Page 123 of Seaborn and the Seven Seas

“Not without you,” I sobbed. “Not without you.”

Her lips moved once more without sound as she closed her eyes. Then her hand went slack in mine. No breath lifted her chest.

I had survived the cavern. The auction block. Russo’s ship. The arena. The land of the dead. I had watched people suffer and held myself together through all of it because falling apart was a privilege I couldn’t afford. I had never known sorrow like this. Not once in any life I could recall.

This was what it felt like to lose the person who raised me and held me up until I could bloom into the best of me.

The ear-piercing scream of grief and rage that tore out of me rippled through every inch of my body, burning through me, remaking me, releasing power that had no end. No longer waiting to be set free.

The onyx barrier behind the queen cracked down the center.

The queen staggered, hands flying to her ears. “No. Impossible.”

Though impossible, the three boulders trembled, then shattered at once as if hit by a cannon, collapsing to the ground in dark powder, the energy they had stolen dissolving into the air like smoke finding no place left to gather.

The barrier was simply gone.

“Soldiers, get them.” The queen pointed to my friends rushing forward.

Calroy hit the air, wings beating hard, crossing the distance to me.

The soldiers around her stumbled, hands pressed to their ears. Not from sound, but from pressure. My grief made physical. My power made real. The continuous wave of it rolling outward across the shore, and no one standing in its path could hold their footing.

“Hello, love.” Rowhan stepped in front of the queen. “Miss me?”

“How—” The queen staggered back, eyes wide, poised to run. “Impossible.”

“You say that word far too often.” Rowhan raised a hand, his eyes flaring gold and blinding.

The thick roots came from the tree line in a rush, coiling around her ankles, her waist, her arms, climbing until they covered every inch of her except her eyes and mouth. She fought them, twisting, her power surging and finding nothing to grip.

“I want to see your face when the earth takes you back,” Rowhan said.

“Wait.” Her voice cracked. “Rowhan. I didn’t kill you. Everything they told you was a lie.” Her desperate eyes found his. “I love you. I have always loved you. Please. Hear me out.”

Old pain moved across Rowhan’s face, then quickly buried.

“I’m done being manipulated by you. Enjoy your new life, alone.”

“Rowhan!” Her scream split the air as the ground opened beneath her, the earth parting like a mouth and swallowing her whole.

The roots followed her down. The ground sealed over her, like she had never been there at all.

Rowhan looked down at the unmarked surface. No satisfaction on his face. No relief. Just a long, quiet exhale of someone who had carried something for a very long time and had finally set it free. He pressed his foot once against the sealed ground, then walked away without looking back to Palto.

My body lifted from the ground of my own will, high enough that the soldiers on the sand and the sailors on the ships could see me. Heat bloomed behind my eyes, gold flooding the edges of my sight, the same as it had for Calroy, Palto, and Rowhan.

In front of me, the sea answered my call. The water read my mind and rose in a towering wall, higher than the masts, higher than the cliffs at my back, curling at its crest like it was waiting for permission. It held there, trembling, a held breath given shape. Then it split—one half curving, shielding the shore and everyone still fighting on it, the other rising, arcing until it hung above the enemy fleet.

“I am Yeri.” My voice carried across the water, across the shore, across every ship. “Goddess of the sea. The Seelie queen is dead. The war ends now. Surrender and you will live freely. Deny me and face what stands behind you. Your choice.”

A long moment of silence.

Then the first sword hit the sand.

Then another.

Then dozens.