The Deepest Blue

by Sarah Beth Durst

  Still the tsunami came closer.

  “The bells should be ringing,” Sorka said. “I’ll alert the guards and rally the heirs. They’ll need to be ready to fight.” She strode toward the door of the tower.

  “The Silent Ones too,” Mayara called after her. “They can help!”

  “That’s not their function,” Sorka said.

  “They’ll do it if the choice is this or death.” Mayara was certain of that. They’d chosen to become Silent Ones out of fear of death. “Tell them Mayara says they have to choose between death and life. It’s time to fight for their families.”

  “They know who you are?” Roe asked.

  One does, Mayara thought. And if they could reach one, she didn’t doubt that Elorna could persuade at least some of her “silent sisters” to fight too. At the very least she’d know the message came from a trusted source. “It might help.”

  “Heir Sorka, can you pass along Mayara’s message through the spirits to the Silent Ones?” Roe asked.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Do it,” Roe commanded. “Send the message to the Silent Ones, rally the other heirs to control the Belenian spirits, and order the guards to sound the alarm to evacuate the city.”

  Sorka ran out of the tower room, shouting for guards. Out the window, the leviathans were approaching. Mayara didn’t know what more she could do. She wasn’t powerful enough to even think of stopping them.

  “They won’t sleep!” Lanei cried. “We’re going to have to fight them.” She then turned her attention to the spirits on the island. “We’ll use the spirits.”

  “That’s a terrible idea!” Roe cried. “If we start a spirit battle, it will destroy everyone.”

  “The tsunami is coming!” Lanei said. “We’re out of options!”

  “Not quite,” Garnah said. She then grabbed for Mayara’s pocket, stepped forward, and flung powder into Queen Lanei’s face. Lanei collapsed, and Garnah pried her mouth open and dumped a vial of purple liquid that sloshed out around her lips.

  “What did you do? She’s the queen!” Mayara cried.

  “She was.”

  The two young women stared at her.

  “You have ten minutes to reach the grove and fix this,” she told Roe and Mayara.

  Pivoting, Mayara grabbed Roe’s hand. Together, they ran for the stairwell and flung open the door. If they could reach the grove in time . . .

  But then the tsunami reached the shore. And there was no time at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The sea wanted to swallow the world. It swept toward the island. At first, it sounded like a continuously breaking wave. And then, as it reached the boats and the docks, it sounded like crunching gravel. And then louder, as it broke buildings.

  Water rushed through the streets in great torrents, peeling shells from the walls. From high above, Mayara watched as the city flooded. She couldn’t hear the screams, but she could see the people, running from the water, fleeing into the palace, and climbing as high as they could on the islands.

  “We have to help them!” Roe cried.

  Mayara heard her commands echoed through the spirits. Roe was calling to any she could reach, ordering them to carry people up out of the floodwaters. But the spirits, so caught up in their glee in destroying Akena Island, didn’t respond.

  Garnah grabbed her arm. “Forget the people. Get to the grove and stop the monsters.”

  “It’s too late! It’s flooded!” Roe pointed out the window, and Mayara realized she was right. Directly below them, at the base of the palace, the grove was buried beneath water that already reached half the height of the tower. “All we can do is save as many islanders as we can. Without a grove, there can’t be a new queen. You’ve left us queenless, Garnah. And as soon as the spirits realize that . . .”

  Mayara saw the queen’s adviser, for the first time, look afraid. And that frightened Mayara more than anything. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been relying on the strange poison-maker’s unflappability.

  She looked down at Lanei. The queen was still breathing, but shallowly. She didn’t doubt that in a few minutes, those breaths would stop completely. And then, without a queen, against the monsters of the Deepest Blue—the people of Belene wouldn’t stand a chance. We will be wiped from the face of the world, like Akena Island.

  “Do you have an antidote?” Roe asked.

  “You want me to save her?” Garnah asked. “The woman who killed your mother? You want her to be queen, to have the power of life and death over you and everyone you care about? Think carefully on what you ask of me.”

