He regarded her with even more interest. “I am the head of the Family Neran. Do you know what that means, spirit sister?”
She flinched at the name “spirit sister.” It was a title she’d run from for a long time—in some mouths, it was a name of respect. In others, it was a death sentence. And then she realized what he’d said about himself: the head of the Family Neran.
This was Lord Maarte himself, head of the ruling Family of her island, Olaku, second only in power and importance to Queen Asana herself and equal to the leaders of all the other islands of Belene.
Her head swam again, and she wished she were still lying down. She’d guessed from the richness of the room that this was someone of import. But she hadn’t imagined she’d be waking in the same room as the ruler of their island.
“It means,” he continued blandly, “that I am the final say in all decisions pertaining to this island. I approve the laws. I mete out the punishments. I sign the trade agreements. I determine which villages—”
“Don’t threaten my family.” The words burst out before she’d considered them.
“Excuse me?”
It was too late to take them back. She plunged on. “You’ve taken my freedom, my future, my family, my dreams, my everything from me. Fine. It’s the law. It’s tradition. It may even be necessary. But threatening my family? That’s cruel.”
“You’ll note that I didn’t actually threaten anyone.”
“You won’t tell me whether my husband lives or not, either from sheer spite or because you enjoy feeling powerful. Then you hint at your power over villages. What am I supposed to think?”
He looked stunned. She guessed not many people spoke to him this way. She wondered if she’d misstepped. Maybe I jumped to conclusions. Maybe he hadn’t meant to threaten anyone. She took another breath to steady herself. She felt embarrassment creeping up her neck, along with fear. For her family’s sake, she shouldn’t anger him. “If I misunderstood, please accept my apology, my lord.”
His lips quirked—was he smiling? “Such a pity I did not meet you under better circumstances. Do you always speak first, think later?”
Now she didn’t just feel embarrassed. She was mortified. What would Papa say if he knew she was speaking to the head of the Family Neran this way? Secretly, she thought Grandmama would approve. “Nearly always.”
“It’s charming,” Lord Maarte declared. “But as delightful as you are, time is limited. You have been found to have an affinity to the six spirits of Renthia—water, fire, ice, air, earth, and tree—and as such have the potential to someday link yourself to spirits of Belene as queen, a bond that would grant you enough power to protect both our beloved islands and the entirety of Renthia from the deadly wild spirits that slumber in the Deepest Blue. Because of that potential, your fate is our fate. . . .”
He continued reciting the words as if he’d said them a hundred times before. He probably has. Every woman of power on Belene had to hear these words. I just never thought it would be me. She’d always thought she’d be able to hide her power forever. She’d promised both Elorna and her parents, and for years she’d been able to keep that promise. If the spirit storm hadn’t hit their village . . .
For the first time since her wedding day, she asked herself why the storm had hit their village. Wasn’t the queen supposed to predict the storms? And shouldn’t the heirs have been sent to deflect it, or at least to assist them? But no heirs had come.
“Where were the heirs?” she interrupted.
A faint shadow of irritation crossed his face. As if she hadn’t asked the question, he said, “In accordance with the laws of our island, laid down by the first queen of Belene, all women with potential are given a choice, to choose a path that is the best match for their temperament. Both choices are noble and necessary.”
“The storm that hit my village,” Mayara pressed. “It shouldn’t have happened. Even if the heirs couldn’t stop it from coming, they should have been there to help.” She thought of Helia, her pregnant cousin, dead with all her dreams of the future. “My friends, my family, my neighbors—people died. And the heirs didn’t come. They weren’t even there after it was over to help with the dead. Why didn’t they come?”
“A queen must make difficult decisions,” Lord Maarte said stiffly. “The heirs were needed elsewhere.” He then continued. “The Silent Ones enforce our laws by using their power over the islands’ tame spirits. They do not face Akena Island and are never asked to risk their lives against the wild spirits, nor are they required to shoulder the burden of becoming queen. In return for their lesser risk, they must swear obedience to our queen and forsake their name, family, and all ties to their prior self.”
