“It’s the Ramcun,” Teela said in a quavering whisper.

  The monster got down to the ground, using its arms as a second pair of legs, and trotted away on all fours into the depths of the woods with the graceful motion of a large animal.

  “The Ramcun?” Mantis turned to look at Teela with huge orange eyes, panicked and incredulous.

  “The monster from the stories. It eats children who go near the forest unaccompanied.”

  “That’s a tale!”

  “But it's real,” Teela explained, a little confused. Her heart was pounding wildly in her chest and her hands had become slick with sweat, but Mantis’s reaction and apparent ignorance distracted her from her own terror. “You’ve not heard of the Ramcun in these woods?”

  “Teela, that’s just a story they tell children to stop them from getting lost in the wilderness! My older siblings told it to us when I was young. It’s just meant to frighten—”

  “No. It’s real. That was it,” she gestured with a hand to the space where the creature had been. “It lives here, in the dark woods between the capital and Pirn. I’d never seen it before, personally, but many others have—adults. The children don’t live to tell the tale; they disappear. But everyone knows it hunts here.” Mantis frowned. “We’re safe from it; it’s supposed to be harmless to anyone grown, or children in the company of adults. It won’t attack us.”

  The woman stared at her in frozen disbelief for a long moment. Then she said, “The monster in the woods really exists?”

  “Yes,” Teela said slowly. How had she not known that?

  Mantis brought her hands to her face and rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. She shook her head and sighed. “Go inside. Sleep. We’re leaving as soon as that prick, the Sun, comes back up. I’ll keep watch.”

  “It will not harm us. It’s only a danger to unaccompanied young ones—”

  “I won’t just sleep with that thing out there. Go inside. Now.”

  And on and on they traveled, short on supplies and ill-tempered all. Mantis was spiraling down into that now-familiar mood she’d assume until her Goddess could be appeased, and Yilenn seemed to be undergoing something similar. Leroh was a ghost of himself, unresponsive and uncaring, and Teela was—as had become the norm—doomed to suffer from whatever ailed Mantis.

  Until that fifth day when the sprinkling of shapes and colors in the distance proved to be a town up close. Mantis drove them at a trot toward that most-welcome respite of civilization, and Teela heard her own stomach growling at the mere thought of the food they’d soon eat.

  The town was small but picturesque, with houses painted in all sorts of colors; yellow, orange, red, green. There were decorative plants in pots carefully displayed on most windowsills, and beautifully carved designs in the wood that made up doors and windows and gables. All around were the signs of idyll and prosperity as women sat outside embroidering and chatting and men went about their tasks without hurry.

  Another thing that caught Teela’s attention for its abnormality was the abundance of children, from babes in their mothers’ arms to toddlers to loose boys and girls capable of running around on their own. They played and laughed and enjoyed the warm day, all displaying bright and unmistakably-yellow eyes except for the very young ones still not able to walk.

  Mantis drove through the streets too fast to be inconspicuous and earned their group more than a few curious yellow glances from the residents of the carefree settlement.

  The attitude there was notably different from that of the Sea servants of Okedam. The Sun people did not smile at them, attempting to lure them to their cause; they did not call out to them and try enticing them to patronize their businesses. They only stared, seriously, if not a bit unconcerned.

  On the western side of the town, Mantis found what she’d evidently been looking for: the free folk. Houses there looked much more like what Teela was used to seeing, constructed of bare stone or modest timber and with no decorations or unnecessary ornamentation. The state of the residences was also glaringly humbler, too, with weathered fronts and necessary repairs left neglected to prioritize more vital expenses. It reminded Teela of the tavern, and the way Mother had always been unable to keep up with all the things that needed tending for which money could not be spared.

  In this familiar part of town, very few people were out on the streets and fewer still were children—as the unsworn tended to protect their young, and procreate more sparingly, it seemed.

  It was a clashing contrast with what they’d seen just a few blocks away.

  Were the Gods forcing their followers to breed so rapidly?

  Yes, Teela realized. The propagating prosperity among servants was the work of a command, not a choice.

  Teela’s throat closed up and she had to swallow down her revulsion.

