Stars of Fortune (The Guardians Trilogy, #1)(88)

“Now that we’ve established that,” Doyle began, “maybe we should find out just why Sasha nearly drowned to get where we are.”

“Hard-Ass has a point,” Riley agreed. “It’s a hell of a place.” She pushed to her feet. “Deep inside the cliff, from my sense of direction. But accessible enough, with equipment,” she added with a pointed finger at Sasha, “that other divers should have found it. But it’s not on any of the dive maps.”

“The simple answer?” Steadier again as Sasha’s color had come back, Bran pushed to his feet. “It isn’t meant for others. It drew Sasha through what she has. Drew us all.”

“You think the star’s here?”

He nodded at Riley. “I think if it’s not, a path to it is. But this fits Sasha’s prophecy. We’re bloody well between the earth and the sea, aren’t we?”

“You got that.” Hands on hips, Riley scanned the cave. “Small pool, wide area. A lot of rock. The walls are almost smooth, and the ceiling . . .” She frowned as she looked up, studied. “It’s almost a perfect dome shape, and the stalactites, grouped together like that? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Dome, a grouping like a chandelier. A holy place.”

Sawyer finally pulled himself out of the pool to join them. “It shouldn’t have light like this, as deep as it is—and no sky to reflect it.” He glanced down at Annika. “Do you want to come up—sit on the edge?”

Her tail swished along the water in a sparkling arc, then cleaved under. She pushed herself up. “Stand,” she said, and brushed water from her thigh. “I like the legs.”

“Yeah, well, they’re winners.”

“We’re going to need to have a discussion about all that,” Riley decided, “but since we’re here, we’ll focus. If it’s here, and buried, we’re going to need tools. I can get those, but we don’t want to hack at everything. Best thing is to spread out, look for anything that seems out of place. I’ll start on the other side of the pool.”

“I don’t know what to look for.”

“You got us this far,” Bran reminded Sasha.

Something out of place, she thought. She didn’t know what was in place, as she didn’t spend a lot of time in strange underwater caves.

But something had brought her here—brought all of them here.

Why couldn’t she hear the music now, or feel that tug pulling her in the right direction? She searched with the others, running her hands over rocks, climbing over stepping ledges of them.

As Riley said, the walls were smooth, almost the texture of glass. And warm, she noted, where surely they should have been cool to the touch. The air should be cool, she realized—even cold—considering they were beneath the surface of the sea.

Where did the warmth and the light come from?

She looked up at the bowl of the ceiling, the rich colors of the rock, the odd grouping of the stalactites, gleaming with wet.

Even as she watched, a drop slid down the cone, fell to the rock-strewn floor of the cave.

She heard the drop striking rock as distinctly as a plucked harp string. Then another. As she watched, drops ran down, shimmering with light—water striking water, water striking rock—with quick and pretty notes.

A song.

Not possible, of course. The speed of the liquid, the light of it, the sound—that music rising above everything. She walked closer, still looking up, held out a hand.

A drop fell into her palm, warm, luminous—but not wet. It held in the cup of her hand, a perfect circle, clear as glass, with its song striking her heart.

Still holding the tiny globe, she knelt on the floor of the cave.

She heard someone say her name, shook her head. Not now, not now. Couldn’t they see she held love, trust, hope, right in the palm of her hand? So much of it, in a single drop, and for all the worlds.

She laid it, like an offering, on the small altar of stone.

It rose up from it, the flame and the fire. Brilliant and beautiful, red and pure as heart blood. Thousands by thousands of facets flashed with that fire, freed now from the stone, the fiercely shining star.

“The Fire Star, for the new queen. Here flames passion and the fire of truth.” She picked it up, held that wildly burning light in her cupped hands. “Here is power and strength and fiery justice to light the heavens of all the worlds in the name of Aegle, the radiant.”

She held it up and out, and the tears flooding her eyes were of pure joy.

“It is found. It is freed. And all we are must hold it safe until we return it with its sisters to Oileán na Gloine, so they will shine for all, forever, over all worlds.”

She looked down at the star, sighed. And when she looked up, her eyes were clear of visions. “I’m not dreaming.”

“No, fáidh.” Bran, who’d come to stand with her, laid his hands on her shoulders. “You found it.”

“It’s real. Take it. We need to protect it from her. She’ll come for it.”

“I don’t think she can come here.” Riley moved closer, touched her fingertips to the flame. “Not to this place. It’s all light and heat,” she noted. “There’s no solidity. But . . . I swear I can feel it hum. Does it have weight?”