Somewhere deep below us—deeper than depth, deeper than god or man—a pulse rippled through the sea.
Not from us.
From her.
The Leviathan reeled back, its head jerking mid-lunge, its roar breaking into a shuddering, furious bellow. It thrashed, the water churning so violently that the Wraith nearly capsized.
Oscar grabbed my arm, eyes wide.
“That wasn’t us,” he breathed.
“No,” I said, feeling my heart slam itself against my ribs. “It was Rose.”
It lifted from the sea and, just inches from us, it stilled, listening to something.
A pause in the storm.
A breath.
A heartbeat of silence before the deep decided our fate.
No one dared move, everyone understanding the silent command that the deep required.
That was, no one but Blackbeard moved. Immune to whatever stillness the world asked for, the cat leapt from the ledge of the Wraith and onto the beast in an impressive leap. The leviathan let out a furious roar as Blackbeard scaled it with sharpened nails.
The creature shook its head this way and that, trying to rid itself of the cat, but Blackbeard was relentless, cresting up onto the beast’s head and swiping with his claw at the leviathan’s right eye. The leviathan bellowed ancient rage and threw itself back into the sea. There was no sign of Blackbeard as the leviathan sank beneath the waves.
The world was still.
The sea stilled.
But not with peace.
With waiting.
“Hold steady!” I yelled hoarsely, voice cracking with salt and terror. “She’s not done yet. And neither are we.”
Costing it its eye wasn’t enough to survive it. No, whatever it heard before Blackbeard attacked it was calling it back.
Because whatever Rose had awakened, the Leviathan had not fled.
It had answered.
It was going to her.
And gods help us all.
Chapter thirty-nine
Last Breath
Rose
Formed under pressures no living creature can withstand, the Abyssal Conch functions like an organic archive. Each chamber holds a secret, each resonance a command. Fragmentary accounts suggest that when activated, the Conch may alter the behavior of megafauna—including the Leviathan itself.
— The Mysterious Deep: A Comprehensive Understanding
The shell in my hands hummed and vibrated with a power that should never have been. Dilly hypothesized that it was created to preserve the knowledge that Atlantis once held, but standing beneath a black dome with it in my hands, I was beginning to think it might be the reason Atlantis fell.
