I knew what I had to do. It was like Lysi had said about the law of fae. Fae could kill other fae. Maybe nothing could kill the leviathan—but the leviathan could also destroy anything.
My heart pounded as though it were my own life I was about to end. I wondered if the serpent could sense what was coming. Maybe it was her fear I felt, fluttering in my own chest. Or maybe she accepted death as readily as she had done anything in her time on earth.
Goodbye, Eriana.
She looked at me with both heads, the power of the oceans in those blue pupils. I saw knowledge of everything that had happened in the world since the day she was born.
Perhaps that birthplace was in the volcano whose lava still spilled across the beach beneath me, cooled and hardened and chiselled over time.
The two enormous heads faced each other, not a trace of protest in her thoughts. My mind was blank, peaceful.
Eriana obeyed the command as willingly as any other.
The heads recoiled. The jaws opened. Seawater and saliva dripped from those long fangs.
They lashed at each other, colliding with the sound of a thunderclap.
Gashes opened beneath her scales. A molten red torrent flooded onto the beach.
The moment it splashed onto the rocks, it blackened and thickened. It oozed over the land and into the water, slowing, pulsing like a dying heartbeat.
The serpent lashed again. The lava gurgled and spat as a fresh layer poured over top of the cooling one. The moment the waves touched it, it blackened and hardened, forming a new blanket of ripples and divots.
She continued to strike, opening gashes. The lava spewed widely, painting Skaaw Beach with the story of Sisiutl’s demise.
As I watched her energy drain and felt it weaken in my body, I thought the story was beautiful, in a way. From the same place this creature had been born, here she would meet her end. Her remains would be forever imprinted on the shores of Eriana Kwai.
At last, when it seemed there must be no blood left in her great body, she surrendered.
I gave a shuddering gasp as the presence left me, as though she had taken all the breath from my lungs before departing the earth.
Slowly, with the awe-inspiring grace of a toppling sequoia tree, she fell. One head hit the beach with a shattering rumble. The hardening lava hissed and gurgled, absorbing its mass. The other head splashed into the water, her body laid out like a bridge between two places. The subsequent tidal wave curled over the beach, cooling whatever lava was still flowing. A spray of mist erupted high into the air.
As Eriana’s soul departed its Host, my mind was cocooned in silence.
CHAPTER THIRTY - Meela
The Pacific Kingdom
I was left panting, alone on the lava rock, more exposed than I could ever recall feeling. Eriana’s disappearance from my body drove a sharp ache through my chest.
Overcome with loss, I wanted nothing more than to follow her into the sky. How could I possibly continue living without her?
I shook my head. My emotions were not making sense. Eriana had been part of me, but she was not my mother, or father, or brother. She was not Lysi. We had spent mere hours together.
This was how it had to be. Eriana was free to ascend to the stars—and her children, her island, her legacy, were free to live as the Gaela intended.
You’re better off without her,I thought. But the answering silence felt strange and lonesome.
A sound in the water made me gasp, and I spun around, heart still pounding a hummingbird’s rhythm.
Medusa rose from the waves, rage flaring behind eyes of deepest red.
“I had to,” I said. My voice was weak, like I’d just fought a hundred Massacres. I would not have the strength to fight her if she decided to attack.
She looked past me. A rumble carried on the wind. Voices, footsteps. My people were sprinting towards us.
Medusa said nothing. I couldn’t be sure what she was thinking. Was she angry? Did she understand, or did she think I’d made a huge mistake?