  “My revenge isn’t worth the life of everyone on the islands,” Roe said. “Save her. Let her be queen. Let her save us all.”

  “And if she can’t? I didn’t go through the trouble of poisoning her because I thought she had a chance of success. I did it because our only chance is without her. We need a new queen.”

  “You don’t understand,” Roe said. “We can’t reach the grove! Look how much water is between us and the grove! We can’t reach it! Please, I’m begging you. Use the antidote. Bring her back. I will accept her as my queen. I will forgive her. If that’s what it takes to save Belene.”

  “You’re asking for something that may not—”

  Mayara quietly said, “I know how you can reach it.”

  Garnah stopped. “What did you say?”

  She thought of her dive on her wedding day. “Summon an air spirit to give you air on the way down to the grove.”

  “You know I can’t swim,” Roe said. “Much less dive.”

  “I know,” Mayara said. “But I can. You bring the air, and I’ll get us down to the grove. Then you become queen and save all of us.”

  Roe licked her lips. Looked at Queen Lanei. Looked out at the waters that were filling the city. The leviathans had nearly reached the shore. Once they came, the devastation would be beyond imagining. “You want me to be queen.”

  “You can do this,” Mayara said firmly. “And I swear I can get you there.”

  She held out her hand.

  Out the window, the waters rose. The three leviathans were close enough to hear: their screams sounded like cracks of thunder.

  Roe took her hand.

  Together, they walked to the edge of the tower.

  “Just jump,” Mayara told her and released her hand. “I’ll follow.”

  “Are you sure . . . ?”

  “Yes,” Mayara lied. She wasn’t sure about any of it. Except that Roe could do this. And I can help.

  She emptied her lungs. Emptied her mind. Drew in air. She filled her lungs until they were ready to burst. The world narrowed to just her and the water below. She thought of Elorna and let that thought give her strength. Somewhere, her sister was out there, maybe fighting too.

  Looking at Roe, she nodded.

  And Roe jumped.

  Leaping off the tower, Mayara arched through the air after Roe. She heard the wind scream in her ears. The bells had stopped, she realized dimly. And then they hit the water, slicing into it. Cold squeezed her.

  She heard Roe hit the water beside her. Pivoting, she scanned the sea around her. It churned with dirt and debris—there! Roe!

  She swam toward her, grabbed her hand, and then she propelled herself down, pulling Roe with her.

  Kicking her way down, Mayara focused only on what she had to do: go as deep as they needed to go. Dimly, she sensed Roe calling for a spirit.

  She felt her lungs burn, and then she passed the moment and became one with the water. She sensed the spirits all around them, but oddly they didn’t scare her. She felt as if she were one of them.

  Ahead, below, she saw the rib cage of the grove.

  She swam toward it, pulling Roe with her.

  And then the water wrinkled as a bubble of air expanded around her. She glanced sideways to see a spirit attached to Roe. It was an air spirit, shaped like a bird but with scales in place of feathers. Its wings were wrapped around Roe’s chest, and i
t was exhaling a steady stream of air.

  Mayara tried sucking in just a swallow.

  It tasted pure. Like the air you breathed on an empty beach, far from the smoky fires of the village houses, far from the mingled scents of a dozen cooked dinners, far from the stench of bodies and life. She breathed in more as she swam between the rib bones.

  Pulling Roe down, she aimed for the obsidian floor. The air pocket around them grew, widening to encompass their whole bodies, and they fell to their knees on wet stone.

  Sea swirled all around them. Mayara saw the palace wall through the slits between the ribs. It was distorted from the murky water and looked as if it were wavering, dreamlike.

  It was silent within their air bubble.

  The air spirit made a chittering sound, looking at them.

  “When the queen dies, I’ll lose control of it,” Roe said softly.

  Mayara nodded. “The water will rush in, and the spirit will try to kill us.” She looked around, hoping for a bit of rope. There was nothing here. Even the heir’s body had either been found and taken or had swept away in the water. Quickly, Mayara untied the piece of her wrap dress that had served her so well as a sling on the island. She tied it around her waist and Roe’s, and then tied it to one of the ribs.

