'I'm competing in the Talisman Hie and none of you can stop me,' Lucindeya declared to the clan of the Oceanic sirens that morning as she stepped into the dining room. The sound of her voice, her very words caused her sisters pause in the process of them eating their breakfasts.
'Cindey are you serious?' Her closest and most favoured sister Jasmina asked as she got up from the table and came round to her side.
'I have nothing left to lose and I heard rumour that this year the prize will be something even more wonderful and amazing than you can imagine,' Cindey explained, thinking sorrowfully about the time that she carelessly lost the one thing that had meant anything to her actual existence. If she had just been more careful, if she had just stayed in a little more, instead of going out and getting laid then maybe he would still be alive. Maybe he wouldn't have been easy prey for her enemies. She was a worthless woman, in her own eyes.
'Why are you doing this? You know that nothing can bring him back,' Jaz reminded her and Lucindeya became so suddenly overcome with grief that she had to bite her bottom lip to keep from crying.
'I have to try this.' Cindey had tried everything else to bring her beloved back but she didn't know how or why all of her ideas were failing. She had even hoped that one of the witches; the powerful witches like Mariketa could perform a spell to reverse time. If she could have a second chance to protect him, she would have given her life.
Unfortunately the witches had nothing; they could do nothing to reverse time, something about it effecting the present. The grandfather complex or something like that. Killing your own grandfather and not ever being born.
'But…' Jazz trailed off when their leader Olivia entered the room having heard all of the commotion.
'Jasmina I would not have you discouraging our sister, if she wishes to be the first siren to compete in the Hie then I say that she should give it a chance. Who knows what the prize may be? And besides that Lucindeya is as skilled as any siren or Valkyrie alike and if she wins she will bring great honour to our coven and Kaderin the cold hearted will have been defeated for the very first time. That in itself is a more worthy challenge than the former.'
'Thank you Olivia,' Cindey spoke gratefully to which their leader nodded, and winked as she did so. Other than Jaz, Olivia was the only other person who knew of Cindey's grief, of the person she wanted back more than she wanted to breathe. And like Jaz, Olivia too had been so encouraging, always trying to help her with methods to bring back the male.
After his assassination by the vampires, Cindey hadn't been the same. She had become so overwhelmed with grief that she hadn't slept with a single male, and her beloved had died many, many years ago. Just to hold him in her arms once more, she would give anything. And that anything included the ability to enchant any being into doing her bidding with her mere voice.
Her voice was one of the few things she held dear in her life, but she would give it up in a heartbeat if she thought that she could have him back. And besides the chances of that were slim to none. Even though, Kaderin who had also lost people held dear to her was even more excited this year. Did she know what the prize was? Was it a single wish, a wish to defy anything, and to get anybody back that you wanted?
If that was a possibility Lucindeya knew that she would cut down any immortal, screw any immortal to get that wish. She would even kill Kaderin the cold hearted even if that meant a war between the sirenae and the Valkyrie. She would risk anything. She would take her sapphire encrusted sword and cut out the woman's heart, all for the sake of mending her own.