"Hmph... who wants to shower with you?" she muttered, the words muffled by her hands, her voice losing its lodic command and taking on the petulant tone of a thwarted child. She peeked at him through her fingers, her eyes wide. "There are so many n all over the world!" It was a ridiculous, defensive whisper, a retreat into a fantasy of options she had never before needed to consider.
Lu Yuze watched the transformation with a fascination that tightened his chest. The siren was gone, and in her place was this unexpectedly young, vulnerable woman, pouting behind her hands. He didn’t chase her. He simply stood there, a faint, tender smile touching his lips.
"It’s okay," he said, his voice gentle, absolving her of the failed enchantnt.
But the unspoken words hung, crystal clear, in the space between them: Go and look. You won’t find another.
He knew it with a bone-deep certainty. What other man, upon learning her true identity, would see not a monster or a specin, but a wife? What other man possessed a world so complete that he could not be bribed to betray her? What other man would stand, aroused and aching, and choose to walk away from her bed to prove a point about his heart? His sincerity was his most formidable asset, and it had just disard her magic more thoroughly than any counter-spell.
With a final, flustered glance, Shuyin turned and rushed from the bathroom doorway, a pale flash of silk and dark hair disappearing back into the shadowed depths of the bedroom. The door to his ensuite bathroom remained open, an invitation she had defiantly, embarrassedly, refused.
Alone under the stinging spray of the shower, Lu Yuze let the cool water attempt to calm the fire she had lit. He replayed the mont her call had hit him, the dizzying, delicious pull toward oblivion, and the subsequent, hard-won clarity. He had resisted her magic. He had earned sothing tonight far greater than a night in her arms: he had seen her surprise. He had seen her blush.
And he had to erge the winner of it all.
---
Sitting in the center of the enormous bed, the silk cool against her skin, Shuyin focused her will. The connection to her royal siblings in the deep was one thread. But there was another, closer at hand. She reached out through the subtle, watery magic that bound their kind, seeking a familiar, mischievous presence on land.
In a sleek penthouse across the city, Long Chen was pouring a glass of whisky when he felt it, a faint, lodic ping against his senses, like a tuning fork struck in a distant room. A smile, sharp and delighted, touched his lips. He set the glass down and opened the connection.
"Well, well..." his voice flowed into her mind, smooth as oil on water. "To what do I owe the honor, little sister? Has your formidable human husband finally bored you? Have you finally decided to go ho?"
Shuyin’s ntal reply was a spike of frustrated static. "Don’t call that! And no, he’s... the opposite of boring. That’s the problem! And you better keep this chat between the two of us!"
"Oh?" Long Chen’s amusent was a tangible wave. He leaned back in his chair, the city lights glittering behind him like a drowned constellation. "Do tell. Has the great Lu Yuze proven... inadequate in so way? Humans aren’t worth it sister!"
"Azhir!" she sent, using his true na with a sister’s exasperation. " He’s... immune."
The line humd with silence for a beat. " Immune? To what? Your charming personality?"
"To the Call!" The thought was nearly a shout in the quiet channel. "I used it. Tonight. After he... after he stopped. I sang it right to him. He faltered for a second, I saw it! And then he just... shook it off. Like it was nothing! He smirked at !"
A burst of genuine, rolling laughter echoed through their psychic link. Long Chen pictured his ethereally beautiful, always-composed sister, red-faced and flustered because a mortal man had resisted her most basic supernatural allure. It was the most delightful thing he’d heard in decades.
"He smirked?" Long Chen repeated, savoring the word. "Oh, little pearl, this is priceless. The mighty Princess of the Coral Throne was brought low by a human’s smirk. Tell , did you pout? I bet you pouted."
"I did not pout!" Shuyin lied, her fingers twisting in the bedsheet. "But that’s not the point! How is it possible? Is there a defect? In ?"
"In you?" His laughter softened into a fond, teasing hum. "No, sister. The defect is not in the siren, but in the sea he’s sailing. This man of yours... his waters are already charted. His desires are fixed. You are not a vague temptation on his horizon; you are the destination he has already decided upon. The Call works on wandering hearts, on those susceptible to fantasy. It seems his fantasy is very specific: you, as you are, without enchantnt. How dreadfully mundane. And how utterly effective."
Shuyin absorbed this, frustration simring. "So what do I do?"
"Do?" Long Chen’s psychic voice was all mock innocence. "Why, you have the one thing our kind rarely experiences: a genuine challenge. A courtship that isn’t a foregone conclusion. You have to actually... be there. Present. Without your magic as a crutch or a weapon. It’s horrifying, isn’t it?"
"It’s infuriating!" she shot back. "For centuries, no one has just... said no."
"And that," Long Chen replied, his tone shifting to sothing softer, almost envious, "is why he might be worth the frustration. He sees the creature, not just the magic. He wants the sharps and flats of your true voice, not just the siren’s song. It’s... annoyingly romantic."
She fell silent, the truth of his words settling like sedint. Lu Yuze didn’t want a fantasy; he wanted the complex, often-irritating reality of her.
"So," Long Chen prompted, his curiosity piqued. "What will you do now?"
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