Siren Song (The Fated #1)

09 | Discoveries

The last three days wouldn't leave his mind.

Moonlight turned the dark deck of the Airlea into Kain's stage. He brought his blade down in a smooth, practiced arc as his feet shifted through patterns he'd memorized years before. The movements had long since become instinct. Despite this, Kain considered himself far from a master swordsman. Without actual combat experience, he was a glorified amature at best. A boy who knew how to swing a sword, but had never buried it within the flesh of his enemies. Well, as long as no one counted nightmares.

Due to this, his thoughts had far too much time to wander. As he turned, his blade leaping from pattern to pattern, he recalled his search of Artemios' office shortly after he'd left Dalphie alone that first day.

Initially, he'd been looking for a list of contacts. If they couldn't rescue Iliana the moment they reached Eol, the group was going to need money. As loathe as he was to admit it, they potentially had quite a bit of it sitting in the cargo hold, and no one to stop him from selling it. As he'd gathered names and addresses, however, his foot had come into contact with a small, locked chest tucked beneath the desk. After a few moments of hesitation, Kain'd hauled it out to study.

The wood was old, but polished, with gold trim. The lock that held the box shut was the same expensive metal. He'd studied it with a frown, wondering what could have been so important to put a lock on, but not important enough to put more effort into hiding. Artemios' kept his money in his cabin, buried beneath a fake board. It couldn't be gold.

Unfortunately, lockpicking had been left off of the long list of things he'd been taught while living aboard the Airlea. So, he'd spent his free time that day searching for a key. It wasn't until the next morning, Kain'd elected to examine Artemios' cabin rather than retire to his own bunk, he found a small key hidden away in the old captain's pillowcase. Rather pleased with himself, Kain'd instantly returned to the office. His excitement had given way to confusion when he'd unlocked the box, then opened it, to reveal nothing but a large stack of letters.

By all rules of privacy, he should have shut the box and put it back where he found it. The rather personal location the key had been hidden in, and the vast number of letters that appeared to be addressed by the same hand, told he'd stumbled upon something close to Artemios' heart. Any decent person would have left it be. Kain had tugged on his cap, guilt plaguing his thoughts. Still, his curiosity was stronger.

Leave it alone. Just because it's written in the language of Cieon...

With his free hand, he'd run his fingers over the first envelope. There'd been this nagging feeling in the back of his mind that told him he knew the handwriting. At the same time, he only knew one person in his home country. But, that wasn't possible, was it? Why would she be writing Artemios when Kain himself hadn't received a letter in half-a-year? Perhaps the envelope was old. The box was almost full, after all. If they were all from her, they must have gone back several years.

He'd hesitantly pulled it out and began turning it over in his fingers. The back had a familiar, broken wax seal that confirmed his suspicions. Before the letter had been opened, the deep blue seal would have depicted a sea serpent eating its own tail, a gem settled in the empty middle space. It was the mark of the head priestess that ruled over Cieon's temples to Umae. The choice of the sea serpent was meant to represent humankind. Sea serpents were the weakest, and yet most numerous, of the nightmares that filled the ocean. They dominated over the average aquatic creature, however, proving themselves to be at the top of one food chain, but the bottom of another.

The nightmare eating its own tail represented many things, but the most important when it came to the seal was immortality. It was meant to remind those who saw it of the legend that a priestess of Umae could only be killed on dry land. Stories said that if she even had one foot in a pool of water, she could escape even certain death. Kain knew the story to be false--but that didn't stop the legends. The gem, of course, stood for Cieon.