Mayara saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head sharply—and paid for it with black spots that filled her vision. When they cleared, she saw that, unlike what she’d assumed, she was not alone with Lord Maarte.
The three Silent Ones stood in the shadows.
As always, they wore their white masks and gray robes. Mayara felt shivers up and down her spine. She’d seen many spirits over her lifetime, both wild and bonded, but none of them were as disturbing as the Silent Ones. It was the way they stood as if they were stone—they reminded her of the bones of the leviathans. There was the same kind of ancient feel to them. She couldn’t explain why, but it didn’t feel human.
She knew they were ordinary women under the masks and robes. In fact, they could have been exactly like her, recent brides from tiny villages who had to leave their families and homes because of a chance accident that revealed their power. But they felt more foreign than the wild spirits themselves. Worse, because she couldn’t sense them in the way she could sense spirits.
“Your other choice is to submit to the Island of Testing. Survive for one month, and you will have proven yourself worthy of becoming an heir. Survive, and you will be trained to contend with the wild spirits and taught the secrets of the sea. While the Silent Ones are akin to the queen’s police force, the heirs are her army. The heirs are vital to—”
“Is my husband alive?” Mayara asked the Silent Ones. “Did you kill him?”
All their eyes were fixed on her, and she thought she saw slight variation between them: one had narrow brown eyes, one had black eyes, and one had unlucky blue eyes. Death eyes.
“If you killed him . . . then I’d rather die than be one of you. Did you do it?”
“Of course they did,” Lord Maarte cut in. “He tried to aid your escape.”
Mayara felt as if she’d been hollowed out.
Lord Maarte continued talking, but she didn’t hear him. Kelo . . . dead? She knew they’d punished him. She’d heard him scream. But a part of her was certain they wouldn’t let him die. He’d be back in his studio, making new charms, picking up the scattered shells and bits of driftwood. He’d miss her, but he’d know she was safe. And someday, maybe . . .
She dropped her face into her hands. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs.
“Now you know,” Lord Maarte said. “Will you make your choice?”
Mayara lifted her head. “I will.”
“Remember: once you make your choice, it cannot be unmade.”
I can never be one of them.
They killed Kelo.
“I choose the island.”
Chapter Seven
Lord Maarte recorded her choice and stamped the paper with his seal pressed into hot wax. He then nodded to the Silent Ones. Feeling numb, Mayara let herself be ushered out of his office. She’d cried, and now she felt empty.
One of the Silent Ones led, while the other two flanked her. Their white masks facing forward, none of them looked at Mayara. Their robes whispered against the stone floor.
You killed him, Mayara thought as she walked between them. But the words felt hollow and unreal. None of this felt real. It was all some terrible nightmare, distorted by the cartena flower. Maybe she was still knocked out by the drug and lying on a cliff at the feet
of her captors. Maybe she was still asleep in the cove, with Kelo asleep beside her, resting uneasily because she knew they were being chased. Or maybe everything was a dream, and it was still the night before her wedding and the storm hadn’t come and none of this had happened.
All that felt more plausible than the truth.
The first Silent One opened an ornately carved door and waited for Mayara to enter. It took her a moment to realize she’d been brought to the fortress’s baths.
In the village, everyone bathed in tidal pools, or if you wanted to rinse the salt from your skin, you could venture farther into the island’s interior and bathe in one of the freshwater streams that trickled down from the lakes. But in the fortress of the Family Neran, the baths were in a magnificent cavern tiled with blue glass and polished shells. Gilded columns supported an arched ceiling above interlocking pools of steaming turquoise water.
The three Silent Ones positioned themselves within the bathing room, guarding the door. Mayara stood on the edge of one of the pools. It was obvious they wanted her to bathe. Why else bring her here? And as much as she didn’t want to cooperate, she also didn’t see the point in resisting.
This could be my last bath.
