Lira

Art by Arzz

### Relatives

Sea Queen (Mother), Flesh Eater (Father), Crestell (Aunt), Kahlia (Cousin), 5 unnamed sirens (Cousins), Keto (Ancestor)

## Appearances

### Debut

To Kill a Kingdom

 —Chapter 1, To Kill a Kingdom

**Lira** is one protagonist of **To Kill a Kingdom** she narrates 23 out of 43 chapters. She was born in the **Diavlos Sea** as the princess of the **Kingdom of Keto**. She was 17 at the beginning of the story but turns 18 later on.

Princess Lira is siren royalty and the most lethal of them all. With the hearts of seventeen princes in her collection, she is revered across the sea. Until a twist of fate forces her to kill one of her own. To punish her daughter, the Sea Queen transforms Lira into the one thing they loathe most—a human. Robbed of her song, Lira has until the winter solstice to deliver Prince Elian’s heart to the Sea Queen or remain a human forever.

## **Appearance**

### **Siren Form**

In her original form she is a beautiful siren with long red hair and pale skin, one eye blue and the other eye red, her tail is long, orange and freckled, she has gills around her ribs. She usually wears a seaweed bra and scarlet colored sea shell necklace in this form and her ears are pointy.

### **Human Form**

In her human form she loses all of her siren features, her ears become rounded, her eyes both become blue, her face becomes freckled and the biggest change her tail splits apart and becomes legs and her gills disappear. In Eidyllio she wears a white ragged dress with a black belt and boots. Later on she gains a more pirate-like costume with a white shirt, cyan jacket with orange shoulders, baggy pants, pirate boots, braided hair and earrings hanging from her freshly pierced ears.

### **Queen Form**

At the end of the book she becomes queen of the Kingdom of Keto and her form grows bigger, her tail is tolen and turned into large dark purple tentacles. She wears a crown made from bones and holds a trident that matches it.

## **Personality**

At the beginning of the book Lira is pure evil, she does everything to make others hurt and is a trained killer. She is tough and unmerciful, trying to be the villain and perfect princess her kingdom supposedly needs. However the cracks show whenever her cousin Kahlia is threatened, Kahlia is the only person she cares about and she desperately tries to shield her cousin from her abusive mother. After many events in the book she learns how to have fun and how to care for others and goes through a full redemption arc where in the end she chooses to stop the war and let humans and sirens all coexist.

## **Etymology**

Lira translates to libra in Latin, which means "balance".

## **Relationships**

* **Sea Queen** - Her abusive mother that she killed to become queen.
* **Elian** - Her former enemy she tried to kill but fell in love with instead.
* **Kahlia** - Her cousin and best friend.
* **Madrid** - Her friend.
* **Kye** - Her former enemy that is now her friend.
* **Yukiko** - An enemy that reminds her of her mother and tried to kill her.
* **Maeve** - An old rival she helped kill.

## **Full Story**

### **Backstory**

When Lira was little every year on her birthday as it is tradition her mother, the **Sea Queen**, would take her to get a heart from a human. Lira was brought up on a diet of only taking the hearts of princes and when she came of age it was her turn to start hunting all on her own. For her 12th birthday she swam to **Kalokairi** and scored her first kill, she wasn't as brutal back then and didn't kill the prince herself instead letting him drown first before taking his heart. When she returned home the Sea Queen wasn't pleased she had asked Lira to take the heart while it still beat and make a human suffer, be merciless. But the Sea Queen saw Lira's weakness and noticed her crying and used this as an opportunity to make a villain. She said in order for Lira to redeem herself and secure her place as future queen she would have to make her cousin **Kahlia** suffer a horrific death, Lira really did not want to do it and thankfully before she could her aunt **Crestell** swam between her and her cousin. Though she couldn't get out of killing someone so Crestell volunteered herself to take the punishment, she said her last words: "'Lira,' she said. Her voice rasped. 'Become the queen we need you to be.' It wasn't a promise I could make, because I wasn't sure I was capable of being the kind of queen my mother's kingdom needed. I had to be without emotion, spreading terror rather than feeling it, and as my breathing trembled, I just didn't know I had it in me. 'Won't you promise?' Crestell asked. I nodded." ~TKaK **Alexandra Christo** (**C18**, P126) And then Lira killed her and became the ruthless princess she was destined to be, the perfect killer.

### **Her Full Arc**

5 years later Lira is now 17 years old and she is tasked with taking Kahlia to take her 14th heart, they go after a ship from **Adekaros** and kill their queen and **prince**. When they get home the Sea Queen is angry because Lira ruined their tradition by taking a heart a before her birthday and is punished by the heart being destroyed and when Kahlia is threatened to also be punished Lira takes her punishment as well. The punishment is that instead of Lira hunting a prince for her birthday she will kill and present a heart of a sailor to her subjects, which will completely humiliate her. She can't stand for this and hates her mom telling her who she should kill, she is sulking when two mermaids approach and spark the idea that if she kills the siren hunter **Elian Midas** it may win her mother's approval and make her forget about the punishment.

After failing to kill him her mother gives her one last chance and curses Lira by turning her into a human and giving her a challenge that if she can take Elian's heart before the solstice she will be let back into her kingdom and everything will be good. She then finds herself being rescued by Elian and lying to get into his crew. Along the way she comes up with a plan to find the **second eye of keto**, overthrow her mom and kill all humans but that plan soon turns into possibly sparing Elian and after she bonds and becomes friends with the whole crew she decides to spare all humans and end the war between the species.

### **Possible Future**

After all the fighting and everything Lira finally becomes the sea queen and changed her kingdom's traditions. Instead of killing and making humans suffer they became guides helping ships navigate the oceans. She now sits in the **Palace of Keto** and occasionally joins Elian and his crew on their adventures through **the 101 kingdoms.**

## **Gallery**

### **Official Images**

From the French editionFrom the Polish EditionGerman CoverItalian Cover
### **Fanart**

Credit to KemiBeeCredit to KemiBeeCredit to KemiBeeCredit to KemiBeeCredit to artoffrostandflameCredit to ArzzCredit to NyxCredit to Tara SpruitCredit to avacroeCredit to ScillaVegaCredit to Elisia PigliapocoCredit to Jemlin CreationsCredit to macaylacarleneCredit to LappalainenCredit to aruCredit to Victoria ElizabethCredit to MelCredit to MeliescribblesCredit to LoweanaCredit to LoweanaCredit to EresteCredit to Sike TaraCredit to Sike TaraCredit to CaitlinCredit to KiloWhatCredit to Sydney Mack on TumblerCredit to JemCredit to Elisia PigliapocoCredit to Tatkatmur