To Kill a Kingdom

“Not all royals are alike. Some are furnished in fine clothes, unbearably heavy jewels so large that they drown twice as fast. Others are sparsely dressed, with only one or two rings and bronze crowns painted gold. Not that it matters to me. A prince is a prince, after all.”

This quote introduces the reader to Lira as The Princes’ Bane. From a first-person perspective, she explains how indifferent she is towards the royalty of the human world, establishing that she wants nothing from the princes whom she hunts aside from their hearts.

“Technically, I’m a murderer, but I like to think that’s one of my better qualities.”

Here the perspective switches to Elian. At this point in the book, he truly despises sirens and views them as monsters. Nevertheless, his reference to himself as a murderer shows that he doesn’t enjoy killing and foreshadows his eventual change of heart: Most people only use the word “murder” in reference to killing other people. He finds it to be one of his better qualities only because he believes sirens to be dangerous and eradicating them to be saving human lives.

“In front of us, the siren’s skin begins to dissolve. Her hair melts to sea green and her scales froth. Even her blood, just a moment before threatening to stain the deck of the Saad, begins to lather until all that is left is sea foam. And a minute later that, too, is gone.”

In the classic fairy tale “The Little Mermaid,” mermaids become sea-foam upon their death because they do not have human souls. Here, Christo borrows the sea-foam concept, applying it to the sirens instead of the mermaids, which are two separate species in the book. Elian’s crew’s first siren kill of the book shows the reader how a siren death works.