started to sing. I don’t know how she summoned the energy. The pain was so intense at this point it was sucking the water-breath from my body, but somehow she picked up my thought and started to sing. And the spark she lit ignited the song anew.
Carragheen and I felt the pain start to recede again and the cool fanning breath of relief and healing. It was like beating back an inferno, and we were able to join with Lecanora, our song swelling into a primal call of fury and protection. I glanced at Imogen and an icy fear almost chilled my throat. She looked like there was no life left in her, as though the last blast from the thing Rila was holding had been her ruin.
I wouldn’t believe it.
I sang right to her, right into her. I was trying to fill her up with this song, these notes we were somehow making that had a power greater than each of us alone. At first nothing happened. She continued to lie lifeless and broken on the sandy floor. But then she began to stir, and she raised her head and looked at me. Even through the song, which was filling my head like the heady joy of childhood, I could hear the words forming in her brain.
Thank you.
Within moments, we again had the advantage. Rila was still holding the box above her head, and I knew that the weapon was still doing its thing, but it was powerless against us, against the combined thread of our love and our fury. Our song. Rila could see it too, and she looked increasingly agitated. Then terrified. She was alone, in the deep darkness of the ocean. With a weapon that was no longer working.
And four very pissed mermaids.
I felt my fingers start to flex as they again filled with desire to stab at her throat with them, to disable her. I moved towards her, planning to do so, and she seemed paralyzed. She was still singing the pain out at us, but she looked like she had no idea what to do next. I was closing on her, and I could see her face turn red with the effort she was using to channel the energy of the thing.
Before I could get to her, something else closed in ahead of me. Rila was suddenly still, surprised. I noticed her lower the thing, and look at it, shocked.
It was really glowing now. It was crimson red and almost looked to be beating, like it was alive. Rila started to raise her hands to her ears, and then before I could piece together what was happening, she was on her knees on the ocean floor. The three of us stopped singing, knowing the horror of what was happening to her, but unable to stop it.
She was screaming and writhing, and looking up at me with pleading eyes.
Even with all that she’d done, I knew in that moment I would turn it off. Make it stop hurting her. If I could. But I didn’t know how.
Within seconds, the pulsing box seemed to have reached some macabre crescendo, and the twisted girl on the ocean floor reared up and arched her back, like she was possessed. And then she disappeared. It was hard to find the words for what happened to her.
One moment she was there. Real, alive. In agony, sure, but flesh and bone.
And then she was gone. Her particles scattered through the water like dust.
Lecanora, Carragheen and I looked at each other in mute astonishment. There were no words. We were spent, shattered by the energy of what had been required of us, and by the emotional force of what we had just seen.
A girl with a twisted dream, blown to pieces before our eyes.
As Carragheen wordlessly picked up Imogen and began to bind her to him again, and I collected the now-still box, I saw that Lecanora had sufficient energy for only one piece of telepathic communication. She was too exhausted to send it on a private channel.
Mother. I am well. Seize Kraken. We are coming.
The Queens’ Chambers, Aegira
On our return, we gathered in the Queen’s chambers.
Carragheen, Lecanora, Imogen and me. And Mom.
Not just to explain it all, but for something else. Safety. Solace. Comfort.
Oh, and there was someone else there too. Rick, the dolphin. He’d been waiting with the two mothers when we returned. Imd had called him to her to help us on our return. She did not allow any