The wind had teeth tonight.

  It bit at Lark’s cheeks as he swung down from his mare’s saddle, boots sinking into the scrubby grass above the cliffs. The air smelled like salt and storm, the horizon painted in deep blues and bruised purples. Overhead, clouds rolled like restless gods. The moon hadn’t risen yet.

  “Easy,” he murmured, brushing a hand along Gus’s neck as she shifted beneath him. Her ears flicked back, but she didn’t protest. She never did, not anymore—not when he brought her here.

  He unbuckled the saddle slowly, careful of the stiffness in his fingers. His knuckles were swelling again—purple and cracked open like the sea had kissed them rough. Another stupid fight. Another bar full of people who didn’t like pretty boys with sharp tongues and softer hearts.

  But tonight wasn’t for bleeding. Tonight was for her.

  “Go on, then,” he whispered, giving Gus a light tap on the flank. “You’ll hear me scream if I drown.”

  She huffed. Didn’t move. He sighed, nudged her again. “I brought you to the good grounds.”

  She did move at that. Wandered off to graze near the hilltop, glancing back once as if to say, If you die again, I’m not dragging your body out. Fair.

  Lark adjusted the pack over his shoulder and began the climb down.

  The path to her cove was a narrow one, half-hidden, slick with moss and sand. Few knew it existed. Fewer still dared to follow it. The wind dropped off as he descended, the air growing heavy with the scent of brine and deeper things. Down here, the world felt smaller. Sharper.

  And warmer.

  A soft glow flickered from within the cave at the base of the cliffs—fire.

  He ducked through the jagged stone arch, heart thudding somewhere ridiculous in his throat. The fire cast dancing shadows against the slick cavern walls. Shells and sea glass glittered in little piles along the edges. It always looked like something ancient had curled up here to sleep.

  And in the center of it, half-curled on a flat slab of rock, a siren, silver hair spilling down her back like liquid light-

  Iris.

  Her skin shimmered where the firelight kissed it, white as seafoam, luminous, almost unreal. She had legs tonight, webbed and slick, tucked beneath her like a swan at rest. Her eyes met his the moment he entered.

  “You’re limping,” she said, voice cool and sharp as a current.

  Lark grinned, dragging the pack off his shoulder. “I missed you too.”

  He sat down beside the fire, wincing as he peeled off his gloves. His knuckles were worse than he thought—split and blooming violet. Iris watched him. She always did. Silent and unblinking. Like a predator who’d already decided not to eat you, but hadn’t ruled it out for later. He pulled a strip of cloth from his bag and began to wrap the worst of the bruising.

  “You’re going to need your hands,” she said.

  “I always need my hands.”

  “For playing,” she clarified.

  Lark paused, a little smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I do a lot with my hands.”

  Iris tilted her head. “You’ll heal slower if you keep trying to be clever.”

  He barked a soft laugh. “That sounds like something you said the first time I met you.”

  She blinked. Slowly. “It is.”

  He wrapped the next knuckle. “You remember?”

  “I remember everything,” Iris said. She leaned back on her elbows, scales glimmering into existence beneath the firelight now, silken and ghost-white. “You were pathetic.”

  “Oh, rude.”

  “You were bleeding then, too. And you would not stop talking.”

  Lark grinned. “You tried to lure me. I panicked. I was a little vulnerable, actually.”

  “I almost drowned you.”

  “You almost fell in love with me on sight.”

  She didn’t answer.

  The fire cracked.

  And in the silence between them, a memory began to flicker, sharp and salt-sweet, the way old wounds remember the sting of the blade.

  When everything should have ended… and didn’t

  The sea was hungrier than usual.

  Iris had felt it in the pull of the tide, the way the current whipped against her skin like teeth behind a smile. It had been a lean week. The moon was thin and the fish swam too deep. She was tired of chasing things that ran. Tired of the stillness.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  So when she heard footsteps on the rocks, uneven and loud and so human, she rose.

  She did not hide. She didn’t need to.

