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I sigh. “Poorly? Nonexistently?”
Britta frowns. “Nonexistently? Is that even a word?”
I don’t answer Britta. I can’t. Whatever I was about to say is forgotten, my next few words erased as I see what waits for us at the bottom of the cavern.
18
The bottom of the cavern is as I expected—a small beach of crystalline white sand surrounded by the soaring cavern walls. But that’s not what holds my attention. The water—or rather, what’s inside it—does.
There, coiled around one of the small boulders that jut from the water’s depths, like a serpent clutching an egg, is Queen Ayo. But the Queen Ayo I know is a reptile of mind-bogglingly gargantuan proportions, a creature who would seem practically out of myth if she weren’t so very, very real.
The person sitting in front of me, however, is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen: a face to rival that of Melanis in her prime and a figure almost as voluptuous as the statues you find in old temple ruins. In fact, almost every portion of the ebiki queen is perfection to look upon, except for that tail, which lazily strokes the water, the gleaming spikes on the back of it a visible warning despite all her beauty. I am dangerous, that tail says. Do not approach. It’s a message shared by the rest of Queen Ayo’s features, which seem more in keeping with her reptilian nature. Her skin is a shimmering, gleaming gold-edged blue, just like the scales she had in her ebiki form, and the strands of her hair are like gathered tentacles, which shift and slither softly around her as she turns to face me.
Her eyes, though, are still the same gentle black, that gray pupil a crescent moon in their center.
Britta edges closer to me, awed. “Is that who I think it—”
“Deka…” The cavern’s stone walls echo Queen Ayo’s voice, which somehow seems just as powerful now as it did in her ebiki form.
I walk closer to the shore, kneel in front of her. “Queen Ayo,” I acknowledge respectfully. “You are a shape-shifter?”
I had considered it before but had never given it any real thought. I suppose I was so awestruck by her size, I could not imagine she could be anything else, even though Ixa’s primary characteristic has always been his shape-shifting.
“We…all are.” The queen gestures an elegantly clawed hand, and now I see the other ebiki swimming silently in the water, their forms just as humanlike as their monarch’s. Except, strangely, they’re all male—like Ixa, who I never thought could achieve a humanlike form.
And yet, all the rest of his species seem very at home in one. Even the males. But if they can, perhaps he can as well.
I turn to my blue companion, who is now happily paddling in the water, his fur having easily given way to scales and fins.
“Will Ixa—”
“What?” When Queen Ayo suddenly appears in front of me, water dripping from her scaled body, my heart jolts. She moved so fast, it was less than a moment between my turning my gaze from Ixa and her arrival by my side.
I hurriedly kneel, putting all the respect I can into the gesture. The gods I will not kneel to, but Queen Ayo…she’s a different matter altogether.
She glances at me curiously, head tilting to one side. “Will Ixa…?” she prompts.
“Change into a form like this?” I ask, clearing my throat to calm myself. “Like you are right now?”
Her black gaze flicks to Ixa, and she gives her offspring a considering stare. “One…day,” she says in that stilted way, her eyes sliding back to me.
Her voice is filled with strange pauses, almost as if she has to seek out the words before speaking them. I suppose when you’re used to communicating mentally, it takes time to translate your thoughts into words spoken aloud.
“Usually…it takes us…hundreds of years to achieve a skin that can…communicate with…ground-walkers. But our progeny…Ixa…progresses swiftly. He is…only an infant, and yet see how he…maneuvers.”
I turn to find Ixa playfully snapping at the other ebiki, who gamely flee from him in what appears to be a game of chase.
“You…must stand.” When I turn back to Queen Ayo, she is offering me a hand, a disconcerted look in those gentle eyes. “It is not…proper for a…deity…to kneel before their…godsworn.”
Nodding, I take her hand, which I’m surprised to find is warm and smooth, and rise. Even then, I have to look up at her. I feel like a small child compared to her towering height, and I’m doubtlessly not the only one. Britta, who’s standing just next to me, comes nowhere close to being shoulder to shoulder with the monarch.
“Why did you choose me to be your god?” I ask, curious.
The gods do not choose their godsworn; their godsworn choose them—that’s one of the most important things I learned during my time in the Hall of the Gods and on the walk back afterward. Myter, I am told, pestered Bala, who was then a solitary god, for almost an entire lifetime until the deity of the pathways relented.
Queen Ayo’s shoulders roll into an elegant shrug. “Why do the…waves choose the…moon, why does…the grass choose…the sun? You were…there, we felt you, we felt your…call, and so we…answered.” Her black eyes peer into mine, that crescent gray pulling me into their center. “We ebiki are…fierce creatures…solitary warriors, the…terror of all oceans. For us…might is what…determines…leadership. The…strongest…male…transforms…becomes…queen. When you…called us, when you…explained to us your task, we agreed. We bound…ourselves to you. We sent you our…most precious…progeny, the first…offspring born to us in a millennium. All this…we have done for you.”
“But why? And what task did I ask of you?” My head is swirling with questions now.
