel him watching from the bank. I keep dancing.

When I finish, I turn — and our eyes meet.

I let my face flood with surprise. My heart is hammering, but not for the reason he thinks.

I scramble for my shoes like I'm about to bolt, and right on cue, his voice cuts across the water.

"You — are you one of the court dancers? That was... I've never seen anything like it."

I keep my eyes down. Play dumb. "It's a dance from my homeland, my lord. Most people haven't."

The spring air has a bite to it. I let myself shiver — just a little.

He notices. Of course he does.

He takes the pale cloak off his own shoulders and drapes it over mine. Gentle. Almost careful.

I look up at him with wide eyes. Let the blush come. It's not hard — the cold does half the work.

That scent thickens between us. The air turns warm and close.

I catch the flash of something in his eyes. Fascination. Hunger.

Then he straightens up and clears his throat, all business again. "The Queen loves dance. Her birthday's coming up. You'll perform this piece for her."

I drop to my knees on the cold stone. "Forgive me, Your Majesty — I had no idea who you were."

He waves it off, but his eyes won't leave my face. "Get up. You're fine. Just don't let me down."

I thank him. Accept the assignment. Watch his back disappear into the night.

Then I twitch my finger.

A Mindworm — tiny, almost invisible — wriggles off my skin and burrows into his.

By morning, every corridor in this castle is buzzing with the same story: the King met a dancer by the lake last night.

A knock on my door. A stone-faced matron I've never seen before.

It's starting.