Page 71 of Seaborn and the Seven Seas

“Let’s see if there’s more.” Ranis walked farther down, his hands on the wall. “Here.”

I’d thought it was a repeat of the slumped gods, but it was a continuation. From the carved lines of their bodies, power poured out of the gods and into the water, into the stone gathering at the chamber floor behind us. Five gods who’d died had become the pure stones the queen sent us down here to collect.

“Do you think the queen knows what these stones are?” Minha stepped toward the dark corner.

“These pure stones. They’re not just what’s left of the gods.” I knelt before the pile glowing faintly in the dark, no longer treasure, but far more dangerous. “I think they’re the only thing in this world that can kill her, and the only thing in this world that could give her more power.”

“Well, we can’t let her have more magic.” Jina picked one up, her face catching the light bouncing off it.

Ranis lifted another, about the size of an egg, turning it over in his palm. “So small but so deadly.” He held it up higher. “I wonder which god I’m holding.”

“Want me to make a weapon from it?” Minha winked at me.

“Best not to tamper with it,” I said, picking one up myself, light in my hand and cool to the touch.

The stone hummed. I went still, straining to catch it. There. A whisper, faint and layered, in a language I didn’t know, syllables that curled strange and ancient against the inside of my skull. I waited for someone to ask if they’d heard it too. No one did.

Minha turned the stone over, testing its edges with her thumb.

“Take the other one too,” I said, tucking mine against my waist, beside the dagger, pearls, and the vial. “We need to get back anyway and free the people.”

“How?” Jina tucked an egg-sized stone into her pants pocket.

“The four of us fight the remaining soldiers.” Minha shoved hers inside her shirt.

“I have a better idea.” I looked at all of them. “Trust me?”

“Always,” Jina said.

Minha and Ranis gave a nod.

We crossed back over the narrow bridge, the stone heavy with the weight of the story it carried. I glanced once at the carved wall, at Yeri’s hand reaching for Calroy’s, frozen mid-distance for however many centuries this mountain had kept them. How tragic their love story.

I turned my back on the rest of the drawings, wondering who had spent countless hours carving this story so that one day someone would find it and, hopefully, bring peace back to their world.

The eel lay unmoving as we made our way to the mouth of the tunnel. I drew in a breath, steadied my voice, and shouted loud enough to carry.

“The creature is dead! Come help, there’s pure stone everywhere!”

Boots pounded, echoing inside the cavern, torchlight flickering ahead of the scrape of barrels being dragged, as the remaining soldiers came rushing past the threshold. They crowded the bank of the stream, eyes on the water where the stones supposedly waited.

“Where is it?” One barked at me.

“There.” I shoved hard between his shoulder blades, and he pitched forward with a shout that cut off the second he hit the water.

The eel surged up from beneath the falls so fast the spray hadn’t even settled before its jaws closed around him. Then it turned, and the rest of the soldiers didn’t even have time to draw their swords before the eel swallowed the sound of them too.

“Run,” I said.

We didn’t look back until the tunnel mouth opened to the women and children, all the soldiers swallowed by the creature that had bowed and killed for me in the same hour.

We were free.

Word spread before any of us said a thing. Picks went still, one after another, as the workers realized the only sound left was their own. Ranis was already moving among them, helping an older woman to her feet, lifting a girl who’d frozen mid-swing onto his shoulders so she could see over the crowd.

Minha moved through the chaos with her dagger still in hand, checking the tunnel mouth for any soldier who might’ve survived, while Jina knelt beside a girl too stunned to stand, murmuring in a low voice until the girl’s shaking eased.

“The soldiers are gone,” Ranis kept saying, careful with his words in front of the children. “All of them. You’re free.”