Siren's Song Read Online Free Page B

on my left. “Touch them . . . I’ll rip . . .”
    â€œShe’ll want them . . .”
    I whip my head this way and that, but the cloak mutes any clarity. What are they saying? A soft hand pushes me forward again, to move faster, until I’m bumping against stairs now.
    We climb through the cold and wind.
    I stagger.
    Suddenly someone’s shoving me through a door into a room or corridor where the air is much warmer. And the smell . . .
    Even through the bloody hooded material, the smell is that of a dead body left on ice too long.
    Footsteps on tile.
    My arm is grabbed and I’m jerked to a halt.
    Harried breath and odd accents.
    A clip clip clipping as boots move away before the hood is yanked off, and my eyes are blinking because the light in here is blinding.
    It’s as if every surface is a mirror reflecting the glow.
    I squint for a moment until my eyes adjust—it’s not mirrors but glass the light is bouncing off of. The walls and room edges are cut in such a way as to give the impression that we are standing inside a giant jewel. And draped from every glass beam and surface above us are tapestries of orange, red, gold, and purple. They drip from the ceiling like rainbowed teardrops. The room is exquisite and delicate, and I swear if anyone steps too hard or speaks too loud, the whole place will crack and shatter around us.
    Including the people who are standing before us like majestically silent statues. They look just like chess pieces.
    I raise a brow. Rasha never mentioned this gaudy side of her people.
    I glare at them and their white robes and try to ignore their stares and the awareness that my chest is slightly exposed through my torn dress. If they notice, they don’t react—they just stand watching, at least forty of them, some with blank faces, while others have eyes that are flickering a red glow almost as bright as the candles on the giant stands. It makes patterns on the white-and-opaque-checkered floor.
    Oh . . .
    We are on a chessboard.
    I peer closer at the squares. Some of the people are actually standing on them in a pattern. I glance up and around, from one to another, and absorb their blank eyes. Their oddly shiny faces and glossy bodies. The chiseled way they’re standing.
    Oh hulls.
    They’re real. But they’re not.
    They’re people who were once alive but are now encased in glass, their faces permanently stilled in unfocused attention.
    My stomach turns. No wonder it smells like death in here . . .
    â€œCheckmate,” a woman’s voice rings out.

CHAPTER 4
    I PEER THROUGH THE ASSORTMENT OF GLASS AND real bodies to a woman seated in front of an enormous fireplace, whose red eyes are glowing so bright they’re illuminating her face like a sunburst. She’s reading our intentions, just like Rasha does. The woman nods at a group of Luminescents who must’ve been the ones playing against her, and they promptly begin clearing the glass-encased dead people off the checkered floor. I shudder.
    Rasha’s mum. Has to be.
    Her deep skin tone and rich, earthen, auburn hair match Rasha’s, as does her wispy garment style. Only her body is different. Where Rasha has curves, this woman used to, but they’ve rounded out to blend together. Something about her body looks matronly and kind, unlike her icy expression.
    My stomach goes from nauseated to wanting to vomit all over her pretty glass floor.
    â€œWell, if this isn’t cozy.” Eogan eyes the woman. And despite the fact he’s keeping his shoulders straight and his head lifted proud, I note the foreign weakness in his tone.
    I frown and, beyond him, Kenan tips his almost-shaved black head of hair as if to let me know he’s sensed Eogan’s weariness too.
    A shuffling draws our attention behind us, and before we can speak further, Lord Myles and Lady Isobel are escorted to stand on the far side of Kenan in front of a host of live, purple-clothed Cashlin