The Deepest Blue(18)

“I’m here.” I’ll always be here. “Can you move? Swim? Climb?”

She knew the answers:

If he hadn’t broken his wrist, he could have climbed. Maybe.

If he hadn’t injured his leg, he could have swum. Maybe.

But both?

“You’ll have to leave me here,” he said. “I’ll catch up when I can. Go to Kao, secure a boat—there are enough coins in the blue pouch at the bottom of my pack. Sail with them to Renata. I’ll find you.”

She looked at him as if he were speaking nonsense. He was the reason she was here. Finding a way to be together was her only purpose. “I’m not leaving you.”

“Mayara . . . More spirits will come. You know that. And the Silent Ones will be right behind them. I can’t move, and you can’t stay.”

He was right that more would come. Calming her breathing, she tried to open her mind. She spread her awareness over the ocean beyond them and the cliffs above them.

“Please, Mayara. I don’t want our last moments together to be spent arguing.”

Mayara pressed a finger against his lips. She shook her head and tried to smile. She failed. “I won’t leave you. And I can’t leave you. It’s too late.”

“It’s not—”

“It is.” She kissed him gently. His lips tasted like blood. Tightening her grip on his knife, she turned to face the sea. “They’re already here.”





Chapter Six

Mayara sensed the spirits—the ocean was clogged with them and the air full of them. The nearness of so many made her feel as if ants were crawling on her skin. Scooting closer to Kelo, she watched them approach.

First to appear was a trio of water spirits beyond the breakers, their heads popping out of the waves. From the shoulders up, they looked human, with pale-blue faces and flowing green hair, bobbing in the water, cackling to one another. By the opening to the cove, she saw yet another water spirit, this one orcalike with a smooth iridescent back that rose out of the waves. Above, she saw a spark in the air darting over the rocks—it was a fire spirit that looked like a winged lizard covered in flames. It peeked down at them and then disappeared above the overhang.

I should have stayed and faced my fate. If she had, at least Kelo would have been safe and home. Watching the water spirits swim closer, Mayara took Kelo’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I’m not. Better we’re together than for you to die alone.”

She snorted. “Better if neither of us dies.”

“Well, yes, that would be better,” he said mildly. She appreciated how unruffled he sounded. She knew he was faking it, but it was easier for her to stay outwardly calm if he was.

The first of the spirits clawed its way onto the beach: it was shaped like a brilliant blue crab, twice the size of any ordinary crab and with six pincher claws. Then a half dozen tiny water spirits that looked like seafoam tumbled out of a wave as it broke onto the sand. They scurried toward Mayara and Kelo.

She could use these last moments to tell Kelo how much she loved him. Or she could use them fighting like hell to keep him alive. He knows I love him.

Beside her, Kelo was breathing heavily. He’d pulled himself up to a sitting position, his back against a boulder. His face was prickled with sweat.

“Take this.” She pressed the blood-slick knife into his hands.

He tried to give it back to her. “You need—”

“I have another way to fight.” Or at least I think I do.

Reaching out with her mind, Mayara felt for the strongest spirit—she planned to seize control of it and force it to defend them, like she’d done with the sea dragon when the wild spirits attacked their wedding. But when she touched the mind of the orcalike water spirit, it felt oddly distant. Even distracted.

Protect us! she ordered.

It felt as if she were trying to shout into a heap of burlap—her mental voice felt muffled, and she had no sense that the spirit heard her. She tried communicating with another, the crablike water spirit.

Same result.

She tried the tiny foam spirits. . . . Same.

“Why aren’t they attacking? Is it you?” Kelo asked. “Are you holding them back? All of them at once? I didn’t know you were that strong.”

“It’s not me,” Mayara said.

She felt the spirits seething with hate, straining as if on leashes, oblivious to her commands. Three birdlike air spirits circled above the cove. She couldn’t see them through the overhang, but she could hear them cawing to one another in voices that were both almost human and almost bird. The humanlike water spirits bobbed just beyond the breaking waves, watching Mayara and Kelo with their unnerving inhuman eyes. The orcalike water spirit swam back and forth at the mouth of the cove. The crab spirit watched them without moving, and the tiny foam spirits continued to skitter from side to side each time a wave slapped the sand. Above, the one fire spirit, the winged lizard with flames, darted over the rocks, eyeing them but never coming closer.

A horrible realization came over her. “They’re all waiting. Just waiting.” Even the wind seemed to be waiting to blow, and the waves seemed hesitant to touch the rocky shore.

He nodded. He didn’t ask whom they were waiting for. He didn’t need to. “What will you choose?” His voice was even, almost conversational, as if asking what she wanted for breakfast.