“Here? To the bottom of the sea?” She half-smiled as if the idea amused her. “No fins. We’re not even speaking as we would underwater. You know that.”
“I…”
Slowly, I looked at the way the water around us undulated like melting mirrors. The way the light changed and shifted like it could not make up its mind on how to act. It seemed right… but so wrong. The longer I thought about it, the more none of it made sense.
“I wonder what they’ll take next,” Lyla giggled. “They’re in something of a panic because of you.”
“They’re alive then?”
“For now. Silly girl. How many times have they died here? Did you not think that odd?”
I buried my fingers in my hair and hung my head, feeling my mind split apart like a melon the more I tried to make sense of it.
“This can’t be happening,” I whispered.
“He’s rather ruthless, your hunter. Even if it is for nothing.”
“Why not tell them what they want to know?”
“They can take all the pieces they desire and it won’t change this. This isn’t my dream. It’s not even yours. You’re his now.”
“So I am to be like this forever?”
“Until you agree to go to him. Your mind is one thing, but the great father is a greedy god. He wants your body, too, I assure you.”
“I will never go to him.”
She raised her brows, looking around at the empty darkness around us. “Then you’ll be here.”
Anger bubbled inside, familiar and suffocating.
“Is this what it was like for you? Down there?”
“This is but a taste, sister.” She glimpsed the dancing colors on the ground in front of me. “At least you know what colors look like. I didn’t for a very long time. I imagine they give you some solace.”
I shifted, rolling onto my feet to stand. “Lyla, why help him?”
“You keep asking that as if I have a choice,” she smiled. “None of us have a choice. He is Akareth. The father of all. Our creator—”
“Lies,” I hissed. “A false god. A dishonest monster and a sadistic fiend. He made an entire race believe he was more, but all Kroans have ever done is suffer and we’ve spread that suffering to others. Akareth isnotmy god.”
“Then you’re a fool.”
“And you’re lying to yourself. Why are you here, talking to me? Your job is done, is it not? You gave him a way to get to me. So why are you here?”
Her mouth opened as if to answer, but she didn’t.
“Youwantto be free of him.”
“The only way to be free is to die,” she snapped.
“Then why haven’t you died? You’re no coward. You could so easily end it for yourself and we both know it. Why haven’t you?”
Again, she looked as if she wanted to speak, but it took a few beats for her to get the words out.
“Because I have not lived, of course,” she said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
I stepped toward her, reaching out to take her shoulders. She almost shied from me, glancing at my hands like they had insulted her.
