Don’t go, I wish I could say.Don’t leave me.
He gave me so much, and in the end all I could want is more. Memories return, as brief and hazy as the flickering of lanternlight on a ship wall. One more day to look into his eyes. One more night of kisses, of falling asleep in his arms. One more moment of passion that would make me feel more alive as a construct of ancient power than I ever did as a woman of true flesh and blood.
There is no sound now. The sea is unnaturally still, as if it is holding its breath, waiting.
“Ilryth,” I whisper.
His eyes widen. He sees me seeing him. My knowing. My hands grab for his again, trembling like the dam that’s been constructed in my mind, trying futilely to block me out.
“Ilryth,” I say with more confidence. “I—”
“The moon rises!” Ventris sings with a shout. A roar that threatens to split the sea in two is his response.
The sea floor rumbles, waves churn, spiraling down in a vortex of red rot and death. Every drawing on my skin condenses. The ink vibrates as if trying to tear me into pieces. Thousands of songs, overlaid on top of each other, in dissonance with thousands of screams coming from deep below. I can hear all of them, every broken and terrified word—the sirens depending on me and the souls waiting for me.
I cling to Ilryth. To this man whom I can hardly remember anything about and yet know with all I am. But it’s too late. It’s all crumbling.
“Victoria.” My name is a whisper from his mind to mine—said like a promise that all we had, every glimpse I can remember and all I cannot, was real.
“I love you,” I say as I am ripped from the world of the living and pulled down, down, and farther down into the Abyss of death from which there is no return.
CHAPTER41
I am pulleddown at an impossible speed. Skin and muscle are ripped from bone. Color and light mixes with sound, with flesh and magic. The weight of the sea crushes me to dust.
And yet, I persist.
Fear is ripped from me. My worries and pain go with it. Even errant thoughts drift away. It is as if every last scrap of what I was is being torn from my soul. Scattered among the nighttime sea and swirling rot.
I’m not sure what’s left. Who I am now.WhatI am now.
All I know is I am not dead. Yet again, I have been forcefully pulled from one realm to the next and my eyes do not shut for a final time. My lingering consciousness is as persistent as the song that still envelops me. Some part of me still lives.
This is Death’s secret, the great mystery of the old god hidden in the hymns: There is no end. Not really. We continue past the point of oblivion. Where one world stops, another begins. At the end of every exhale is a new breath.
Death is not a finality, but an irrevocable change. It is a continuation, but past the point of no return. A truth that cannot be seen until you are undergoing the metamorphosis.
The distant singing of the sirens becomes a pulsing in the back of my mind. Their grief and pain brews a storm, howling beneath the waves. The waters turn violent and I am thrown about carelessly. It is as though they resent me for the misfortune that has befallen them. They want to tear me apart so there is more of me to offer. Pull me in different directions. Their lines become sharp—bladelike—and I am undone.
But I do not fight it. I keep my consciousness rooted in the single, dissonant song that continues to thrum in my heart. Ilryth’s voice continues to reach me. Persistent. Reminding me that all of them are depending on me—thatheis. I cannot forget that one mission and goal.
I won’t fight this fate. I know I am helpless to it. Every forgotten choice that brought me here. Every step I took that I can no longer recall.
My descent slows the moment I give myself to it. I relax back into the swirling sea with a sigh. There is song around me, but none louder than the song in me.
I love you.
He—Ilryth—told me that. And I loved him back. I do not know why but I do not have to because it rings as truth within me.
I continue to drift like one of the silvery leaves of the Lifetree, falling on the sea breezes to the frothy waves. My momentum slows. And I tilt. No longer am I falling on my back, but my feet are beneath me.
The swirling waves and rot condense into shapes. Mountains and valleys—a whole other world—lined with steaming vents and glowing lava extend as far as the eye can see in the very pit of the world. The underwater landscape fades away as I descend farther, submerged into a cloak of eternal night.
My feet lightly touch down onto an icy, rocky earth. As my eyes adjust to the odd light, details come into focus. It feels like what was day has become night. What was dark is now light. Everything has been reversed and it takes my mind time to adjust.
In the distance, there is the faintest glimmer of silver. It feels like an invitation, though I don’t expect I can count on anything to be as it seems. The Eversea was magical, unique, and different from the Natural World. But it was also familiar, in its own way. There were laws of mortal and nature that persisted. This place truly feels…otherworldly.
I push off with my toes, expecting to be propelled through the water as I have been until now, but I do not glide upward. Instead, I stumble and fall. My jaw smarts with pain from where it cracked against the rocky earth and I rub it, pushing myself onto my knees. My hair still drifts around me, unruly, defying gravity as it would in the Eversea. But it seems that whatever substance surrounds me is not water. At least not any water I can recall ever knowing.