She supposed that would be true of many things now. Her last bath, her last meal, her last night in a bed, her last dreams, her last breath. She wondered how many lasts she’d already had: her last kiss, her last day with her family. . . . Kelo has already had his last everything.
No. I don’t believe it.
My Kelo can’t be dead.
She’d known Kelo forever. They’d been born within a few hours of each other, in the birthing room of the healer’s house. Their mothers had nursed side by side while the grandmothers of the village stood outside, welcoming them with the traditional lullabies. When they were a few months old, their fathers had strapped them onto their backs and carried them as they worked on their boats. As toddlers, while their parents fished in the shallows, they would chase hermit crabs on the beach, share pineapple slices, and then fall asleep sticky and sunburned. Older, they studied together—or rather, Kelo studied and Mayara sneaked into the kitchen to steal slices of coconut pie, to help them study. They’d shared their first kiss at age fourteen, and by the time they were sixteen, everyone knew they would wed someday. It had been as inevitable as sunrise.
That summed up Kelo himself: as inevitable as sunrise. She’d never doubted he would be there for her. He loved her with unwavering certainty. To think of that constant as gone . . .
I can’t.
Very deliberately, she shoved the hollowness, the pain, the grief, and the disbelief into a tight ball deep inside her. Kelo would have told her to feel her full feelings. Emotions, the ability to feel anything beyond hate and rage, were what separated them from the spirits, he said. But she couldn’t. Not now. They’d swallow her whole, so she swallowed them instead.
Mayara shed her clothes and slid into the water. It was so warm her skin prickled. Steam rose around her. Gliding through the pond, she found the soap, carved into the shape of a conch shell and resting beside a sponge, and she cleaned off all the blood, sweat, salt, and sand that clung to her skin.
She was working her fingers through her knotted blue-streaked hair when she heard voices from across the baths. Ducking down, she debated whether she should stay or go. She didn’t want to speak to anyone. Go where? Mayara glanced at the Silent Ones—they hadn’t moved.
She wondered what they’d do if she jumped out of the pool and ran across the room and out the door on the opposite side that the newcomers had opened. . . . Reaching out with her mind, she brushed against multiple spirits in the corridors of the fortress. A fire spirit writhing in a fireplace. An ice spirit lurking in the kitchen. Numerous water spirits swimming by the dock. She felt their pent-up rage, very different from the unbridled fury of the wild spirits that rode the storm. These were Belene spirits, linked to the queen and to the islands and controlled by the Silent Ones.
In other words, running was a bad idea.
So she stayed in the baths while the women splashed through the pools, drawing closer. There were two of them: a woman who looked to be about Mayara’s age or perhaps younger, with bronze skin like hers, anemone-orange hair, and an angular face, and an older woman who looked to be in her fifties or sixties, with weathered wrinkles, black hair with clumps of gray, and a wide mouth.
“It does matter what kind of spirit you’re controlling,” the younger one was saying.
“Not to me,” the older one said.
“But say you control both a fire spirit and an ice spirit, and you force them to fight each other. Think about what would happen!” Animated, she was gesturing wildly.
“You’d create steam,” the older one said dryly. She gestured to the copious steam that rose off the bathing pools. “Lots of steam for them to hide in and kill you.”
“Okay, maybe, yes, but I still think we have to go on the offensive.”
“Dying in a blaze of glory is a legitimate choice.”
Exasperated, the younger woman threw her arms in the air. “You’re so negative! That’s what will kill you faster than spirits. Have a little faith!”
“I have faith that the spirits are more deadly than my attitude.”
“Heirs are supposed to be heroes, you know.”
Heirs! Mayara had intended to stay silent, but not if these women were heirs. She had to ask them the question that Lord Maarte had avoided: Why hadn’t they come? “Excuse me? Hello?”
Their conversation broke off.
“Who’s there?” the older one asked in nearly a growl.