  Thinking back on it, she recalled the young children who’d been carrying babies or toddlers by the hand back in Okedam. At the time, she’d assumed the relationship to be one of older and younger siblings, but the whole thing was now taking a new clarity in her mind.

  And the normal eye color of the babies who could not yet walk, compared to the slightly older children’s Sun-yellow irises told her even more: They were made to swear to their God as quickly as they were capable of following instructions for prayer. As early as speech and basic cognitive function developed, mere infants were shepherded to that eternal, binding surrender of the soul.

  Children bore children upon children under the Gods’ orders, and so the cycle repeated itself when those children developed functioning reproductive systems. They had no decision in the matter; their souls were spoken for from their conceptions and irrevocably given away the moment it was feasible.

  Teela was still trying to overcome her shock and disgust when Mantis stopped the horses at the entrance of a sedate building of two stories with a sign on the front that marked it as a business—an inn, certainly. Teela did not know the written language, but such a thing was rarely ever useful or necessary. Observation and memory had always served her well enough.

  Mantis’s hood was raised to cover most of her face when she hopped down from the driver’s seat and opened their door to escort them to the inn. She was quite upset.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  They got one small room to share, for Mantis was apparently short on money and particularly on edge about the wisdom of staying in a town so highly populated by Sun servants. But she explained briskly that these ones would not attempt to do them harm, that their coexistence with a healthy population of unsworn people spoke more for their character than anything else could, and if that wasn’t enough to make it worth sleeping amongst them, surely their empty supply bags and bellies were.

  Teela found no argument against that.

  They ate a bit less generously than they had, but well regardless. Their hunger and thirst was sated first, then their need to wash. And then Mantis left them there for a good while, ordering Leroh and Teela as an afterthought to keep an eye on Yilenn before she disappeared out the door with a rude slam.

  Teela was not at all sure what she’d meant, but she tried “keeping an eye on Yilenn” nevertheless. The woman was tense and jumpy, but fine otherwise. Her vibrant red hair shone glossier than it had and curled into easy spirals where it fell at her waist as it dried from her bath, her skin was radiant with health and the tops of her cheeks were flushed a pretty pink color. She was decidedly becoming more beautiful, somehow. It was strange. Her magic wafted in all directions like a perfume, almost overwhelmingly sweet if not for the hint of Sea-saltiness that enhanced every aspect of her power like a lacquer. It was a melodic current that hummed in the air softly, not so intruding as to distract, but as tenderly inviting as the faint aroma of ripe fruit.

  Was it her charm? It couldn’t be. Leroh did not seem affected whatsoever, coiled in on himself on the bed with his brow furrowed; and Teela herself was only but perceiving Yilenn’s gentle pull. Her faculties remained her own, and she’d only really noticed the change because she’d been looking closely.

  Teela almost asked, even went so far as to draw a breath and open her mouth. But then she decided to hold her tongue.

  She’d come to the conclusion that she needed to select her big questions more carefully, to time and word them more consideringly to maximize her chances of receiving a response. She wouldn’t waste a try on a risky question already previously denied to her and on a person so obviously on edge. That would be foolish.

  They rested in silence for what seemed like a large portion of the day before Mantis returned, equally as testy as before, but with positive news: She’d been able to exchange her valuables for common coin. That seemed to relieve her, and Teela felt that relief like a sweeping gust of cool wind on a hot day.

  They ate again for supper and that meal was more substantial than the first had been, and soon they all gratefully found their beds with full bellies and clean bodies.

  The children took the large bed and Mantis and Yilenn got cots to sleep on. Their pallets were positioned beside each other with Mantis’s being closer to the door, and so it was that when the siren awoke in the middle of the night and donned her shoes silently, Mantis asked: “Where are you going?”

  “I need to use the privy.” She gave her a cheeky smile. “You are so suspicious.”

  “Sorry. I’m nervous for you. You…smell good.” She did. She’d become impossibly lovelier. That Sea bastard really wanted to get her raped. “You want me to come—”

  “No. Please, don’t even say that. You embarrass me.” She was whispering as softly as a caress of Wind. “Now, don’t wake the young ones. I’ll be back soon.”

  She wasn’t back soon.

