The Deepest Blue(111)

It spread until the whole city was singing, and perhaps the whole island:

The sea calls to me, and I to the sea:

Come to me,

Take my sorrow,

Carry it away in your arms of blue,

Until sweet memory is all that remains,

All that remains of you.

AT DAWN, MAYARA LEFT THE CITY.

She said goodbye to Queen Rokalara and Lady Garnah in the privacy of Roe’s chambers. A ship was waiting for her at the docks. Roe clasped her hands. “I wish you’d stay,” she said.

“I’ll visit. Often,” Mayara promised. “But you don’t need me to be queen by your side. You just need me to keep the monsters from eating everyone alive. And I can do that from my village as easily as a palace.”

“Plus she’ll be harder to find and murder in an obscure village,” Garnah put in. “You’ll have to watch out for any treachery from the Families, of course, but you’ll have the Silent Ones to protect you and keep them in line.” She nodded to a Silent One who waited by the door.

Mayara shot a smile at the Silent One. “I’ll be fine.” I’ll be home. “You need to promise me you’ll keep Queen Roe safe,” she said to Garnah. “She needs you.” Garnah was one of the few people in Belene without conflicting interests. She had no family here, no ties, no other allegiances. She only had a dying queen’s wish to fulfill. Despite the fact that she was as bloodthirsty as a spirit, Mayara trusted her.

“It’ll be fun,” Garnah said with a wolfish grin. “You say hello to that artist of yours. Get him to make you a less uncomfortable crown.”

That was an idea she liked. She could leave her gold crown with Queen Rokalara. It belonged in the palace anyway, not in a fishing village, and it wasn’t like the leviathans were impressed by a shiny circlet.

Not impressed, the kraken murmured.

She reached her thoughts out, but he was still asleep, albeit an uneasy sleep.

“Everything all right?” Roe asked.

Mayara clasped Roe’s hands. “More than all right. Don’t look so nervous. You’re going to be a great queen. Your mother would be proud of you. Look what you’ve done already!”

“So far, Heir Sorka has five students,” Roe said. “She expects many more will come, after word spreads that they’re alive after a month or two. Change will be slow, but it’s already starting to happen.”

“Kind of helps that everything is a mess,” Mayara said. And that caused Roe to smile, a small one, but it still counted. “Everyone’s too distracted with how Lanei’s disaster changed their own lives that they aren’t noticing how you’re changing their world. And when they look up and do notice . . . they’ll see you made it better.”

“I hope so,” Roe said, then hugged Mayara. “But it wouldn’t be possible without you.”

Mayara hugged her back. “That’s why no one is going to stop me going home, right? And coming back, whenever I want?”

Roe laughed. “No one is going to make the woman with the leviathans do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

“Good,” Mayara said.

They separated, still holding hands.

There were other things she wanted to say to Roe, about how they were still in this together, even if they were on different islands, and about how she thought of her like another sister. She knows, Mayara thought. She feels the same way.

“I’ll see you again soon,” Mayara promised.

Escorted by the Silent One, Mayara walked through the still-ruined city streets down to the docks. She wore the same kind of wrap dress she’d worn when she left home—a new one, since her original dress had been through too much to be wearable anymore, but an ordinary one so she wouldn’t be recognized as anyone connected with royalty or power.

She and the Silent One boarded a small ship. An air spirit was lingering by the sails, ready to blow them home on her command. Unwrapping the lines from the dock, Mayara pushed away. The air spirit—a glass bird—filled the sails with air.

They slid through the harbor.

Mayara stood at the prow of the boat and looked at the ruined city, slowly being rebuilt by humans and spirits under Queen Rokalara’s direction. The palace towers were broken, as if sheared by a massive knife, but the grove still stood, above water once more, its rib cage gleaming. She knew Roe had stationed two heirs in the grove at all times, in case of double tragedy and to guard against another Lanei. In the city itself, people scurried between the wreckage of the houses, carrying tools and supplies.

It will heal, she thought. We all will.

“Ready to go home?” she asked the Silent One.

The Silent One removed her mask. She kept her back to the city, out of either habit or caution, so no one would see her, but Mayara saw. And she saw her sister was smiling. “Yes,” Elorna said. “Take me home.”

SHE BROUGHT THE MONSTERS HOME, INSIDE HER HEAD, BUT SHE also brought her long-dead sister. Reasonable price to pay, Mayara thought. Standing at the front of the boat, she leaped onto the village dock—it was mostly mended, she noticed. She wrapped a line around one of the posts, securing the boat, and watched the air spirit as it flitted away across the harbor.

It bothered her a little that the spirit knew where she lived. But then she felt the power coiled inside her, drawn from the three leviathans who napped fitfully in the Deepest Blue, and she stopped worrying about a little bird.