Then, he started swimming straight for the oncoming Great White.
*****
Chapter Forty-Three
Cryssa hung on more tightly than she ever had before as Seek raced headlong toward the Great White.
As the giant shark surged closer, it raised its mighty bulk from the waves, exposing the vast expanse of its gray back. Its great, hooked tail swept from side to side, propelling the beast forward at breakneck speed. Its broad, blunt nose plowed up a high wake like wings of water shunting skyward on either side of its powerful body.
Thunder growled and crashed as the Great White hurtled toward Seek and Cryssa. When the shark was almost upon them, it tipped its nose upward to reveal a gaping maw lined with teeth like daggers.
Seek continued to streak fearlessly forward. Just when Cryssa was sure that he and the Great White were going to collide, Seek leaped from the water. With Cryssa on his back, Seek flew over the Great White, soaring along the length of it like a gliding gull.
Seek came down behind the monster's tail and dove into the water. Instinctively, Cryssa drew a quick breath before he went under.
Seek didn't stay under for long. He zoomed down and forward and right back up again, whipping around for a look back in the shark's direction.
In the time it had taken for Seek to leap and dive and resurface, the Great White had turned and begun charging toward him once more.
"Don't let go!" said Seek.
Lightning flashed and thunder cracked. The enormous shark continued its headlong charge.
Like before, Seek swam straight for the creature's nose. The gap between the shark and the Kee swiftly closed.
Cryssa guessed that Seek was going to leap again. Apparently, the Great White thought the same thing.
The shark sprang straight up out of the water, mouth open wide...but Seek and Cryssa weren't there to catch. At the last possible instant, instead of launching into the air, Seek veered to one side. The great beast slammed back down on its side with a tremendous splash.
Just as the shark hit the water, Seek looped around and hurtled toward the Great White. In the instant before the creature could right itself and resume its attack, Seek flew past its head and batted it hard in the nose with a swing of his tail.
The Great White bobbed in the water, looking dazed. Seek hammered the shark's nose again with his tail, then swam off.
Before he could get very far, however, Seek stopped suddenly, nearly throwing Cryssa off his back. It only took a split-second for her to realize why he had stopped.
Right in front of them, a second shark lunged out of the water. A second Great White.
Seek switched directions and zipped away, but the second shark was so close that it barely missed him.
Again, Seek raced forward...and again, he came to a sudden stop. Another shark loomed ahead, cutting swiftly through the water toward him and Cryssa.
This shark, at least, was a bull shark instead of a Great White...but it had a rider. A Sharkite straddled the creature's back, shaved and tattooed and carrying a spear.
As Cryssa watched, the rider drummed his fingers on the head of his steed. He pointed the spear straight ahead, straight at Cryssa and Seek, and the shark hurtled toward them.
Quickly glancing around, Cryssa saw that the other two sharks were closing in, too.
She looked back at the rider just as a blast of lightning lit up his face. His features were clenched with terrible intensity and focus.
And she knew him. He was racing to kill her, and she knew who he was.
He was Bey.
*****
Chapter Forty-Four
Cryssa held her breath as Bey and the sharks closed in on her and Seek.
"There's nowhere to go," said Seek. "If we dive, they'll just follow us down."
Cryssa squeezed him tightly and kissed his head. "I love you, Seek," she said softly.
"I love you, Cryssa," said Seek.
As Bey and the sharks rushed toward them, Cryssa was glad that at least she was with Seek. Though she didn't want to die, she didn't regret having returned to Shark Island for him. Life without him had been unbearable.
As different as they were in so many ways, Cryssa knew that their souls were perfectly matched.
She held tightly to him now and braced herself for the final strike. She expected death to arrive in a matter of heartbeats.
But things didn't happen the way she expected.
*****
Bey and his bull shark hurtled straight at Cryssa and Seek...then swerved away from them and headed for one of the Great Whites.
As the bull shark raced forward, Bey gripped his spear with both hands and braced it against his hip. When his steed carried him close to the Great White, he drove the spear deep into the monster's eye.
Immediately, the Great White stopped charging toward Cryssa and Seek. It thrashed wildly, blood gushing from its pierced eye to cloud the water.
Bey wrenched his spear free. When he pumped his heels against the flanks of his steed, the bull shark darted away from the wounded Great White.
Instantly attracted by the scent of blood in the water, the other Great White sheered away from Cryssa and Seek and surged toward a new target. The shark who had once been its partner had become a potential meal.
In a flurry of fins and blood and water, the uninjured Great White pounced on its companion. As the wounded shark writhed and twisted, the attacker viciously drove jagged teeth into its hide and tore off hunks of flesh, opening wide new wounds that poured out more blood.
While one Great White attacked the other in a feeding frenzy, Bey and his steed circled around and swept toward them. As the bull shark charged past the feasting monster, Bey slashed the spear along the creature's side, ripping open a bloody gash from tail to head.
The second wounded Great White lunged at Bey, but the bull shark hurried him out of reach. Instead of chasing them, the Great White turned back to its meal...only to become dinner itself. As Bey bolted off on the bull shark's back, the freshly wounded Great White was attacked by the same partner that it had been devouring a moment before.
