Last Line of Defense

Chapter 2

Odele

"I mean what do they want from us? They're telling us to go to the scariest place in the world and they won't even tell us why," my sister says

"Darya would you stop complaining for one minute and let me hear myself think?"

I love my sister, don't get me wrong but there are certain moments where even our twin bond can't stop me from wanting to choke her. As sweet as Darya is she tends to get too caught up in her emotions. I understand how she can feel a little overwhelmed with our current situation but the way she's speaking right now, dolphin-talk seems to be more comprehensible than whatever is coming out of her mouth. But seriously, as much as I feel for her I can't for the life of me understand how her emotions work. I mean knowing her she would probably meet a guy and ten seconds later would fall head over heels in love with him.

"Odele, how can you be so calm? We've never even left this part of Jur, let alone another kingdom. What if we get lost? Or kidnapped? What if one of us dies?" she starts freaking out.

I stop swimming and turn to look at her. She's red in the face and I can see her gills going a mile a minute. Her nostrils are flaring as she continues her rant and her hands are moving haphazardly. If you look closely enough you could actually see a vein on the side of her neck pulsating. I've never seen her this distressed and to be frank I'm scared for her wellbeing. At this rate, she'll die from a heart attack before we can even pack our bags to get to Zalam. I grab her by the arms and push her upwards towards the surface. That should shock the nerves out of her.

As we hit the surface I see the moment she comes out of her panic and her gills recede into her skin again. She's finally breathing and that vein on the side of her neck seems to have gone back to hiding.

I look around and see that we're near the boat around the corner from our house. Hopefully, mom's still swimming with dad but with how hard it's been for her to stay under for so long, I think it's another night with dad out of his tail.

It's become quite now, Darya is still internally freaking out and I can tell. I need to get her thinking about something else.

"Hey, I haven't used my siren song yet. I don't think you know what it sounds like, do you?" I say stupidly.

"Odele, that's the worst attempt at distracting me. But it worked. What do you mean you haven't used it yet, it's been almost a year since you've joined the siren officially? You had better show me when we get home," she scolds.

My sister thinks I'm wasting my abilities by not using my siren song but it makes me feel dirty like I did something without someone's consent. She doesn't understand it. Of course, she doesn't, she has a healing ability.

Merpeople are classified into two categories, Sirens and everyone else. Those who are given the gift of the siren's song are put into a specific school which trains them to become Siren's. How unfair is that? You're either a sex-crazed killer or a gentle merperson. Actually, sex-crazed might be a little too harsh. In Jur, sirens are considered to be an outer defense, warriors essentially. How they protect our kingdom is through their special siren song where they make anyone they wish to hear fall into a trance of lust and then proceed to kill them. Everyone else who isn't a siren can go on to live their boring lives with their average jobs, how lucky are they. However, there is a subcategory in our second group for the people who are blessed with healing abilities. Those who are graced with those powers are trained to become medical professionals. Lucky for our mother she got the best of both worlds.

"Anyway, anything interesting happened at the clinic today?" I need to change the topic. Why did I even mention it?

"Actually yeah. A woman came in today and said something was wrong with her gills. I checked her out and they were purple! How does that even happen? We told her to go and wash it and she came back with them being green. We were all so confused."

"Wait what? It was purple then green? What did you do?"

"Well healer Clearwater sent her in for some testing and by the time my shift was over, she was still in there. Guess I'll find out when we get home from Zalam. Wait, what are we going to tell mom and dad?

Rounding the corner I can see the tips of dad's tail flowing with the water. Being a merman, dad likes the water but he's such a stickler for his hair that he barely ever goes completely under. What a diva.

As we get closer I open my mouth to call out to my parents but I see a flash of auburn hair. The last time I saw auburn hair was when one of the older ladies used a snail to dye her hair because it was "natures hair dye". Thankfully they learned but that means someone else is in our house.

"Darya, stay quiet. There's someone else in the house. I wanna see what's going on."

Ducking behind the back of a column, I can clearly hear their conversations

"-you don't know what's going on?" my dad says to the strange girl.

"No, I was just told to come to Jur and meet with Council Member Seidon. He told me to come here and that I would know where to go eventually. Is he always so... mysterious in how he talks? He's very vague. 'You will know when the time is right' Like, just tell me and get it over with."

"I know right?" my sister butts in, walking out from behind her column.

"Darya, what did I say not even a minute ago?" I say coming out, not acknowledging the girl.

"Odele be nice, we have a guest," my mother scolds me. "This is Kiani, she is from the Kingdom of Hawa."

"Hi, nice to meet you," she says, putting out her hand.

I look down at her hand and then back at her face.

"Pleasure," I say with a quick, forced smile. I turn back to my parents."So what's going on? Why is there some strange girl in our main room?"

"Odele can you please not act as if she's not right in front of you," Darya scolds me.

"Girls," my mom says

"Well, you two might want to sit down. You too Kiani," my dad says

"Dad, what's happening?" I ask, my hands beginning to shake.

Was there something wrong with mom? Did dad lose his job? What was so earth-shattering that we had to sit down for it?

Ever since mom's diagnosis of Clamor Damnum, which has been causing her to lose her siren's voice, all any of us could think about is if mom was going to be able to get better. It's caused me to have multiple anxiety attacks in the weeks since and dad has been working non-stop to pay the bills. It's hurting us in more ways than one at this point.

"Well before you girls got here, a messenger came and gave us a letter from Council Member Seidon."

"Oh that's-" I'm cut off by my mother.

"The letter was sent to inform us that you girls are being summoned to Zalam."

"Dad..."

"The letter also told us that there would be a Hawa citizen coming also but now we obviously know that they meant you, Kiani." my dad continues.

"Yeah, we know dad. I think that's what Odele was trying to tell you guys. You made it seem like it was something horrible though." Darya quickly explains before they could cut her off.

****
Authors Note

Hey guys I hope you liked this chapter please feel free to offer any suggestions or anything that I can include to make this book the best it can be!

Thank you so much for giving my book a chance I can't wait until we go more in depth!