His arms relaxed around me, and I slipped free of his grasp. My wide gaze darted through the cloudy water, and I continued sinking until—
Hands folded around my ankles, dragging me down. My mouth opened in a scream that sent bubbles roaring upward in the water. Fingers pressed into my waist, turning me around. A woman was suddenly before me, her long, dark hair tangling with my much lighter strands. She leaned in, the scales of her tail rough against the skin of my legs. Her eyes were the color of the Stroud Sea during the summer at noon, a stunning shade like sea glass. Her bare chest pressed against mine as she grasped my cheeks. Like Phanos, she placed her mouth over mine and exhaled. The breath was fresh and sweet, pouring down my throat.
The ceeren let go and floated away from me, her eyes closing, and our hair separating. She didn’t fall. She rose.
A hand on my shoulder turned me again. A man with the same blue-green eyes and pink skin took hold of my cheeks, bringing his mouth to mine as beams of brilliant moonlight washed over us. He, too, breathed that fresh, sweet, cool air into me, filling my lungs. His hands slipped away from me like the first, and then another caught me, this one with hair nearly as pale as mine. Her lips met mine, and her breath filled me, the two of us drifting from the light of the moon into the shadows. She floated up as another and another came. There were so many, and less and less moonlight reached us. I could no longer keep track of how many touched their lips to mine and exhaled, but with each breath, I felt different. The coldness inside me faded, and the tightness in my chest and throat eased. My heart skipped beats, then began pumping steadily. The erratic racing of my pulse slowed, and sound finally reached me. I looked around and saw the ceeren in the shadows of the dark water. It was them. They were singing like the ones on land had. I couldn’t understand the words, but it was a hauntingly beautiful melody. The backs of my eyes burned.
A ceeren’s smooth hands cupped my cheeks, turning my head away from those singing and toward her. She didn’t appear much older than me. Her blue-tinged lips spread in a smile as her tail moved up and down, propelling us upward toward the now-dappled moonlight. Tears. I could see them, even in the water. They streamed down her ivory cheeks, and I closed my eyes against what I felt at seeing them. The urge to tell her I was sorry hit me hard, even though I didn’t know what I was apologizing for. But her tears, her smile, and the song the ceeren sang…
Her mouth closed over mine, and she exhaled, her breath filling my chest. The embers of life thrummed strongly, vibrantly, as if reawakening. It struck me then that it wasn’t their breath they breathed into me.
It was their eather.
We broke the water’s surface, and my eyes shot open.
Different hands took me by the shoulders, ones I knew belonged to Kolis. He lifted me from the sea. Sparkling water streamed from my limbs and dripped from the hem of the gown and my hair, running into my eyes as he pulled me onto the beach.
I pitched forward, blinking water from my eyes and planting my hands in the warm, rough, white sand. My head no longer felt as if it were full of cobwebs. My thoughts were clear and already racing, preparing my muscles to fight or run. I started pulling myself free of Kolis’s hold when the blurriness left my vision.
I froze.
Every part of my being seized as I stared at the surface of the water. I didn’t see Phanos anywhere, but what I saw made my tingling lips part in horror.
Bodies floated, some face-up, others on their bellies. Dozens of them just…bobbed in the now-still waters. My gaze skipped over scales, no longer vibrant and vivid but dull and faded.
Suddenly, I understood the mournful song that no longer filled the air. The last ceeren’s smile. Her tears. The sadness I’d seen in Phanos’s eyes. This was the price he’d spoken of.
The ceeren had given me life.
At the cost of theirs.
CHAPTER FOUR
I stared at the bodies gently bobbing in the moonlight-drenched water, so utterly shocked by what the ceeren had sacrificed that I was numb, deadened to the point where I felt incredibly empty.
Why had they done this?
But they hadn’t been given a choice, had they? Kolis had demanded that Phanos assist, and this was how the Primal of the Sky, Sea, Earth, and Wind helped.
You know what you ask of me.
Kolis had.
But I hadn’t.
If I’d known, I would’ve done everything in my power to prevent the unnecessary loss of life. Because it was unnecessary. Phanos had said it himself. What the ceeren had given their lives for was only temporary. I would still die. But even if I wouldn’t? I wasn’t okay with this.
“Why?” I whispered into the wind, my voice hoarse.
“Because I will not allow you to die,” Kolis answered, speaking nearly the same words Ash had but…
When spoken by Ash, they had always sounded like a tragic oath birthed of desperation, stubbornness, and want—so much want. A tremor started in my hands and swept through my body. Kolis’s words sounded like a threat and reeked of obsession.
My gaze skipped over the lifeless ceeren. I had never wanted anyone to lose their life because of me. Like those who’d perished during the Shadowlands siege.
Like Ector had.
The image of the god flashed in my mind, momentarily obscuring the horror in front of me. It wasn’t how I’d seen him on the pike when Ash and I returned from the mortal realm. While that had been bad, I preferred it to how I’d last seen him; when he’d been nothing more than red, slick pieces. Ector hadn’t deserved that. Neither had Aios, who I’d at least been able to bring back. But had she wanted that? I had no idea how long she’d been dead. Could I have ripped her away from peace? And that act had a ripple effect—ending how many other lives? The eather I’d used to restore Aios’s life drew the dakkais and caused them to swarm those fighting in the courtyard.
Now, dozens of ceeren had died—were murdered—for me. And for what? This wouldn’t stave off the Ascension. It was only a reprieve.
Instead of being rushed toward the end, I was now inching toward it. But it was still coming. There was no stopping that. Just like there’d been no changing what had been done to Ector. Or to the ceeren and countless others.
“I don’t want anyone dying for me,” I choked out.
“You do not have a choice,” Kolis stated. “And if you are who you say you are, you should know that.”
I flinched at the sickening truth of his words. Sotoria had never had a choice from the moment Kolis saw her collecting flowers along the Cliffs of Sorrow. And I’d never had a choice from the very second Roderick Mierel made his desperate bargain with the true Primal of Life to save his dying kingdom.
It wasn’t fair.
It never had been.
Rage and panic swiftly swelled inside me, but I wasn’t sure it was entirely mine. My fingers curled into the sand as my heart rate sped up. Raw, jagged emotions lodged in my chest and throat. I pushed to my feet, my breath coming in short, too-quick pants. And turned to Kolis.
The false King of Gods looked down at me, a curious pinch to his features. The wind lifted the flaxen strands of his hair, sending them against high, arched cheekbones. Golden smudges of eather snaked through the bronze flesh of his bare chest. There was no evidence of his battle with Ash. He was completely healed.