  Let them see her, just once—Let them know what waited in the dark, just beyond the surf.

  Let them run. They always did.

  But he—didn’t run?

  The boy—man? boy?—was soaked, his cloak hanging off one shoulder like it had tried to escape. He stumbled down the ridge with the grace of a drunk ferret, muttering to himself as he went. Iris could hear every word, carried clean on the wind.

  “—and then she says ‘try projecting more,’ like I haven’t been projecting since I was five—gods, why do I even play in taverns that hate a little fun—”

  He tripped on a rock. Swore. Kept going. Iris narrowed her eyes. Curious. Bold prey dies quickest.

  When he finally reached the shoreline, he dropped onto the sand like a discarded puppet. His boots were ruined. His sleeves were torn. One side of his face was bruising. And then he looked up.

  Right at her.

  She was already rising from the tide, gleaming white under the starlight, tail behind her like trailed silk. Her teeth caught the moonlight. Her hair dripped like frost.

  He blinked once.

  Then smiled.

  “Oh, thank gods, a hallucination. You’re beautiful.”

  Iris faltered.

  He blinked again. “No, wait. Siren. Right? Fangs. Tail. Probably here to drown me.”Still no fear.

  “You can try,” he said, “but I’m warning you—I’m a terrible swimmer and an excellent disappointment, so it won’t be satisfying.”Iris stared.

  He flopped back onto the sand, arms splayed. “You want to kill me, fine. But just—let me get this off my chest first? My name’s Lark. My lute broke. My fake tooth fell out during a solo. Someone threw a turnip. A turnip. I’m 87% sure I’m concussed and I may or may not have kissed the wrong barmaid. She definitely kissed back. So honestly? Go ahead. Eat me. At this point I’d welcome the emotional consistency.”

  Iris just… sat there.

  The sea curled around her waistband like it wanted her to strike. To pull him under. To finish it.

  But she couldn’t move.

  He turned his head again. Looked at her, eyes soft despite the mess he was. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”

  She blinked once. “I think i’ve lost my appetite.”

  That made him laugh. It was hoarse and crooked and real. “Well,” he said, dragging himself upright again, “guess I’ll just be here. If you change your mind.”

  And he sat there. Beside her. Cold. Tired. Bleeding.

  Talking.

  And for the first time in… years? decades? longer?

  Iris didn’t feel alone.

  Alas, she knew better than to trust mere feelings. Iris turned, her long white tail brushing the wet sand as she slid back into the tide. Her skin shimmered moon-pale beneath the surface, gills fluttering along her ribs. The mortal, Lark, he’d said—was still sitting there, watching her with his chin in his hands.

  “You’re leaving?” he asked.

  “You’re not interesting enough to keep me,” she said.

  It was a lie.

  “Well, rude.” he muttered, getting to his feet. “Is this a flirting thing? Or do you just hate mortals?”

  “I don’t flirt,” she said coolly, voice echoing over the tide like a blade drawn slow. “I feed.”

  “…That still sounds like flirting, to be honest.”

  She turned, hair swirling in the current, and slipped into deeper waters. Behind her, splashing. Cursing. She twisted back to see him wading in after her up to his knees, clutching his boots in one hand.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I—! Wait, hang on, there’s a crab—ow—rocks—” He stumbled again, catching himself on a moss-covered boulder. “I’m following you!”

  “You’ll drown.”

  “I told you already,” he said through gritted teeth, “I’m very bad at that.”

  She should have let the sea take him.

  She didn’t.

  “You’re an idiot,” she said.

  “Sure. But I’m charming. Ask anyone.”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “Not in any of the important places.”

  She narrowed her silver eyes. “Why are you following me?”

  He tilted his head, teeth white against the dark. “Because you’re the first person tonight who hasn’t thrown anything at me or told me to shut up. That’s a good sign. And also—” He took a step closer into the tide, cold water swirling at his waist. “I’d like your name.”

  Iris stilled.

  It was not a thing often asked of her.

  Not without trembling. Not without desperation. This mortal didn’t look afraid. He looked genuinely curious.

