Before I can stop myself, I start to cry. At first, it’s just a few tears pressing behind my eyes, but then, with a gasp, I start sobbing.
I don’t know what I’m doing. I’veneverknown what I was doing. I just acted confident and expected the world to fall in place accordingly.
And now I’ve led them all here, far away from everyone who needs us.
For what? We’ve failed.
The sounds of my sobs echo in the round space, pathetic and embarrassing. Tears run down my cheeks.
My eyes are screwed closed, so I don’t notice it happening at first. Venna’s breath catches. “Meryn…”
Opening my eyes, I blink tears away, struggling to catch my breath, and push myself up into a seat.
At first, I don’t know what I’m seeing. It’s as if the room is rotating before my eyes, deep reds and purples falling away and new colors swirling together. Am I about to faint?
Then the image resolves in my mind.
The blood around me is dissipating. Each time a teardrop strikes it, more tiles clear, swirling around me and turning the floor into a shining rainbow of a colorful mosaic.
I suck in a breath, scrabbling to my feet.
More magic?
Another tear drips from my chin, down to the floor.
Wonderingly, I watch as the last of the blood clears, and the tiles around me spin back, like a flower opening. There, right at the center of the mosaic. Just like in my vision.
The opal.
My fingertips hover over it. Distantly, I hear the others saying something. But my senses are trapped, gazing into the Tear’s surface.
Reaching down, I hesitate, remembering the visions that accompanied both Tears in the crowns. I don’t have the strength to witness one of those right now.
Maybe after I’ve slept for about two days.
Resigned, I tear another strip from my clothing. Then I use it to cover my fingers as I close them down around the Tear.
I brace myself for a vision, but it doesn’t come.
So. Either it won’t for this one, or I was right, my skin has to come in contact with the gem.
I turn to face my friends, Tear in hand, and lift it up for them to see.
“It’s time to get the fuck out of here,” I tell them.
The reaction is muted. Noemi looks encouraged, a little. Venna just scowls at me. Stark turns away, mounting Cratos and starting toward the room’s single door.
We file out in silence. Even Anassa’s shoulders are slumped, her bloodied paws dragging.
The journey down the tower is confusingly mundane. We fought so hard to reach the top—by whatever strange magic lifted us into that chamber. I was expecting the descent to be equally mystical.
But as it turns out, all we really have to do is walk. There are even vertically slit windows in the stone periodically placed along the downward spiral so that we aren’t plunged back into darkness.
When we finally emerge onto the island’s rocky shore, everything is different. The fog that shrouded the island has nearly cleared, and Lucien’s ship is sitting anchored in calm waters just offshore. Its hull is completely intact save for the long scrape on its side inflicted by our initial brush with the rocks.
It looks as if it just sailed through perfectly still seas.
Elias leans over the railing on the uppermost deck, waving. “We thought you must have found something! About ten minutes ago, everything simply cleared up. The fog was gone, and the rocks became navigable. We were able to get through without any issue.”