  The spirit watched them.

  They breathed.

  And waited.

  Mayara felt the leviathans nearing the city. They’d come from impossibly far away, but had traveled fast, their vast bodies propelling them through the water at incredible speeds. She felt the vastness of their hunger. It was an ancient hunger that reminded Mayara of the space between the stars. An empty void that felt as if it would obliterate any speck of light that dared break through its darkness.

  “You’ll need to make the spirits fight them,” Mayara said, “as soon as you have control. Drive them away from the islands, back into the deep, before you can make them sleep.”

  “I don’t know if I can do it,” Roe said. “I didn’t mean to try to become queen. My mother . . . She’s supposed to be queen. All I wanted was to be near her, to get a chance to know her. And now I don’t get that.”

  “You’ll have a chance to get to know who she was,” Mayara said. “By being like her. By bonding with the same spirits she bonded with.”

  Roe was staring up at the debris-choked water. Bits of the broken city swept by. A wheel from a cart. A chair. A body. “But I won’t get to know her.”

  “The spirits knew her,” Mayara said. “You could get to know her through their memories, once you’re bonded with them. I know it’s not the same. But it’s something.”

  Roe considered it.

  It was almost peaceful in the pocket of air within the grove. None of the debris came through the rib cage. It brushed along the outside. If it weren’t for the roiling of the water and the pressure in her head, Mayara could have believed there wasn’t a disaster in the city, that there weren’t people dying right now.

  “It is something,” Roe said at last. “If I live long enough for it.”

  “Not dying,” Mayara said. “That’s what we do, right?”

  Roe squeezed her hand. “Right.”

  The moment came both fast and slow. Slow because they had been waiting for it. Fast because they could have waited forever and Mayara still wouldn’t have felt ready.

  The air spirit screamed.

  Water collapsed the bubble, and Mayara had only time to half fill her lungs with air before the spirit shot through the water toward them, hate and rage and death in its eyes.

  Roe screamed silently. Mayara heard her through the minds of the nearby spirits. Choose me! Make me your queen! Choose!

  Mayara echoed her: Choose her. Choose Roe. She didn’t know if it would help, but she pushed the thought out as hard as she could.

  Water bashed against her. She clung to Roe’s hand.

  The spirit that had given them air latched onto her arm. Twisting, Mayara fought it off. She pulled the glass knife from her belt and plunged it into the spirit’s throat. It reared back as silvery blood spurted into a cloud around it, obscuring it from view.

  She felt her lungs begin to burn.

  Roe didn’t have experience holding her breath. She wouldn’t know how to resist it. She’d begin to lose focus and then consciousness.

  Mayara shifted her concentration to the wounded spirit. It was weak, but not dead. Air, she told it. Make air.

  It resisted.

  It was free of the queen. It didn’t want to obey. And Mayara wasn’t strong enough. . . . I am strong enough. She was the one who had dived the impossible dives. Not Elorna. She was the one who had survived the island. Not Elorna. She’d come here, despite all her fear, and spoken to a murderous queen and dived to the sunken grove. You will obey me. Make air!

  The spirit breathed out. A bubble drifted through the water to Roe’s face.

  Can’t. More. The spirit felt weak. It wasn’t going to be able to make more air. Not enough for Mayara too.

  Just her. Make air for her, Mayara told it.

  That was what mattered. She could hold her breath. It was Roe who needed the time. She needed to become queen. She had to save them all.

  Mayara thought of Kelo.

  Once Roe was queen, he’d be safe.

  She thought of Lanei, asking what she’d do for her loved ones. I’d give my air. That’s what I’d to. Roe would banish the leviathans back to the dark depths of the sea, and she’d tame the island spirits once more. And Kelo would be unharmed.

  He’d live for both of them, make art and think of her, take care of their parents. He’d . . .

  She lost consciousness as blackness claimed her, the last of the air inside her gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Wake up, Mayara! You need to wake up!”