From that point on, the two Great Whites dedicated themselves to tearing each other apart. Bey helped them along, swooping in on the bull shark again and again to slice open fresh wounds with his spear.
Gray-and-white bodies rolled and lashed and twined. Mighty jaws sprang open and snapped shut on blood-streaked hides. The water churned with red foam and gore.
When it was all over, neither of the Great Whites lived to swim away. Unable to resist their own savage instincts, they had devoured each other instead of their Kee and Sylva prey.
Covered in blood from the fight but uninjured, Bey rode up to Cryssa and Seek. He brought the bull shark to a stop right in front of them.
"I'm sorry, Raka," he said. "This should never have happened. Those Great Whites were part of our forces, but they got out of control."
He turned his spear around and extended it, handle first, toward Cryssa.
"Will you accept our surrender?" he said, bowing his head.
Cryssa hesitated, then reached for the spear. She took the handle in both hands, and Bey released it.
Cryssa raised the point of the spear toward the sky. "Do you surrender on behalf of your people?" she said. "And the sharks, as well?"
"I speak for them all," said Bey, nodding.
Though Cryssa had been in terrible danger mere moments ago, she felt as if she were suddenly filled with new strength. She sat up straight and proud, holding the spear at her side.
"Then, yes," she said as thunder rumbled and crashed overhead. "I accept your surrender."
*****
Chapter Forty-Five
As Cryssa stood on the beach of Shark Island, she was filled with mixed emotions.
The battle was over. The Sylva and the Army of the Sea had triumphed over the Sharkites. Cryssa and Seek had survived and were free to go home.
Cryssa was happy about all that...but hap
piness wasn't the only thing she felt. All around her, Sylva and Sharkites lay wounded or dying or dead in the sand. The bodies of dead sea creatures continued to wash ashore...Kee and sharks and Orga and seals and swordfish killed in the fight.
There were so many hurt, so many dead. Too many.
It would be easy to say that the Sharkites had brought it on themselves and deserved what had happened to them...but Cryssa couldn't so easily condemn them. She knew that they had done what they had done out of desperation, because they had suffered terribly. She couldn't say that she wouldn't also cross the line if she were in a similar situation.
It would be easy to say that the deaths of the Sylva and Kee and other sea creatures shouldn't be on her conscience because they had willingly given their lives for a worthy cause...but Cryssa couldn't easily accept that, either. She wasn't convinced that her life and that of Seek balanced out all the lives that had been lost. She wasn't sure that pitting the Army of the Sea against the forces of Shark Island had been the best solution to her problems.
Looking around at the wounded and dead, hearing the groans of pain and the sobbing of loved ones left behind, Cryssa wondered if her true father and mother, Sho and Seela, would have approved. She wondered if they would have done the same thing.
She wished that they were there with her at that moment. She wished that they could have helped her to answer the question that troubled her.
It was a question that she had not imagined she would have any problem answering...until now. It was a question that she now realized was the most difficult she had ever faced.
What next?
During the trip to Shark Island and the battle and the struggle to escape, Cryssa had always thought that the answer to that question was simple: after retrieving Seek, she would return home to Kee Island with him. The two of them would be happy, and she would never see Shark Island or the Sharkites again.
Now, after all that she had learned and experienced, Cryssa no longer thought that the answer was so simple. She wanted it to be that simple, but she knew in her heart that it wasn't.
What next?
Slowly, Cryssa walked across the blood-stained sand to a group of Sylva crouching by the body of one of their dead comrades. She recognized him instantly: he was Talis, a fisherman and athlete and warrior...and the young man on whom her friends Eenie and Ayla had both had a crush. Back when Cryssa had first arrived on Kee Island, she had joined Eenie and Ayla in sneaking up on Talis while he fished in a jungle pool. She still remembered the flash of his spear...the silver-skinned fish twisting on the point of it...Eenie and Ayla arguing over which of them would marry him.
And he had died to set her free. Was that reason enough for someone who would be missed so much to die? Did she owe it to him to make his sacrifice count for something more?
A few steps away, Cryssa found a woman and child of the Sharkites, weeping over the body of a slain Sharkite. She recognized him, too: he was Stok, the stern chief guardsman who had escorted her ashore. He had been cold and surly and cruel, the fiercest of the fierce. He had never said a kind word to Cryssa in all the years she had lived on Shark Island. He had killed many Kee, and it was said that he had killed many men, too. It was possible, even probable, that he had murdered many Sylva during the invasion of Kee Island years ago...perhaps the friends and family of people Cryssa now knew and loved. Maybe he had even been the one who had killed Talis in today's battle...Talis, whom Eenie and Ayla adored...Talis the fisherman and warrior...Talis, who would be sorely missed.
But Stok, too, was missed. His widow and young son held each other and cried over his body as if he had been as fine a man as Talis.
Stok had died fighting to keep Cryssa prisoner on Shark Island. Why then did she feel as if she owed him something, too? Was it because he wouldn't have died if not for her? Was it because she felt responsible for his death?
