A splash and clank pulled her around again.
Two male Dunidæ stood beyond the bars. One had his white spear tip tilted toward the lock's outer side. He pushed with the spear, and the gate swung inward through the water.
At the sight of them, Frey began choking as if he were drowning in the chamber's dank air.
They had come, and Reine reached back, flattening a hand against his chest.
"Highness?" Tristan asked, panting.
She stared at the visitors. Her other hand slipped unconsciously to the saber's hilt.
"It must … not … find me," Frey whispered.
Reine looked up into her husband's face. His black eyes almost broke her again, but she saw his full recognition of her. He struggled to speak, as if his throat hurt with every word.
"It speaks … to the enemy," he gasped out.
She knew this fear that he mentioned. The families, hers and his, had feared for generations what might come again.
"You … are my world," Frey said so softly with effort. "And I … cannot lose … that world. I must hold … our oldest alliance."
His glistening eyes were so fully black—or perhaps such a deep aquamarine that they seemed so in the dim chamber. He lifted his face toward the Dunidæ in the tunnel and then returned to her.
"I must survive if … my world … is to survive."
Reine shrank, muffling a sob, as three creases split on each side of his throat. They flexed like the gills of the Dunidæ. He choked hard, and they quickly closed.
Sorrow drove Reine into panic with the fright of losing him, and this fed her anger. The cascade of emotions overwhelmed her like an ocean swell, until she couldn't see any shore to swim for.
He grew still, no longer trying to break free.
"Frey?" she whispered.
He didn't need any shore to swim to. She couldn't watch what she had to do and closed her eyes.
Reine pulled Tristan's hands until he let go of Frey.
She felt her husband's fingers on her cheek, sliding upward, until her soaked hair dragged against the shallow webbing between them. His mouth pressed on hers, his lips too chilled, and then his touch was gone.
She heard only a soft splash in his wake.
"Highness!" Tristan shouted.
Reine blindly held out a hand to stop him. She couldn't even look when she heard the gate clang shut. She stood there, growing more numb by the moment.
Frey was gone, free, safe—and she had nothing left.
Wynn watched a once-dead prince vanish into the dark tunnel. Of all things, she thought of Leesil.
Born of an elven mother and a human father, he was one of the few mixed-race beings she'd ever met. Yet here was a man of royal blood bound by the tides of the deep ocean. There was only an old name and long-lingering rumors among her people.
Âreskynna—the Kin of the Ocean Waves.
Tales of their obsession with the sea went back many generations, though the accounts varied so much they were little more than gossip and folk legend. What had happened—when had it happened—that the Âreskynna carried within them the blood of the Deep Ones? The mere thought of such an ancient mating seemed impossible.
Wynn thought of Reine, whose marriage to a prince of a neighboring country affirmed a long-standing alliance. Wasn't blood also a like bond? Was the one within the Prince even older than that of Faunier and Malourné? Did it go back to the very war against an enemy she hadn't yet come to understand?
She had blundered in here, leading the wraith to the haven of this secret. She had endangered allies mistaken as adversaries in the pursuit of her answers. Even as Shade began rumbling and then snarling, finally lifting her voice in a keening yowl, Wynn couldn't stop looking into the darkness beyond the iron bars.
There was nothing left to see.
"It is coming," Chane warned, as Shade's noise grew deafening in the chamber.
Even the captain thrashed to the pool's edge and grabbed his sword as the other guard climbed out.
But Wynn kept staring across the pool at the duchess.
They had no time for pity.
"Wynn!" Chane snarled.
She stiffened, blinked, and shoved her hand in her pocket, pulling out the large pewter-framed glasses.
"Get the duchess," she told the captain. "Chane and Shade will hold off the wraith for me to prepare—and stay out of our way! If it touches any of you, you're dead."
The captain glared at her, then turned to Danyel. "Give me the comb and take the duchess into the other room."
Tristan went straight for the door to the outer passage and grabbed hold of it to slam it shut.
"Don't!" Wynn ordered as she jerked the sheath off the staff's crystal. "Chuillyon or anyone else won't be able to get in."
"And a closed door will not stop the wraith," Chane added.
The captain hesitated, then closed the door only partway. He returned to the pool's edge. He took the comb from Danyel and leaned over, stretching out his hand.
"Highness!" he barked.
The duchess didn't even raise her eyes as she sloshed over and let him pull her out.
Chane urged them off with his broken blade. The captain took Reine into the far chamber and guarded the archway while Danyel stood a few paces farther out front. To Chane's relief, Wynn abandoned her useless concern for these arrogant Numans and focused on their task. She put the glasses over her eyes.
"Get it as far inside as you can," she told him. "Then bolt for the other room. Don't wait, Chane; just go!"
"I will," he answered.
But not until the last instant—not until he was certain she had finished preparing and could ignite the crystal. Since their arrival in Dhredze Seatt, nothing had gone the way he—or she—had envisioned. Here and now, Chane could do what no one else could—face another Noble Dead, regardless of its unique state.
Shade's voice dropped to low mewling, almost that of some large cat. She began pacing along the chamber's far wall beyond the half-open door.
Chane glanced quickly about, searching for the best positions. He pointed Wynn toward the pool's ledge, farthest from any wall without stepping into the water. He backed partway toward her, giving Shade room as he watched.
If Shade did sense the wraith's direction, she could harass it when it appeared, and he was free to flank it from either side. If she was wrong, he would be ready to take it first, and let her box it in.
Shade suddenly stopped. Charcoal fur rose on end along her neck and shoulders, and Chane slid his sword back into its sheath.
"Get ready," he warned.
Shade backed along the pool's edge.
A patch of wall blackened.
The stain quickly spread upward and downward and then bulged. Shade's jaws clacked as the wraith pushed through at the pool's far side. Its black robes began floating on the air.
Chane leaped from the ledge to the pool's far side, boxing the wraith as he heard Wynn begin whispering. He swung his hand straight at the wraith's cowl.
It instinctively flinched aside, nearly sinking into the wall, and Shade rushed it from the other side, snapping and snarling.
Wynn's repetitious whispers grew to a voiced chant.
The wraith halted, its cowl turning at her voice. That black opening swung quickly both ways, as if taking in the whole chamber.
Chane could not let it rush Wynn, and swung at the cowl again with his other hand.
The wraith vanished, sinking into stone, and Chane's hand slapped against damp wall as he heard Shade's jaws snap closed. He quickly pivoted, watching the whole chamber as Wynn's voice stopped.
"Shade?" Wynn whispered, and glanced at Chane.
The dog turned about, sniffing the air with her ears pricked up. She raced past Chane, pacing back between the chamber door and the ledge Wynn stood upon.
"Where is it?" the captain shouted from inside the far chamber.