Lydia the Siren's Arc

Chapter 2 of 37

Three days had passed since the pit swallowed the trader. Lydia sang for the knight every hour. Her call rolled clean out the mouth of Rou-Do Cavern Pass and into the day. But no boots crossed her stone. No traveler turned to follow. The pass stayed empty, and her stomach began to ache. She needed a body to feed on, and none came. By the fourth day, hunger bent her double. Her voice thinned. Each call cost her strength she no longer had. She pressed her hand to the cold wall and steadied herself. If she starved, she could not sing. If she could not sing, the knight would pass her by forever. She had to eat something now. She searched the deep parts of her cavern. Water dripped in the dark. She followed the sound to a pond she had walked past a hundred times. Its surface lay black and still. Then a shape moved under it. A fish rolled its pale belly toward the faint light, sleek and dark, its fins ghost-white. Lydia knelt at the edge. She did not know how to fish. She had only ever fed on what she lured. She cupped her hands and waited. The fish drifted close. She struck. Cold water soaked her sleeves, and the fish thrashed free. She struck again and missed again. Her arms shook from the hunger. On the fourth try, her fingers closed on its slick body. She dragged it out and pinned it to the rock. It flopped, then went still. She ate it raw, tearing the tender meat, ashamed and desperate at once. It was the first food she had touched that no one else had brought her. Strength crept back into her legs. Her head cleared. She caught a second fish, slower now that she knew the trick, and ate that one too. Her hands stopped shaking. But when she looked into the pond, she counted only a few pale shapes left. The rest hid in the dark, and the water was small. She understood the truth of it. The pond would feed her for a day, maybe two. It would never feed her for long. A siren was made to eat what she lured, not to scrape fish from a puddle in the dark. This was a patch, not a plan. Lydia stood and wiped her mouth. Her strength had returned, and with it her purpose. She walked back toward the mouth of the pass and faced the open day. She had bought herself time, but only a little. She had to catch her knight before the pond ran dry and left her too weak to call. She drew a full breath and sang, sweeter and stronger than before, out into the empty road.