King Ankena flew with the ascending families to the edge of the destroyed city and waved farewell to their massed, shielded, thriving families.
It was not a farewell, but a see-you-soon.
As it should be.
Itime gathered his family and Konomelu gathered his.
Dannika hugged Ciran. “Do you have a plan to get us home?”
“Of course.” His lips quirked and he pressed a kiss to her lips. “Not that anyone would dare attack this envoy, but just in case, you and Angie will shield us, and Meg will prepare her healing for the trainees who stick their arms out of the shield and poke the sea creatures that should not be poked.”
Yeah, that sounded about right.
Dannika grinned at Meg and Angie. “Ready?”
“Yes, indeed,” Angie said.
“Let’s hit it,” Meg said.
They flew through the undersea world, free and fulfilled, warriors and families.
Ciran kicked steadily, his powerful strokes propelling them forward. He tightened his arms around her.
Once they reached the island, she and Ciran would visit the echo point, put in a call to his warriors, and then continue to the mainland.
What a different world they swam into.
Any Luscan warriors would offer help instead of harm.
She melted against Ciran. His kicks were strong and steady and faster than ever before.
And possible futures surrounded them. Children darted happily.
She wanted that future for herself.
A family, a husband, a child.
It had been denied her and Eliot. She’d accepted she would never get what she really wanted.
But Ciran had always been beside her.
He’d had faith in her. Showed her life wasn’t over. Insisted she deserved true happiness.
And she’d believed him.
More than believed him, she’d believed in herself.
Ciran squeezed her, knowing her thoughts without needing to say anything.
They rushed for the surface to embrace her second chance at her best, most loving, and most loved-filled life.
Epilogue: Dannika’s Dinner Party
Six months later…
“And so you arrived back at the island, my darling, and you were rescued?” Dannika’s friend Frederik asked as he poured another serving of wine to his dinner guests.
Dannika sipped sparkling non-alcoholic cranberry juice. Her wine-colored sleeves pooled around her elbows, and the loose silk flowed over her growing curves. “That’s right.”
Ciran loosened the stiff collar of his formal black suit and leaned forward. “Actually…”
“Yes, I’m wrong.” She beamed and clinked their glasses. Her eyes sparkled, unlike the similarly named bubbling water in her inaccurately described wine glass, and her chest glowed. “You’re right. Technically, it was another, what, three weeks?”
“Correct.”
“Three weeks before we actually headed home. Because…”
The guests listened to her adventurous recital, spellbound.
“I have to back up. The morning Val was supposed to ring the bell for us, she woke to red skies.”
“The sign of the squid.” Frederik sat beside his wife and wiggled his fingers in a spooky gesture.
“Right, and she’d planned to ring the bell in the afternoon, exactly the time we had left for Lusca. But she was so worried the Luscans might be sinking a ship that she braved the crater early.”
“And was a ship being sunk?”
Dannika nodded. “Stevie’s. Her first ring not only summoned the kraken. It also summoned that squid and saved his charter boat.”
Val’s ringing had been loud enough to reach Stevie’s boat—and many others. Human equipment had pinpointed the island, and in a short time, she’d had more rescuers than she knew what to do with.
Yes, Val had really saved them.
Dannika recited her favorite parts of the rescue for her lovely dinner companions.
The night they surfaced, they’d held a great feast around Bex’s firepit. Val had shared her ordeal.
“You were right, Meg. That path down was treacherous.” Val stretched out her sprained ankle, now encased in a supportive first aid boot. “It took me so long to get down, and at the bottom, I slipped and almost broke my other ankle.”
Everyone gasped and shook their heads.
“And that bell is not easy to ring. Bex made it seem so straight-forward. ‘Push on a stick.’ She neglected to mention the stick was suspended over the middle of the lake.”
“Bex makes everything sound easier than it is.” Meg patted Val’s uninjured knee. “She’s lovable but weird.”
“I had to wrap the vines around my waist and lean all the way out with my crutch. It rang softly at first. I wondered if anybody could even hear it.
“But then I thought, everyone else got to be mer, and I never would be, and that was okay because I am devoted to those kids and you ladies, and I was going to help you the only way I could. I rang