Stars of Fortune(97)

Not strong enough. Despair flooded her at her own weakness, at the frail human need for air when all she craved was nearly within her grasp.

It all blurred—light, pulse, song—as her body went limp. She began to sink in the blue, her hand stretched toward the beauty.

Hands grabbed her. Helpless, she breathed in water as she was propelled forward.

Blinding light, sudden warmth. Then nothing.

Annika dragged her up, broke the surface of the water. In the cave, that water seemed to sing as it flowed up and over rock. Light shimmered blue as moonbeams.

“She has no breath.” Weeping, Annika hugged Sasha to her as Bran shot up beside her. “Can you help her?”

“Yes, yes.”

He wouldn’t lose her. Boosting himself onto the wide lip of rock, he pulled Sasha up. He pressed a hand on her heart, pushed power there. And lowering to her, gave her his breath.

For an instant that lasted a lifetime, he knew true fear. He wouldn’t be enough. He would be too late.

Then her heart stirred under his hand.

She coughed up water. He turned her gently as the others surfaced, and kept his hand pressed to her heart when she gasped in air.

“There you are now. I’ll never tell you it’s just a dream again. There you are, a ghrá.”

He lifted her, cradled her, as she shook, laid his brow on hers, rocked them both.

“What happened?”

Riley climbed up, took a hard look at Sasha’s face. “You decided to go diving without a tank.”

“I . . . like the dream.” She groped for Bran’s hand. “I was on the boat, sketching, then . . . I heard the music. It was like dreaming again. I had to find the song, the light.”

“Nerezza.” Riley bit off the name.

“No, no. It wasn’t dark or cold. It wasn’t evil. It was beautiful.”

“Evil hides in beauty.” Doyle hauled himself up with them.

“No. I’d know. I can feel. It called for me. None of you heard it?”

“Something, when we got closer to the cave.” Riley looked up, around. “This cave that isn’t on any map.”

“And the light.” Bran stroked her cheek, wishing to will the color back into it. “It guided us to you.”

“You saved me,” she told him, but he shook his head.

“Annika. She got to you first, pulled you in here. She’s faster than any of us in the water.” He glanced back at her. “Understandably.”

“I couldn’t let the sea take her.”

Annika knuckled a tear away. Her sinuous, luminous tail curved through the water. “With legs I would have been too late.”

Sawyer, still treading water, his gaze still riveted on the sway of sapphire, emerald, hints of ruby, slowly reached out to touch the shimmery, translucent fin with a fingertip.

“You’re a mermaid. Well, kick my ass. That explains a lot.”

“I couldn’t tell you. I wasn’t supposed to.”

“Annika.” Sasha crawled to the edge where Annika rested her arms. “You saved my life.”

“I can see a long way in the water. Like you can see on land. So I could find you, but with legs I would be slower. And still, you had no breath when I brought you up. Bran gave you his.”

“You did this for me.” She laid her hand over Annika’s. “Does it mean you . . . you have to stay in the water now?”

“No. I can have the legs for the land for three turns of the moon. Three months,” she corrected. “I swore not to tell humans, even those who would seek the stars with me. But life is sacred, even more than an oath.”

“Anybody gives you grief, they have to go through us,” Sawyer told her. He brushed a tear off her cheek. “You’re a hero.”

“You’re not mad with me?”

“Are you kidding? You saved a life, and you gave up something important to you to do it. It was your secret. How does this . . .” He ran that same finger down the side of her torso over the hip of the tail. “Sorry,” he said quickly, and pulled his hand back.

“I don’t mind. I’m happy. Sasha is alive, and no one is angry.”

“Now that we’ve established that,” Doyle began, “maybe we should find out just why Sasha nearly drowned to get where we are.”

“Hard-Ass has a point,” Riley agreed. “It’s a hell of a place.” She pushed to her feet. “Deep inside the cliff, from my sense of direction. But accessible enough, with equipment,” she added with a pointed finger at Sasha, “that other divers should have found it. But it’s not on any of the dive maps.”

“The simple answer?” Steadier again as Sasha’s color had come back, Bran pushed to his feet. “It isn’t meant for others. It drew Sasha through what she has. Drew us all.”