The fear in her eyes faded, and she smiled up at him. “That’s all that matters.”
It wasn’t all that mattered. Not even close.
“Get her in the longboat! Move! Move!”
James scooped her up and half fell into the boat that theVictoriahad lowered, Lara and Aren following. It lifted into the air, the noise of the winches loud, but none of it mattered. Only her. “You’re fine,” he said to her. “You’ve had worse. This is nothing.”
“I can’t see.”
“Press down hard!” Lara shouted at him, then screamed instructions to the crew above as they were lifted higher.
“I love you,” Ahnna whispered to him, staring at something beyond James’s head, and then her lids slipped shut.
Sacrifice.
106
Ahnna
Her panic faded like aretreating wave, because if she’d accomplished nothing else, she’d saved the baby’s life.
Ahnna stared at a night sky, taking in a sea of stars. A thousand constellations. Ten thousand, and she swam toward them, hearing their call.
“Ahnna!” She blinked and saw James’s face, then it faded into the night sky.
“Bandages!” Lara’s voice. “I need to stop the bleeding! I just need to stop the bleeding!”
It all felt so distant as she swam from star to star, listening to the stories they told her.
“Ahnna!”
She reached out a hand to a glittering ball of silver, and a woman’s voice whispered, “The she-wolf will sink low and then rise high.”
“What does that mean?” Ahnna asked, the voice both familiar and not.
James’s shout made the stars shake. “Look at me!”
She opened her eyes, but the pain that came with it was so fierce that she slipped once more back to the sky.
“No, no, no—Ahnna,stay with me!” Ahnna could feel his hands cupping her face. “You promised me. You promised to stay at my side.”
“Until my last breath,” she whispered, remembering that breath. Remembering the feel of his lips against hers as the sharks circled around and around.
“Which is not today, because you are not done fighting.” His voice was raw thunder. Desperate. Commanding. “The war is over because ofyou.Ithicana is safe because of you. Oliver lives because of you. ButI—” His voice broke, cracking wide open. “I cannot endure without you.”
She wanted to tell him she’d done all she could. That it was time to let the sea have her. Time to let Ithicana’s tempests carry her last breath away.
But James’s eyes burned into hers, his gaze full of fury and fire andlove.
“You don’t get to fight for everyone and then give up on yourself.” His forehead pressed against hers. “You don’t get to give up on me. That’s not our ending. Youstay.Do you hear me, Ahnna? Youstay and live.”
For him, she could do this. For herself, she would do this.
Ahnna coughed, agony racking her frame—but her fingers found his, and she clutched him with what little strength she had.
Her lips moved. A whisper. A vow.
The battle was over.
