“What makes you think now will be different?” Keely shook her head. “We don’t even have Alaric here to help, and nobody is a better healer than he is.”
“No, but Marie and I together come pretty close,” Erin said. “What choice do we have? We try again to release them, or they die anyway, at least Brandacea will. Look at her. She’s barely holding on, as it is. Does she have another night, while Conlan and Ven try again to find the Emperor?”
“In addition to that, she may not have time to wait while we figure out how to use the Emperor, even if they can find it immediately,” Riley said.
She looked around at each of them in turn: Erin, Marie, Keely, and Horace. “We can do this. It would be criminal not to even try.”
“And if we’re wrong?” Marie’s face was pale. “I am no stranger to death, Riley, but if we do this, and we fail, we will have brought this woman’s death upon her.”
“Or we can stand here and do nothing, and kill her just as quickly,” Erin said. “I know this isn’t a democracy, but I vote we try.”
“Me, too,” Keely said. “I don’t want to live with the regret of having stood by and done nothing.”
“I am with you, as well, Princess,” Horace said.
Riley looked at Marie. “It’s up to you, which is fitting, since she’s your ancestor. I’ll make the final decision—the burden will be on me—but I won’t consider it unless we’re unanimous.”
Marie looked down at Brandacea for a long time, and then she finally nodded. “I can feel her growing weaker every minute. I agree that she will not last the night unless some solution is found. I vote yes, as well.”
Riley clasped Marie’s hand in one of hers and Erin’s in the other, and Erin took Keely’s hand, and Keely took Horace’s hand. They stood there together, in silence, each of them occupied with his or her own thoughts or prayers, and then Riley looked up.
“Let’s do this, and please, God, let us be right.”
Horace placed both of his hands, palms down, on the cover of the pod, and he chanted quietly, in what Riley recognized by its cadence must be ancient Atlantean. A shimmering silver light appeared and surrounded the pod and its occupant, until Brandacea’s still form glowed as if lit from within.
“Now,” Horace said, and four of them lifted the crystal cover from the pod, carried it to the side of the room, and propped it up against the wall while Marie kept watch over Brandacea.
“It’s so light,” Keely said. “It doesn’t seem like the door to a prison should weigh so little.”
Horace bristled. “It was never meant to be a prison. They agreed to do this, for the good of Atlantis.”
“Seems like somebody should have been more worried about the good of these women,” Erin said.
Riley put a hand on Horace’s arm. “It’s all right. Nobody blames you, Horace. We’re just upset and frustrated and more than a little bit scared.”
He nodded. “I know, Princess. So am I.”
Marie called out, “She looks strange.”
Erin pulled a handful of precious gems from a pouch she’d carried tucked into her belt. “Is it okay if I put these in there with her?”
Horace started to answer but stopped and shrugged helplessly. “Honestly, I don’t know. Will the resonance of your gems or your singing interfere with the Emperor’s magic or will it help? We’ve never tried this before, so I have no idea.”
“You have to try, Erin,” Marie said urgently. “She’s starting to hyperventilate.”
Erin quickly placed the gemstones around Brandacea on the silken pallet, humming as she did so. As soon as she’d arranged the gems to her satisfaction, she began to sing a song of healing and hope. Marie took Brandacea’s hands in her own and added her own song. She was no gem singer, but she had vast powers of healing, and Riley hoped Brandacea would respond to the combination of both types of healing magic.
The song filled the chamber, and Horace added his own counterpoint through his chanting, but Riley could see no difference in Brandacea. If anything, her breathing became more labored.
“It’s not working,” Keely said, grabbing Riley’s wrist. “We’re making her worse.”
“Give it time,” Riley said. “They just got started. I’ve seen Erin and Marie at work with women in childbirth; I’ve seen how they helped me. We have to give them a chance.”
“I’m not sure we have time to give them,” Keely whispered. She pointed to Brandacea, who suddenly arched up in the pod, her eyes still closed, gasping for breath.
“It’s not working, Riley,” Erin said, clutching the side of the pod. “We’ve got to put the lid back on and get her back into stasis.”
Marie cried out. “Now. We’re losing her. Put the lid back on, now, now, now!”
Horace shook his head, tears running freely down his face. “The Emperor isn’t helping. Without it, nothing we do will matter. Once the stasis is broken, we can’t restore it without the Emperor’s magic. We tried before, you understand.”
“What about good old CPR?” Keely said. “I’m not as ready as all of you to give up just because the mumbo jumbo doesn’t work. Move.”
She shouldered them out of the way, bent over the pod, and prepared to administer CPR to Brandacea. “Riley, get over here and be ready to do mouth-to-mouth if she quits breathing.”
Brandacea made a horrible groaning noise, arching up again, and then she collapsed back down and the light covering her body vanished. Her face, without the glow of light, was a deadly pale bluish-gray, as if she were a corpse that had died days before.
Riley flinched back for an instant at the sight, before she put the whimsical notion out of her mind and began artificial respiration while Keely began the rhythmic push and release of CPR. Long minutes went by, Riley didn’t know how long, until finally she heard Erin shouting at her.
“Riley! Riley, stop. It’s been way too long. There’s no hope. Riley, you have to stop now.”
Riley lifted her head to see that everyone was staring at her. Keely had stopped CPR and every one of them, even Horace, was crying. Numbly, she looked down at Brandacea, only to see that the maiden’s eyes were fixed and open, staring at nothing for eternity.
Riley shook her head, back and forth, as if denial would make reality change to suit her. “No. No, no, no. She can’t be dead, not because of me. No.”
Erin took her arm and tried to pull her away from the pod, but Riley violently shook her off. “No! We have to try again. Try something else. Erin, more diamonds or emeralds or something. Sing louder. Keely, start CPR again. She’s not gone, she’s—”
“She’s gone, mi amara,” Conlan said from behind her, and suddenly her husband’s strong arms wrapped around her, as he tried to pull her away from Brandacea.
Riley fought him with every ounce of her strength. “No! Leave me alone. I can do this, it’s my fault, I said to open the lid, take her out of storage. We had to try, but it’s my fault. I have to fix it. I have to save her. I have to—”
“You cannot, my love. Some things cannot be fixed.” Conlan’s face was grim; a forbidding study in grief and despair. The lines around his eyes had deepened, almost overnight, and Riley had a moment of clarity in her own grief as she realized that the job of high prince was killing him. “She’s gone. All we can do now is find the Emperor and save the others.”
Riley wanted to lean on him and cry, but she forced herself to stand on her own. She had done this. It was her responsibility. Her failure.
“We need to help her. Give her a proper burial,” she said, and her voice only wobbled a little. Only a little.
“No, Princess,” Horace said gently. “As you see.”
She glanced down at the crystal pod, only to see that Brandacea was gone. Vanished completely, as though she’d never been there.
“Without the magic to sustain her, the weight of thousands of years settled on her all at once,” Horace said. “She is gone, returned to dust as she would be if she had lived and died so long ago.”