  “You wouldn’t be able to pronounce it.”

  “Try me.”

  She hesitated. Then, just barely: “Iris.”

  He smiled. “That’s a flower.”

  “It’s a warning.”

  “Beautiful warning,” he said softly.

  And that—that—was when she should’ve disappeared. She could’ve vanished into the waves with a flick of her tail, never to be seen again. Instead, she turned, swam to the dark shelf near her cave’s mouth, and perched there like a waiting storm.

  He came, of course.

  Dripping, shivering, and grinning like a fool.

  They sat in silence.

  For a moment, she considered the old way of doing things—singing him under, watching the light leave his eyes. The sea curled possessive around her tail. It hungered.

  But then—He reached into his pocket and pulled out… a very soggy, very squashed little honey cake. “I was saving this for someone special,” he said solemnly. “And you did say you were hungry before.”

  Iris stared.

  Then, without meaning to, She laughed. Just once. quick and sharp, a bark of disbelieving. It startled even her.

  Lark blinked. “Wait. Was that a laugh?”

  “No.”

  “It was! I made a sea demon laugh!”

  “I am not a demon—”

  “Do you want the cake or not?”

  She snatched it from his hand before she could stop herself. Eating it with some sort of elegance still.

  Hours passed, the stars hung heavy above the sea, dimmed only by the cove.

  Lark was still talking.

  “…and she definitely cursed me, which—fine, fair, I did strum the strings of the forbidden harp, Iris, I was a cat.” He gestured broadly with his hand, nearly smacking his own forehead in the process. “Also, do you know how hard it is to find a good lyre string in a marsh town? Impossible. They gave me catgut. Catgut. I don’t even play catgut instruments!”

  Iris stared at him.

  Not with annoyance. Not quite.

  With… curiosity.

  Mortals were not meant to stay long in her presence. Her voice was not meant to soothe. It was meant to drag, to drown, to pull lungs into stillness. But this one—this ridiculous, bleeding bard with too much heart and not enough sense—just kept talking.

  She moved closer.

  He didn’t notice.

  “I think I might be cursed in love too. Not like the fun kind of cursed, where someone turns into a swan and we have to kiss in a moonlit bog or whatever. The boring kind. The ‘I’ll always leave first’ kind.” His voice dipped there, something fragile cracking beneath the sarcasm. “Or maybe they leave me. That part blurs.”

  Iris rested her arms on the rock beside him.

  He was lying back against the tide-worn stone, soaked cloak draped like a blanket, limbs sprawled like he’d forgotten what fear felt like.

  He sighed. “You ever feel like you weren’t supposed to be what you are?”

  She tilted her head. A pause.

  Then, as gentle as dusk: “Yes.”

  He blinked. Slowly turned his head. “Wait. Was that—you?” She gave him the barest smile. “You talk too much.”

  “I’ve been told.”

  And before he could launch into another ramble, Iris exhaled—soft, low, humming. A thread of melody, wordless and ancient, rippling from her throat and gills through the cove like a current through silk. Her song wrapped around the edges of the night, coiling into his ears like a lullaby pulled from the deep.

  Lark’s eyelids fluttered.

  His voice slurred. “That’s… cheating…”

  She didn’t answer.

  Just sang.

  And watched as he finally, finally drifted into sleep.

  The lines of worry smoothed from his brow. His bruised knuckles, still faintly curled, fell open beside the squashed honey cake crumbs.

  For a long time, Iris did not move. She simply hovered near the rock, silver hair drifting around her like seafoam, watching his chest rise and fall. She should have left the moment his breathing slowed. She should have vanished into the deep, let the current carry her home.

  But she didn’t.

  Not until the tide kissed his boots.

  Not until the sky began to soften, and the wind shifted west. Only then did she retreat.

  Back into the sea. Back into silence. Back into the darker parts of herself. But as she went, she left something behind—tucked gently beside his hand where he slept.

  A single pale scallop shell, smoothed by years of tide.