  She was floating. And it was loud. So very loud. As if all the drummers in the village were hitting their drums as hard as they could but off-rhythm. She felt as if waves were crashing inside her head.

  “Please, wake up!”

  Who was yelling so loudly? She tried to open her eyes to tell them to be quiet. She only wanted to rest. But the voice was so loud. And so angry. No, the voice wasn’t angry. It was scared. She felt the anger inside her, squeezing her stomach, making her insides feel as if they were being wrung out like a wet towel.

  “Mayara, they’re here! And I can’t stop them!”

  She opened her eyes. Breathed in to say . . .

  Breathed in.

  I’m breathing.

  There’s air.

  She blinked hard, but it was near darkness around them. “Roe?”

  “Yes! Oh, thank the Great Mother! Mayara, I’m queen. All the Belene spirits are here in the city, fighting the leviathans. But, Mayara . . . we’re losing.”

  Mayara tried to make the words fit together in a way that made sense. “Did I die?”

  “Yeah. A little bit. Maybe. But you’re better now, so please . . . I don’t know what to do. I ordered them to fight, and they’re fighting. But they’re dying. Oh, Mayara, I can feel them dying! It feels like pieces of me are dying with them!”

  “You have to put the leviathans to sleep.”

  “It’s too late for that. You were right—they won’t sleep when they’re here inside the city. I can’t trick them into thinking humans don’t exist when the evidence is all around them.”

  Mayara felt the monsters’ hate coiled inside of her.

  Not hate, she thought. Pain.

  They hurt.

  She looked up, and the sky was a wavering gray. A cloak drifted by, undulating above her. She and Roe were in a sphere of air, within the grove and beneath the sea. Untying herself from the rib cage, Mayara stood shakily.

  Above them, the battle raged. She saw the dragon, its blackened wings extended, distorted through the murky water. It was expelling torrents of water at the palace tower. The tower’s nacre walls were torn, as if shredded by claws. It looked scarred.

  Hundreds of ti
ny spirits clung to the dragon’s wings. Howling, it thrashed in midair, and the spirits flew backward and slammed against the tower, knocking away even more mother-of-pearl.

  Roe was crying. “I can feel my spirits die. And when they die, bits of Belene die—they’re tied to the land, Mayara. I didn’t know! I’m destroying the islands by trying to save them.”

  “Can you concentrate on just the leviathans? Order them away!”

  “They won’t listen!” Roe said. “Mayara . . . I think . . . you need to do it.”

  What? Impossible! Only a queen had that kind of power. That was the whole point of diving to the grove and crowning Roe! “I can barely command a little tame spirit! The leviathans won’t listen to me.”

  “They would,” Roe said, “if you were their queen.”

  That was a crazy idea. No one was queen of the leviathans! Especially not me! She wasn’t even supposed to be here. She should have died on Akena Island like her sister . . . except that Elorna hadn’t died. She was out there, somewhere, maybe fighting the spirits too. “You’re the queen of the island spirits. Can’t you be their queen too?”

  “I’m at my limit—I can’t take any more inside my mind. It would swallow me. But you . . . you have the power. You’re here in the grove. Reach out to them! Claim the spirits who have never had a queen! Make them choose you!”

  “But I can’t tame them! No one has ever tamed them!” Mayara insisted.

  Mayara couldn’t do it! She was just a village girl. That was all she’d ever wanted to be. An oyster diver. A wife, a daughter, a niece, a cousin, a granddaughter. Kelo’s muse.

  She’d liked her life. She’d been happy! She’d hidden her power, only using it when she had no choice but to save her family, or as much of her family as she could. . . . Like now.

  This battle was destroying the islands.

  She didn’t know how many had died already, between the flood and the spirits and the leviathans, but if the devastation wasn’t stopped here, it would spread to all the islands, including her home. The leviathans wouldn’t be sated by swallowing one city.

  Roe was on her knees with her hands pressed to the side of her head. Her lips were moving, and she was rocking back and forth—guiding the spirits, fighting the battle.