The Spirit War(181)
The moment they entered the open sea, a current hit them at high speed, sending both Miranda and Mellinor reeling.
“Hold tight!” Mellinor cried, clinging to her as they tumbled with the stampeding water. “Don’t let go!”
Miranda didn’t. She held on, wrapping herself in and through Mellinor’s spirit until she could no longer tell where she ended and he began. After a few moments, Mellinor righted them and they started upward again, cutting through the churning water like an arrow.
This tied together with her inland sea, Miranda could almost see the currents. They reminded her of flocking birds—great packs of water spirits moving as one, screaming with a million voices. They rushed Mellinor whenever he came near, and Miranda felt each tiny spirit strike her like a needle shot at high speed. Any one alone would have been nothing, but there were thousands of them, hundreds of thousands, and they would have torn her apart had Mellinor not been whispering in her mind.
“You’re doing fine,” he said, his own voice strained so thin she could hardly make it out. “Just a little farther.”
“It’s horrible.” Miranda didn’t realize she was crying until the sob strained her chest. “How can anything survive here?”
“It can’t,” Mellinor said bitterly. “At least, water can’t. Right now, with me, you’re as much water as human. That’s why you can feel it.” A tremor of fear ran through her, and she realized she was feeling an echo of Mellinor’s terror. “The sea tears us all apart,” he whispered. “It is the horrible end that awaits all water that loses its shore. Now do you see why I was so thankful when you saved me from being sent here by Monpress?”
“If I’d known what it was like, I’d have killed him before I let him send you here,” Miranda whispered back.
“Glad it didn’t come to that, then,” Mellinor said. “Prepare yourself, we’re here.”
“Here?” Miranda whispered. It felt like any other place in the water.
“Yes,” Mellinor said. As he spoke, Miranda could feel the slick, heavy weight of the wood as though she’d hit it with her own back. She looked up, seeing as though she were standing inside Mellinor. Great, black shapes loomed overhead, their edges outlined by the shifting, distorted torchlight. They were below the palace ships.
“I’m going to need to take over a very large amount of water to do this,” Mellinor said. “More than I can take on my own, even if I weren’t in the sea. This is the most crucial point, Miranda. I’m counting on you to hold me together. Whatever happens, do not leave the water. If you step out of the sea, our connection will weaken and I won’t be able to hold together. Do you understand? Do not move, no matter what.”
Back in her own freezing body, surrounded by the clanging of swords, Miranda dug her hands deeper into the sand, lying in the water with only her head still above the waves.
“I won’t move,” she whispered, ignoring the taste of salt that filled her mouth as she spoke. “So long as I can, until I die, I will never, ever abandon you.”
“I believe you.” Mellinor’s voice seemed to flow through her, filling her completely. “Here we go.”
Miranda saw what happened next two times, one far away through her own human eyes, the other from Mellinor’s perspective as though she were floating at the center of his water. Mellinor was spreading out below the boats, pulling the tiny sea spirits into his own flow. They screamed as he ripped them from their currents, and then fell silent as they were absorbed. His water grew and grew, spilling off in all directions until Miranda could feel the entire sweep of the Oseran island against her body. Mellinor’s spirit was straining now, thinning, and she strained as well, holding him together. Finally, just before they both broke, Mellinor stopped taking in water. For a moment he hung there, a vast sea inside the ocean. And then, with a great, undulating roar, he surged upward, taking Miranda with him.
The palace ships began to creak. From her body in the surf, Miranda was dimly aware that the fighting around her had stopped. Everyone, even Josef, was staring across the bay as, with a great groan of creaking wood and the sea’s own moaning, the line of the Empress’s palace ships lurched to the left.
The ships tilted in unison as Mellinor’s sea surged beneath them in a great, vertical wave. Sailors scrambled as the decks turned sideways. Some managed to grab the railings in time; others were not so lucky. Miranda felt them splash into the sea as though they were landing in her own body, but she paid them no mind. Only one body mattered.