“This is new,” the younger one said, surprise in her voice. “I’m not allowed to talk to others. Lord Maarte’s orders. Who defies him?”
They didn’t sound overly friendly, but Mayara wasn’t feeling friendly herself. “There was a storm that hit the south shore. Eight days ago.” Maybe nine. She wasn’t certain how long the cartena flower had knocked her out. She thought of Kelo and then ruthlessly pushed the thought back again. “No heirs came and a village was destroyed. Why didn’t you come?”
There was silence for a moment. Mayara wondered if she should have been more polite and if she was about to be in trouble with either Lord Maarte or them. Heirs were even more dangerous than the Silent Ones. The Silent Ones were trained to enforce laws. But the heirs . . . They were, in many ways, above the law. They were trained to fight threats to the islands. Trained to fight spirits, Mayara reminded herself. Not islanders. They’re pledged to protect people like me.
Or people like she used to be. She supposed she couldn’t consider herself an ordinary islander anymore. She was officially a spirit sister, her name and her choice recorded by Lord Maarte for all of history.
“She thinks we’re heirs,” the younger one said.
Through the steam, Mayara saw they were both staring at her. She stared right back. If they’re not heirs, who are they to talk about spirits like that? Obviously, they weren’t Silent Ones, chattering to each other and with their faces bare. Also, Silent Ones didn’t fight spirits; they used them—and only the ones they knew they could control.
“I’m sorry to hear of your village,” the older woman said gravely. “But we aren’t heirs.”
“Notice the guards?” The younger one waved her hand at the three Silent Ones. “You don’t guard heroes.”
Mayara had thought they were here to guard her. But if they’re guarding them too, then that means . . .
“Take a good look at us,” the older woman said, rising out of the water so her entire body was visible. Her wet flesh was soft, as if she’d never lifted a fisher’s net or rowed more than a few strokes. She bore scars across her stomach that looked like claw marks. “You’ll want to remember us because we’ll be dead soon.”
The younger one rolled her eyes. “If her village was hit by a wild spirit storm, she’s not going to be impressed with your scars.” To Mayara, she said, “I’m Roe, and this is Pa
lia. She’s having some trouble adjusting to the reality of our situation.”
Palia sank back into the water. “On the contrary, I’m well aware of the reality. I’m not the one in denial about our chances.”
Politely, Mayara said, “They’re very nice scars.”
Roe covered a laugh with a snort.
“I take it you’re both spirit sisters too, and you also chose the island.” Mayara hadn’t thought about the fact that she’d meet others like her. Despite everything, she almost felt like smiling. I’m not facing this alone.
But the two of them were staring at her as if she’d said the most horrible words they’d ever heard. She wondered if she’d guessed wrong. Surely, though, if they weren’t heirs and weren’t Silent Ones and were talking about controlling spirits . . .
“You’re spirit sisters,” Mayara said. “Like I am. Aren’t you?” It felt a little strange to admit her power so openly, but it wasn’t as if it was a secret anymore.
Palia buried her face in her hands and moaned.
“I’m sorry,” Mayara said. “What did I say? I didn’t mean . . .”
Roe’s voice was subdued. “It’s not what you said. It’s who you are. You’re the twelfth spirit sister to be found. Per tradition, the queen waits until we number twelve before she orders the Silent Ones to start the test.”
Palia lifted her face. “Because you’ve arrived, we all get to die that much sooner. Hurray. So happy to meet you.”
Mayara didn’t know what to say to that.
“I . . . I thought I’d be more ready,” Roe said; then she shook herself, scattering drops of water in every direction. “Had to happen sooner or later. And this must be even harder on you. We’ve had time to get used to our fate.”
“Does anyone get used to the idea of facing death?” Palia asked. She then frowned at Mayara. “You don’t look upset at hearing the test is going to start.”
Mayara considered that. “Upset” wasn’t a word that fit. She felt as if her insides had been ripped out, like a clam pulled from its shell. It was all too much. The storm, the failed escape, Kelo . . .
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