The Deepest Blue(104)
Mayara shifted her concentration to the wounded spirit. It was weak, but not dead. Air, she told it. Make air.
It resisted.
It was free of the queen. It didn’t want to obey. And Mayara wasn’t strong enough. . . . I am strong enough. She was the one who had dived the impossible dives. Not Elorna. She was the one who had survived the island. Not Elorna. She’d come here, despite all her fear, and spoken to a murderous queen and dived to the sunken grove. You will obey me. Make air!
The spirit breathed out. A bubble drifted through the water to Roe’s face.
Can’t. More. The spirit felt weak. It wasn’t going to be able to make more air. Not enough for Mayara too.
Just her. Make air for her, Mayara told it.
That was what mattered. She could hold her breath. It was Roe who needed the time. She needed to become queen. She had to save them all.
Mayara thought of Kelo.
Once Roe was queen, he’d be safe.
She thought of Lanei, asking what she’d do for her loved ones. I’d give my air. That’s what I’d to. Roe would banish the leviathans back to the dark depths of the sea, and she’d tame the island spirits once more. And Kelo would be unharmed.
He’d live for both of them, make art and think of her, take care of their parents. He’d . . .
She lost consciousness as blackness claimed her, the last of the air inside her gone.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Wake up, Mayara! You need to wake up!”
She was floating. And it was loud. So very loud. As if all the drummers in the village were hitting their drums as hard as they could but off-rhythm. She felt as if waves were crashing inside her head.
“Please, wake up!”
Who was yelling so loudly? She tried to open her eyes to tell them to be quiet. She only wanted to rest. But the voice was so loud. And so angry. No, the voice wasn’t angry. It was scared. She felt the anger inside her, squeezing her stomach, making her insides feel as if they were being wrung out like a wet towel.
“Mayara, they’re here! And I can’t stop them!”
She opened her eyes. Breathed in to say . . .
Breathed in.
I’m breathing.
There’s air.
She blinked hard, but it was near darkness around them. “Roe?”
“Yes! Oh, thank the Great Mother! Mayara, I’m queen. All the Belene spirits are here in the city, fighting the leviathans. But, Mayara . . . we’re losing.”
Mayara tried to make the words fit together in a way that made sense. “Did I die?”
“Yeah. A little bit. Maybe. But you’re better now, so please . . . I don’t know what to do. I ordered them to fight, and they’re fighting. But they’re dying. Oh, Mayara, I can feel them dying! It feels like pieces of me are dying with them!”
“You have to put the leviathans to sleep.”
“It’s too late for that. You were right—they won’t sleep when they’re here inside the city. I can’t trick them into thinking humans don’t exist when the evidence is all around them.”
Mayara felt the monsters’ hate coiled inside of her.
Not hate, she thought. Pain.
They hurt.
She looked up, and the sky was a wavering gray. A cloak drifted by, undulating above her. She and Roe were in a sphere of air, within the grove and beneath the sea. Untying herself from the rib cage, Mayara stood shakily.
Above them, the battle raged. She saw the dragon, its blackened wings extended, distorted through the murky water. It was expelling torrents of water at the palace tower. The tower’s nacre walls were torn, as if shredded by claws. It looked scarred.
Hundreds of tiny spirits clung to the dragon’s wings. Howling, it thrashed in midair, and the spirits flew backward and slammed against the tower, knocking away even more mother-of-pearl.
Roe was crying. “I can feel my spirits die. And when they die, bits of Belene die—they’re tied to the land, Mayara. I didn’t know! I’m destroying the islands by trying to save them.”
“Can you concentrate on just the leviathans? Order them away!”
“They won’t listen!” Roe said. “Mayara . . . I think . . . you need to do it.”
What? Impossible! Only a queen had that kind of power. That was the whole point of diving to the grove and crowning Roe! “I can barely command a little tame spirit! The leviathans won’t listen to me.”
“They would,” Roe said, “if you were their queen.”
That was a crazy idea. No one was queen of the leviathans! Especially not me! She wasn’t even supposed to be here. She should have died on Akena Island like her sister . . . except that Elorna hadn’t died. She was out there, somewhere, maybe fighting the spirits too. “You’re the queen of the island spirits. Can’t you be their queen too?”
“I’m at my limit—I can’t take any more inside my mind. It would swallow me. But you . . . you have the power. You’re here in the grove. Reach out to them! Claim the spirits who have never had a queen! Make them choose you!”
“But I can’t tame them! No one has ever tamed them!” Mayara insisted.
Mayara couldn’t do it! She was just a village girl. That was all she’d ever wanted to be. An oyster diver. A wife, a daughter, a niece, a cousin, a granddaughter. Kelo’s muse.