  When a reasonable amount of time had passed, or perhaps a little less than that, Mantis sat up and hastily put on her own shoes to go find her. The door was barely closed behind her, the hallway empty and quiet, when the too-familiar and harrowing sounds of rustling clothing reached Mantis’s ears from outside.

  She ran in a mindless haze through the silent halls of the inn and reached the back area of the outhouse within a few moments that felt more like years—but the siren wasn’t there. The terrible sound continued and now a panted plea joined it: “Stop. Stop. Please, stop.”

  Mantis had heard those words, albeit in a different tone, thousands of times before. More, for she recalled in uncanny detail the gut-wrenching fear and desperation of that begging every day and every night, voiceless as only a multitude of people could be, blurred and enhanced in a cacophony of voices young and old, male and female, foreign and her own. All those voices and all those words, so in unison it could have been rehearsed. Stop. Get off me! Stop! Please. Ah! Please, stop. Stop! Please. You’re hurting me—and on and on and on they wailed and begged and screamed and sobbed.

  Mantis found them entangled behind the cover of the wooden outhouse on a discarded heap of rotten hay.

  The man was on top, his trousers pulled down past his bottom, and Yilenn was underneath him in a similar state of undress with her legs wrapped around him and pulling him toward herself. Her feet were interlocked to trap him in the circle of her legs and her raised thighs seemed to squeeze him closer. Not that he needed encouragement.

  He was just a normal man, nothing extraordinary about him, but Mantis knew there must be. His natural predisposition for the magic and his genetic material were in some way desirable to the Sea. Perhaps he’d enhance Yilenn’s chances of conceiving a siren.

  The woman was breathing loudly through her mouth and frowning, hugging him to herself in a vise not of her own will. Her eyes found Mantis and widened a fraction.

  By the time Yilenn’s lips parted to utter another word, the man had fallen limp on top of her, soft everywhere except for that one part that took slightly longer to lose its shape. Mantis’s link retreated from his heart, and with it came the stranger’s young soul.

  He really had been strong. Ombira would be pleased.

  Mantis approached the haystack where the red-haired beauty still lay motionless and wrenched the man’s body from hers. She crouched beside him on the muddy ground and muttered ashamedly to Yilenn, “Don’t look.”

  But there was no way to know if she obeyed. Mantis pushed her mouth link into his eye and attempted to consume him as swiftly as it could be done, hearing the rustle of movement as Yilenn awkwardly got to her feet and refastened her garments.

  The man had been good, a loving husband and father of a teenage girl. A builder, honest, fearful of the Mantis. In his last moments, a rapist.

  This one was admittedly the Sea’s fault more than his own, perhaps.

  It didn’t matter.

  When she was finished with him, Mantis did her best to bury him underneath the smelly pile of hay where he’d died. Hopefully he wouldn’t be discovered until the late morning, or past it, when Mantis and hers had gone on their way.

  Yilenn looked deeply disturbed.

  “Did he hurt you?” Mantis asked.

  It took her a few moments to answer. “No. No. It was my fault. He found me here. The charm must have reached him wherever he was. I can feel it pouring from me—a scent, a call. He…he did not—I was…My body wanted it, is what I’m trying to say. My body sang out to him, and reacted—”

  “I heard you ask him to stop, Yilenn.”

  “Yes,” she looked down. “Yes. I did say…”

  “You didn’t want it.”

  “Not me! No. Not me, I swear it. My master—”

  “I know. You did not want it. You voiced your opinion on the matter. He did not hear it. So, charmed or not, he was mine. I heard you say no. There was nothing else you could have done.”

  Yilenn only watched her with an odd mixture of pity, fear and gratitude in her eyes, then slowly nodded.

  “You won’t get pregnant from that.”

  “I could,” she muttered.

  “You won’t. I promise. That’s not how it works.”

  “But we were—that is, he was…”

  “He was interrupted. You don’t get a child like that. You’ve never had relations with a man before?”

  “Of course not.” The siren met Mantis’s eyes shyly and looked as if she wanted to say more, but didn’t.

  “Good. Come,” Mantis turned to walk away in the direction of the closest patch of vegetation but paused and waited for Yilenn to follow. “I need to see my Goddess. It won’t take long.”