The Deepest Blue(91)

Kelo would be safe, but Roe needed her.

We need to be apart now, so we can have a chance to someday be together.

Spirits were dancing within waterspouts, swooping over the cliffs, and tearing up the sand all around them. Their shrieks mingled with the crash of the waves and the roar of the wind to encase them in a steady cyclone of noise.

Queen Asana was instructing the lady in ruffles. “Garnah, swear to me you will keep my daughter safe.” Her words came out as a harsh whisper, and her breath had a whistle to it, as if she’d swallowed the wind and it was now tearing her up from within. It was a terrible sound that Mayara wished she’d never had to hear.

This must be a thousand times worse for Roe.

Roe was crying in heaving gulps. “I don’t want to be ‘safe’! I want to be with you! I never chose to be safe. I never wanted you to sacrifice anything for me.”

The woman in ruffles, Garnah, said, as if she were trying to be helpful, “No one will be safe when the queen dies.”

Roe let out a sound like a wounded gull.

“Promise me!” the queen rasped to Garnah. “See that Roe reaches the new queen and delivers my message unharmed. Protect her by any means necessary! She will need you, before this is through.”

Garnah’s eyes shifted to Palia. “‘Any means’ is my specialty. You have my word.”

Mayara felt a shift in the spirits—they knew the queen was weakening. She felt their eagerness and their hunger. It made her feel as if claws were tearing at her skin from the inside out. She stretched her own mind out, trying to soothe them, but it was like shouting when everyone else was already screaming.

“Mother!” Roe cried.

She must feel it too.

The queen won’t last much longer.

“You must go, my little Roe,” the queen said. “Go now, while I can still help you.”

With a gentle hand on her shoulder, Mayara tried to draw Roe away, but Roe pushed her off and collapsed across her mother. “You can’t die!” she cried. “You can’t! I just found you, and I can’t lose you!”

Mayara felt the spirits’ hunger soar—if the queen died before they left this beach, they’d all be torn apart. Lowering her voice, she asked Garnah, “How much time does she have?”

“Not enough,” Garnah said grimly. “Can you do something about the girl, or do I need to? We can’t stay here. Also, do you know how to sail one of those ships?”

“A small sailboat, yes. A big sailing ship, no.” She’d been out on the village fishing boats, and she could maneuver a small craft around the harbor like any islander could, but the trading ships . . . They were as different from the village boats as a whale to a minnow.

“Then we’ll need a sailor.”

Mayara pointed to the prone body of Lord Maarte, lying untouched in a ring of sand, surrounded by spirits. “He can sail. If we can make him.”

Garnah smiled humorlessly. “I can make him—I can make a man do anything. Bring the queen’s daughter.” Raising her voice, she said to the queen, “Asana, we need a path to Lord Maarte, then a path to the ship. Can you do that?”

Mayara wrapped her arm around Roe’s waist. “Roe, we have to go!”

Roe fought her, elbowing Mayara in the stomach and trying to yank herself out of Mayara’s grip. “I’m not leaving my mother to die alone! My father died without my even knowing! I can’t leave my mother!”

Wincing at the stomach jab, Mayara thought of her own parents but didn’t let Roe go. “The leviathans will wake. Assuming she had a plan for how to reach the grove, Lanei has to be warned. If we go now, we’ll have a chance of catching her before it’s too late.”

Reaching up, Asana laid one hand on Roe’s cheek. “I am not alone. I can feel you and see you through the spirits. Knowing you are gone from here . . .” She then broke into a violent cough. Red spots stained the sand. A drop of blood hit Roe’s forehead. It dripped in a streak down her temple and then mixed with her tears. “Go.”

“I love you, Mother!”

“My little Roe, I love you.”

“I will avenge you and Father!”

“Avenge us by living,” the queen ordered.

Mayara kept an arm wrapped around Roe as she shuttled her across the sand. In front of them, the wind wall split, opening a path. Sand flurried on either side of them as they hurried through.

Reaching Lord Maarte, Garnah blew a handful of powder in his face. He spasmed, then coughed, waking. “I demand—” he began.

“I am Death,” Garnah said flatly. “You will demand nothing of me.”

Mayara felt the coldness of the words slide into her.

Garnah continued. “You will sail us to Yena, per order of the queen, or I will visit every member of your family, down to the most distant cousin, and end their existence. Your line will be wiped from the world.”

She’d expected that Garnah wouldn’t be subtle, based on how she’d acted already. Still, she wasn’t prepared for that. It wasn’t merely the words that were chilling; it was the way she spoke. Hollow, as if she truly could murder a family and feel no remorse. Mayara did not doubt that she meant it, nor that she could do it. We’re trusting our lives to her?

“You wouldn’t!” he blustered. “You’d be murdering innocents—”