Or was it because she wondered, as she had with Talis, if his sacrifice should count for something more? As it was, his sacrifice had been meaningless, for Cryssa was free. His people had seen her as their last hope, and now that last hope was lost.
Was it fair that he had died for nothing? Was it fair to his widow and child?
Was it fair to the Sharkites? They had been cold to Cryssa in the past, but Ikaz had threatened them with death if they said the wrong thing to her. They had kidnapped Seek and tried to hold Cryssa against her will, but they had done it to try to save themselves from extinction.
What next?
Cryssa walked down to the water's edge. In the shallows of the bay, a Sylva healer was tending Seek's wounds.
As she watched, Seek gazed back at her, and she smiled. With him, at least, the answers were easy...though she had learned them the hard way.
It had taken nearly losing him for her to realize how much she loved him. It had taken months of separation for her to realize that she never wanted to be apart from him again.
When she thought of their future together, Cryssa remembered the story that Grandpa Po had once told her about Alo and Cha, the Sylva king and Kee queen who fell in love. Grandpa Po had said that as a symbol of their love, Alo and Cha had joined their kingdoms together, forever uniting the Sylva and Kee.
The story struck a chord in Cryssa. She wanted life to be like that for her and Seek. She wanted them to be a modern-day Alo and Cha, sharing a love of the mind and heart and soul, linking their peoples together in perfect harmony.
As Cryssa thought about Alo and Cha, she began to get an idea. At first, it was just a seed, just the tiniest kernel of an idea.
Then, something happened that brought it all together.
As Cryssa stood on the shore, Bey walked up to her, looking downcast. "My queen," he said, insisting on calling her that though she had told him that she was no such thing. "I suppose you'll be leaving soon."
At the same moment, her Kee brother, Leed, called to her from the shallow water. "My queen," he said. "I'm ready to take you home now."
Cryssa looked from one to the other. Suddenly, her idea burst into full bloom.
She knew the answer. The answer to the most difficult question that she had ever faced.
What next?
It seemed so simple now, though she knew that thinking it and doing it were two entirely different things. Even as she realized that the plan was exactly what her heart had been leading her to, she knew that accomplishing it would require a great struggle.
But a great struggle, as she had learned, was sometimes the only way to attain a great reward.
No, she would not just race home with Seek and go back to the way things had been before. It was time for things to change, and change for the better.
And she would do the changing. She would give the sacrifices meaning. She would change conflict into opportunity.
As she stood there on the verge of the greatest challenge of her life, the plan glittering like a perfect crystal in her mind, she thought that Sho and Seela would have been proud of her. She thought that Alo and Cha would have been proud, too.
Cryssa turned to Leed and held up a hand. "Hold on a minute," she said to him. "We're not done here yet."
"What?" said Leed.
"What do you mean?" said Bey.
Cryssa smiled slyly and nodded. "You'll see," she said.
*****
Epilogue
To the music of drums and flutes, Cryssa walked down a path strewn with flower petals. She wore flowers in her hair, just as her mother, Seela, had always done, and a white gown patterned with blossoms of red and pink and gold. A lei of white and lavender flowers hung from her neck, just below the Kee pendant that she had used to summon the Army of the Sea.
Grandpa Po walked alongside her, his arm linked with hers. He, too, had flowers around his neck...but he wore five leis instead of just one. The leis covered his entire bushy white beard, making him look as if he had a beard of flowers instead of hair. Even his gnarled cane was covered in flowers from handle to tip.
Cryssa'
s heart danced in her chest. Though she had walked this path often from the Sylva village to the Kee lagoon, this time was different. This time, each step took her closer to the biggest moment of her life.
A month ago, standing on the beach of Shark Island after the battle, she had imagined it. Now, on Kee Island, she was about to make it real.
As she and Grandpa Po emerged from the jungle and set foot on the beach, Cryssa looked around at the proof of her success. On one side stood the red-headed Sylva, every one of them wearing flowers and beaming with joy. On the other side stood the Sharkites, shaved and tattooed...not beaming, because that wasn't their way, but not glaring and growling. None of them wore flowers like the Sylva did, but they didn't wear Kee-skin clothing anymore, either.
Just as Cryssa had envisioned it, they were all there together in peace.
Even the Kee and the sharks were at peace...the Kee arrayed on one side of the lagoon, the sharks on the other. The natural enemies were united.
And it was all because of her. Just as the Sylva and Sharkites and Kee and sharks had once fought because of Cryssa, now they had come together without hostility because of her.
Just the sight of them all there together like that was enough to take her breath away. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but they were tears of joy, not sadness.
It felt like a dream.
Arm in arm, Cryssa and Grandpa Po walked along the path of flower petals between the Sylva and Sharkites, right to the water's edge. There were petals on the surface of the water, too, continuing the path.
Two figures waited at the end of the path...a man and a Kee, side by side in the shallows.
Bey and Seek.
As the music continued to play, Cryssa and Grandpa Po walked into the water. The floating petals clung to their ankles, then their knees, then their waists, as they moved deeper.
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