“I lost her to the sea,” he said.
“Great Mother.” Daz ran a hand through his hair. “Fuck.Fuck.”
“How will we appear before the council without her?” Rhumia said.
“The council is the least of our worries,” Jaya said. “What about the killdoms? How are we going to take them?” They had already lost half their manpower. And now without Elena, they had lost half their firepower too.
She turned to Samson. “Can you still… wield?”
When he did not respond, she dropped her voice. Prodded him gently. “Sam? How long have you been standing here?”
“Hours.” His voice cricked like a rusted saw. “It’s been hours since it took her.”
Jaya remembered the beast in the storm…No.She shook her head. There had been no beasts. It had been a figment of her delirium, her fear, and she must have hit her head when the ship tilted. She was a woman of logic, of strategy. There was no evidence of beasts in the pit, only fierce winds and undersea volcanoes that blocked their sensors and scrambled their data. Hence, the pit. There were no monsters.
There are no monsters, she thought. She clutched the stylus in her pocket.Only the monsters men make.
“Sam, listen to me carefully,” she began. “I need you to come inside. You need to rest. We’ll be out of the pit soon and on the killdoms. And when we find them, I need you to be ready. Okay? Sam?” She looked him in the eye. “Focus.Don’t let Chandi’s sacrifice be in vain.”
He stared at her, and slowly, slowly, she saw him remember. The glazed look faded from his eyes, and his mouth quirked down into a frown. He really would be a handsome devil, if he weren’t such a tool.
“Good.” She smacked him on the shoulder. “Now move.”
Back on the bridge, Jaya surveyed the field. A comms light blinked, and after making sure she was alone, she opened the line. Akaros’s voice broke through the static.
“What thefuckwas that?” he said.
“I don’t know,” Jaya said, gazing out the window to the other ship as she flicked her stylus. “How are things on your end?”
“Dead as Leo. We lost three men to the storm, two Black Scales and a Yumi. We need more men on this ship. Where’s Elena?”
“Akaros, they wielded. Together.”
She heard him inhale sharply. For a while, he said nothing, and then, “Were you able to get a read?”
Jaya hesitated. Her stylus flickered in and out of her hand, a blur.
“Jaya?”
“No.” It took an enormous effort to push out that word. She stopped whirling her stylus and set it down. “I—I wasn’t on the deck when they melded.”
Silence. And in that silence, Jaya tried not to fixate on the past, on her shortcomings, but it was like picking at a festering pimple. Perverse, and borderline obsessive. While the Yumi were able to latch down with their hair and escape indoors, she had clutched the railing for dear life, her useless hair flapping in the wind. Never more had she wished to be born a full Yumi. Never more had she wished to be born braver, like Div, or more fearless, like her mother, or more clever, like her father. They wouldn’t have failed. They would have turned and forced their way to the bow. They would have activated the metal lotus and taken a reading of the intertwined flames. Instead, she had cried like a child. And when Rhumiagrabbed her, pulling them both inside, she had clung to her like a wet rag doll, eager to be saved.
“So.” Akaros’s voice could cut through flesh. “We’ll never learn how to tap into the third, then.”
“I gave her the lotus,” Jaya said hurriedly. “If she’s still alive—”
“Alive? What happened to her?”
Jaya glanced up as Samson entered. “Elena went overboard. Isn’t that right, Sam?”
He flinched. Silence on the line, and then, “Did he throw her over?”
Samson reared, anger rippling across his face. “Did Iwhat?”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“You fucking bastard. How could you even imply—”
