The Deepest Blue(45)

Mayara held on as the earth spirit strode toward the twisting trees. As it burst through, she saw a half dozen tree spirits. Two looked like knots of wood, with gnarled bodies covered in bark. The others were slender and faceless, with smooth bodies that looked vaguely human. One had wings made of leaves. Another had fingers that were thorns.

Like spiders wrapping their prey, the slender tree spirits were cocooning something in vines. The vines grew fast, as Mayara watched—the spirits seemed to be drawing them out of the trees. The gnarled bark spirits flipped the cocoon over, and in a flash of moonlight, Mayara saw a face.

Kemra, the young spirit sister who’d wanted to be an heir.

Her eyes were open, lifeless, and her mouth was filled with bark. Bark seemed to have burst out of her mouth and encased her cheeks. The spirit with thorns for fingers drove those thorns in between the vines, drew out, and then stabbed her again.

Mayara felt a scream building inside her throat, and she fought to keep it back.

To the east, another cry from another human throat ripped through the night.

The earth spirit pivoted and charged toward it, trampling more vegetation. The trees they pushed through—I could leap onto one of them. But what if the spirit saw her? Torn by indecision, Mayara let the moment pass, and soon they had broken free of the trees and were above a cliff. Below, the sea crashed onto rocks.

She sensed the spirit’s confusion—it had lost its new target. Maybe she—whoever it was—escaped? She hoped that was true. She feared it wasn’t. Four of us already dead. And the rest hunted. The earth spirit let out an oddly wolflike howl, which was echoed by other spirits across the island. Plunging forward, the spirit headed toward the echoes.

As it stomped through the lush vegetation, the trees creaked and shifted, and the feel of spirits was so intense that the air felt thick with them. Instinctively, she squeezed her eyes shut—as if they couldn’t see her if she couldn’t see them, which she knew was ridiculous, but she’d never felt so helpless.

Don’t see me.

It was only meant to be a whisper of a thought. But she felt it spread out from her and sink into the spirits around her. “Oh no,” she whispered. She’d meant to hide from them, never using her power, never drawing attention to herself. . . .

“Jump now!” she heard a familiar voice call.

Roe!

Mayara didn’t hesitate. She jumped from the earth spirit’s neck—arms flung out, she grabbed on to the trunk of a coconut tree. She felt its bark scrape against her as she half climbed and half slid down to the ground.

Searching for her, the earth spirit howled again. She felt the sandy ground buckle, as every rock beneath the sand was called to the surface. The rocks kept growing, piling on top of one another, rising into towers all around her.

Scrambling over and between them, she ran toward Roe’s voice.

She tried to run silently, but she was panting in both fear and exhaustion, and she stumbled and tripped over the dark, shadowy ground. “Where are you?” she whisper-called.

“Over here, the nearly dead girl by the tree.” Her voice was right beside Mayara, and Mayara spun and jumped—and saw her. Lashed to a tree by vines, Roe was speckled in blood. Her hair was matted to her cheeks. Her leggings were torn, revealing an ugly gash that ran down the side of her calf. The soles of her feet were caked with dirt and blood.

In the darkness, the blood looked black.

Mayara began yanking at the vines, trying to loosen them. She glanced around at the ground, spotted a sharp rock, and began using it like a knife to saw through the vine. “Where are the spirits that did this?”

“Off killing someone else, if I had to guess,” Roe said. “Must have figured they could finish me off later. The spirits themselves weren’t here—it was a trap, like a snare, and I walked right into it.”

“I used power,” Mayara confessed. “They’ll be after me.”

“Everyone’s using power. If we can get away fast enough, they won’t know which of us did it. Just get me free and run.” Roe struggled against the vines—they were wrapped tight around her thighs and arms, pinning her against the trunk.

Listening with her ears and her mind, Mayara kept sawing at the vines. She wished she had her diving knife. That would have sliced through these in no time.

At last, the vines began to fray. She kept going.

One snapped. Arm free, Roe yanked at the others, trying to loosen them, while Mayara attacked the next vine. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. Spirits were close. It was hard to tell how close or if they were aware that Roe and Mayara were here.

“Get ready to run. You go east, and I’ll go west,” Roe whispered.

“You’re hurt—” Mayara protested.

“I’ll be hurt worse if they catch us. How did you escape the water?”

“Guess I outswam everyone.” Her disgust in herself permeated her voice. She thought again of the bodies on the sand—Tesana, Dayine, and Resla. Not “bodies.” They had names. Dreams. Lives. They must have died in the first few hours. She wondered how many more of them were already dead and how many had suffered like Kemra before they’d died.

“You did what you had to do.” Roe sucked in air and then winced. She fell forward as the last vine snapped. Mayara caught her and helped her straighten. Roe then sagged, clutching her injured leg.