"Maybe I should start again."
I struggled to sit back on my ass and rubbed a hand over my face. I held a hand out to Ash and he hopped onto my wrist. From there, I set him on my shoulder. "Finley wouldn't come, would she?"
He shook his head side to side, his eyes never blinking. A sigh slid from me.
"Well, I can find Viv easily enough, for what good it will do us."
"But then why doesn't she just come after you? I mean, if you can go to her directly, why doesn't she just do the same with you, or Talan or Raven for that matter?"
It was a good question. "I don't know."
It hit me then that I'd found Viv inside the Deep. I rubbed a hand over my face. "Peta, I'm going to try something."
"Wonderful," she muttered. "Now I know how a guinea pig feels."
I wove Spirit around us, and took us directly to Finley.
The leader of the Deep was still in her private quarters. Her eyes were slightly fogged over and she sat on the edge of her bed. The deep blue skirts swirled around her legs almost as if they were water itself. I crouched in front of her and gently wove Spirit into her mind.
"Finley, you must not kill the humans. Don't start a war with them."
She jerked away from me, coming out of the fog in an instant. "Lark, what are you doing here?"
I repeated the words, pushing harder with Spirit. I didn't truly know what I was doing and the last thing I needed was to harm my friend.
"You are being manipulated," I said. "And I am trying to show you the truth." I held my hand out to her, knowing in the past just my touch was enough to break the hold of Spirit on someone.
But not this time.
"She said you would try to stop me." She threw the words at me. "You have turned from the mother goddess, Lark."
She swept her hands out and I saw the intention in the lines of power.
Finley was going to drown me.
CHAPTER 21
I had a split second to decide how to handle Finley. I could try to use Spirit on her again, or I could fight her.
Spirit was not going to work. The ties Viv had wrapped around her were obviously too tight. Sadness and grief flew across the bond between Peta and me. We both knew what was going to happen.
"Ash, fly!" I called out, and he launched from my shoulder into the ceiling rafters.
"Don't make me fight you," I whispered to Finley. Because I knew … I knew this time there would be no bringing her back. If I lost, she would go on to wipe out the humans as she'd been commanded.
The water of the Atlantic Ocean swept in through her window, coming for me.
I dove for Finley, tackling her to the ground, softening the stone to encase her within it. At least, that was the plan.
The water blasted me off her, lifted me and held me in midair in a bubble of the cool liquid.
Finley's voice was clear, echoing through the water like a microphone. Peta was in her own bubble of water away from me. Her eyes narrowed as she fought to swim to the edge. I knew she was not worried about getting a breath of air so much as she was worried about taking Finley out.
Tears streamed from my eyes, mixing with the salt water. This was not what I wanted to happen. This was not how it was supposed to end. Finley was a good queen. A powerful queen who didn't deserve to die.
I didn't want to be the one to end her reign.
I closed my eyes as the water pushed in on me from all sides, the pressure increasing on my ears, chest, and limbs. My eardrums burst and my heart began to falter under the lack of oxygen. But I had one thing Finley did not. I knew the name of the elemental who'd created this power.
Realm.
Just his name, nothing else echoed out of me, forming bubbles in the water.
Finley was still speaking, but her voice was growing dim, fading as spots of darkness blackened my vision.
A part of my brain whispered that it was always destined to come to this for me. Water would be my death.
Realm. Again, I mouthed his name, the last of my breath leaving my body.
I blinked, and below me, Finley was unmoving and the water around me no longer pressed down on my body.
A presence slid through the water. I twisted where I was to face him. He floated in front of me, the scene below me frozen as it had been in the hot springs below the Spiral. His body was powerfully built, but lean, and his skin was the lightest of greens, his eyes brilliantly blue and his hair that same shade of violet as Finley's. His fingers and toes were webbed, but even so, he didn't seem to have to move much to stay where he was.
His voice was clear, as clear as if we were not floating in water. "That you know my name is interesting. Not interesting enough to keep you alive, but enough that I am curious. That I would speak to you before you die."