Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,96
gesture of denial that sent her drifting away from him. “But the Cretarni said they took my power.” Her voice rose, striking small white caps from the cavern pool. “They said that they’d leave me…”
“Leave you what?” He reached for her.
But she evaded him. “Nothing. They’d leave me as nothing.”
“No matter what your powers, you would never be nothing,” he said softly. “Not to your mother and your friends, not to your world. And not to me.” While she floated there, each breath leaving her in staccato concentric rings expanding outward, he watched her. “Unless…that is what you want.”
When she raised her anguished gaze to him, the black centers were so wide they reflected the crystal light and blanked like his. “The power I had always seemed to make things worse.”
He considered, then nodded. “And yet this is your chance to make it better.”
The voices of the Abyssa crystal were implacable. ‘You are nul’ah-wys, in your bones, in your heart, in your breath. The tide rises. Rise with it, or drown.’
Lana was shaking so badly that the ringed waves emanating from her almost overlapped each other, their amplitude increasing exponentially. “But we saw what the Cretarni are doing with that power. There’s no way I could do that myself.
“They reinforced the electrolyzer elements they took from you with their plasma cannons to amplify the power.” He pointed at the waves shivering from her. “You just need a source of power to focus and aim your waves.”
‘We are that power. It is time for the Abyssa to rise as well. For too long, we’ve dreamed in the deeps and hidden our light. If this is Tritona’s last gasp, then let it be ours as well.’
Lana shook her head hard enough to fling droplets in all directions that caught the shimmering glow of the crystal though they were but water. “You’ll die, all of you,” she said fiercely. “Again and forever. We don’t have time to synthesize enough gel to recapture all your memories, follow your dreams.” Her breath caught, and the waves of anguish around her stilled. “But we don’t have a choice, do we?”
‘You always have a choice,’ the Abyssa said, and to Sting’s admittedly inexperienced ear, the myriad octaves of the crystal jellyfish’s voice for once sounded simple and clear. And infinitely gentle. ‘Titanyri, will you hold the burning tide and be her path though it demands a strength you’ve never known?’
He did not hesitate. “I’ve been blown out windows for her. I crashed a spaceship for her. I would’ve left this world and never looked back for her.” He met her dark and stormy gaze. “I rise and burn for my fire-witch.”
“Sting,” she whispered.
“No words this time, i kharea nul’ah.” Whatever else she was, he would always know her as his sweet fire. He held up his hands to her. “This time, we bring peace to our home.”
With one last breath that shimmered the waters, she reached for him, and though the song in his heart had no words either, he knew it would echo with him forever.
Chapter 21
If ever there’d been a time when she wanted to run away…
Lana hung suspended in the dark waters just beyond the entry to the Abyssa’s grotto. Part of her e-suit had been stripped away to expose her scent and electrical presence, and a sprinkling of scales from Sting’s armor decorated her bare skin. Just a few dots and whorls of blue-violet luminescence glowed across the backs of her hands and spiraled up both arms like a pale lure, but in the inky black, she might as well have been yelling…
Eat me.
Which she was.
She breathed shallowly through her gill, and the tight fist of water pressure felt even tighter around her heart. Out in deeper shadows, something floated past, slow and mighty.
She felt its hunger in one sonorous ping, like a whale’s cry but lowered almost beyond the range of sensation. Atavistic terror swirled through her, and she let her fear out in a trilling cry that pulsed through the water.
The boundary beast charged.
As her pings bounced back to her in a scattered wave, she had half a heartbeat to envision its narrow head and sinuous body, feathery fin-wings to either side, but tentacled, like a monstrously mutated seahorse with colossal jaws gaping wide—
And then Sting was there.
For all the times they swam together, she’d never seen him like this—in his element, on the attack, his skinshine bursting like a shooting star across the dark.