Page 139 of Cursebreaker

When the beast prods at my chest, I set it free. I release the notion that I have any control over my power—that I ever have. And it’s only then that I know what I have to do.

I race for the starboard side of the ship and leap over the taffrail, diving headfirst into the ocean.

My ocean. My home. My power.

I am not Aster Oberon, the pirate. The prisoner. The knight.

I am Aster Oberon, daughter of the sea, and I will not be defeated.

The rush of vitality as the water engulfs me is instant and all-consuming. The ocean surges, propelling me up, encasing me in a cyclone of water that glitters with gold dust, as if it were spun out of the fiber of the heavens.

All this time, I thought my powers were in control of me. But that roaring beast that calls for blood, and death, and destruction… it’s as if it curls up at my feet, purring gently, softly, a reassuring hum that I recognize now. The song of the sea buzzes in my chest, pure and clear and strong. I never needed to control my power.

I needed to set it free.

The Manan that shimmers all around me converges, taking on the shape of a woman. She reaches out, touches my heart, where my chest begins to glow with heavenly light.

“Hildegarde?” I manage to ask, but I don’t recognize the sound of my own voice—loud and full and ancient.

She presses her forehead to mine, the gold dust heating my blood from head to toe.

“You can call the stars down from the heavens,” she says, and I realize why her voice is so familiar—I’ve heard it since I was a child, whispering to me on the waves, in the language of the sea. “You need only believe that you can.”

At her touch, images sear my mind, bright and warm. My family, safe aboard the Lightbringer. Riding Caligo across the fields surrounding Bludgrave Manor. Dancing with Titus at the Reckoning Day ball. Jack kneeling before Margaret on the beach of the Red Island. Henry’s laughter. Elsie’s smile. Mother and Father, my siblings, and all our friends gathered for a feast.

Owen’s kind eyes.

My happiest memories seem to take on a life of their own, living and breathing, pulsing in the Manan that encapsulates me. I feel the life leeched from my bones, feel myself giving my power back to the island, feel the moment my affinity becomes a separate thing, striking down the Underlings on the ship below until our enemy is decimated, reduced to nothing more than clouds of red mist. But I don’t try to control it.

I hold on to the feeling of happiness, allowing the memories to comfort me.

I see Titus, lying beside me on the stone ground in Hildegarde’s cavern. See our clasped hands. And then the Manan grows so dense that all I see is light.

The light explodes, scattering like millions of stars, and I fall. But I do not plummet toward darkness and red eyes and teeth.

And I smile as the ocean welcomes me into its embrace.

Beneath the waves, everything is peaceful. Quiet. The roar of the cannons distant, as if the battle rages on somewhere far, far away.

My feet touch the ocean floor, and the earth pulses, water surging in every direction.

I reach out in the direction of the Red Island, and I can see it—the corrupted threads of Manan, unraveling like a spool of crackling green thread as Morana rips apart the fabric of the island.

The water propels me swiftly forward, and I wonder if this is how Owen felt when he first mastered a vortex. As I draw near, I grab hold of the strings. Cursed magic pulses in my grasp, the green energy licking at my forearm like toxic flames. But the glow of the Manan appears even brighter, the cloud of gold dust encapsulating me in its dazzling light.

Morana has taken everything from me. My home aboard the Lightbringer. My life at sea. My choices.

But she will never take me.

This light—this power—is mine.

With eyes unlike my own, I see the light in every stitch of the fabric of the Red Island.

And I begin to weave the dust of creation.

Magic burns in my veins like a holy fire, flowing through me, into the fabric of the island. The ocean floor glows gold, and distantly, I realize my skin does, too, growing brighter and brighter until both the island and I appear to be made of light.

The ocean surges again, lifting me up. In a blur of bubbles and light, I rise from the depths and set foot on the beach of the Red Island.