The Deepest Blue(105)

She’d liked her life. She’d been happy! She’d hidden her power, only using it when she had no choice but to save her family, or as much of her family as she could. . . . Like now.

This battle was destroying the islands.

She didn’t know how many had died already, between the flood and the spirits and the leviathans, but if the devastation wasn’t stopped here, it would spread to all the islands, including her home. The leviathans wouldn’t be sated by swallowing one city.

Roe was on her knees with her hands pressed to the side of her head. Her lips were moving, and she was rocking back and forth—guiding the spirits, fighting the battle.

Tentatively, Mayara reached out with her mind.

There were three leviathans.

One felt cold, sluggish, as if its hate had frozen long ago.

Another was like fire, ready to burn everything until it all disintegrated into ash.

And the third was hollow, as empty as the eye of a tornado, with a stillness that could crush you and a void inside that could swallow you.

She did not want to link her mind with theirs.

If it was even possible.

There had to be someone else who could do this. Heir Sorka. Any of the other heirs. Or other spirit sisters. But she and Roe were in the grove. And Roe was unreachable now, drawn into the minds of the spirits, waging a war in the sea above the grove.

There’s no one else.

She took a breath. And committed to the dive.

Reaching out, she touched the first of the leviathans, the dragon. Let me be your queen. Choose me. Bond with me.

She heard the dragon howl with rage. Or was it pain? She remembered what she’d felt when she first woke: pain, from the leviathans.

You don’t have to feel this anymore, she told him. You don’t need to be alone.

His voice was a whisper in her head: Die. It echoed through her body, making her bones shake within her and her heart thump unevenly. She wanted to curl back and withdraw her mind. But she thought of Queen Asana, lying wounded on the beach, telling them about the dreams of the Deepest Blue.

I can help you dream again.

I will remake the world, the dragon said. It will burn, and I will have my dream. You, little worm, have no place in this.

You’re angry because you woke, and the world wasn’t what you wanted it to be.

The world is not how it should be!

She felt his cry, and she shuddered as the dragon hurled his body against the palace tower. She could see the city, partially through his eyes. Flames and water were everywhere. The tops of the towers were above the waves, but the streets were rivers. She saw humans clinging to whatever they could, and she saw the spirits of Belene fighting, lost in bloodlust, against the many-headed snake and the kraken.

She touched all three of their minds.

Go away, the kraken’s voice oozed, thick as lava. She sounded even older than the dragon, and Mayara could feel the coiled power within her.

Interesting, the snake thought. We can hear her. Why can we hear her?

Let me be your queen, Mayara thought at them. She pushed down every hint of doubt and fear, exactly as she did before a dangerous dive. She concentrated only on the three voices.

You are not the queen, the snake said. There’s another. We felt her. We shunned her. She tried to order us away. We will not go. It’s our time to stay.

It’s our time to kill, the kraken said.

She’s in the grove, the snake said. That is why we hear her.

Then we destroy the grove, the dragon said. He felt close, as if his breath was on her neck. She wanted to scream. But she didn’t.

Instead she pushed again. Bond with me. You know it’s what you need. She thought back to what Roe had said long ago, about how the spirits needed queens at the same time as they hated them. Without queens, they would destroy and destroy until there was nothing left. It hurts you, doesn’t it? Destroying so much.

We must destroy! the dragon said. His voice was a claw inside her mind. She flinched, her hands over her ears. But the voice was unblockable inside her.

Why? she asked.

Why? the kraken repeated.

A rich question from the spawn of those who wrecked the world, the snake said. Eons ago, we made the world. Us and our brethren. We made it beautiful. And then your kind came—it was not your time. We were not finished. And so we want to begin again. It is only right.

You can’t begin again, Mayara said. There’s no going back. We’re here. You can’t erase that.

We can erase you, the kraken said. Remove you and your kind from the face of the world. And then . . . it will be as it was, as She intended it to be.

You can’t bring her back, Mayara said. She died. Time moved on.

The rage at those words . . . and the pain.

You miss her, Mayara said. You’re lonely. You think if you do what she wanted you to do . . . You think if you live enough for her . . . it will hurt less. It will be like she didn’t die. You think you can go back to being who you were, but you can’t. There’s a hole in you now, and you’re trying to fill it by destroying us. But it won’t work.

She felt them listening.

It might help, the snake whispered.

It won’t, she told him. I know. And she opened her mind to them, showing them her memories: her and Elorna. She remembered when she was little, watching her sister run around the house, ribbons flapping after her, laughing as she ran from Mother’s hairbrush. She remembered waking from a nightmare and going to Elorna, who would sit with her until dawn telling her stories. Elorna, whom she worshipped. Brave and beautiful and smart and funny, everything she aspired to be. She remembered how Elorna would scream and stomp sometimes when she didn’t get her way. How she’d climb out the window when she was forbidden to leave. She remembered how Elorna would laugh when the wind stole socks from the laundry line, and how she’d run full tilt along the edge of the cliff, as if it were impossible she’d ever fall. She remembered how Elorna had taught her to swim, how she would duck her head under the water. She remembered how they’d pretend to be spirits, wild and free in the waves, and how they’d both be scolded. She remembered the first time Elorna used her power and how afraid her parents had been—she’d called in a little spirit, and they’d giggled as they’d played with it in a tidal pool. It was the first time she’d seen Elorna scared, not of the spirits but of their parents. And it had only made Elorna worse. She would climb to the rooftops and be gone from lessons. She’d dive off anything. She’d hold her breath underwater so long while making Mayara count that Mayara would be crying in fear before Elorna popped up through the surface of the water.