A shallow wave crested in response, stretching for us at the edge of the pool, and Xiane backed out of its grasp. I could have sworn it lengthened into fingers just before it receded. Selena’s heart thundered beside me, but I calmly watched the clear water fall away.
A pit lay beyond the water. We listened for the sound of Xiane’s rock hitting the bottom, but it never came. Across from us, perhaps fifty feet away, something small among the rocks hummed with light.
Aegir crossed his arms, eyes narrowed as he studied the cavity below us. Selena did the same with the ceiling, as though searching for a way to swing across. I stared ahead, watching the soft light flicker and fade back into the dark.
It was there. Across the divide.
“How did it get here?” Aegir finally asked.
Xiane shook her head. “We don’t know. We’ve tried to get it out for a thousand years. The water was peaceful here once. Now it’s angry. Our colony has only whittled since it appeared, and no matter what we try, Paria is dying. That stone is a curse.”
“It’s here because Sidra was born here,” Selena said. “Thaan made her hiscorda-cruorthen took her from Paria. They say the Naiads of Juile are cursed and dying as well.”
Aegir rubbed the side of his face in thought, gaze dropping to the water. “Is that fact, or speculation?”
Selena’s mouth thinned as she scanned the starry ceiling. “Both.”
Aegir glanced at me, and I understood the question in his eyes. Had Theia explained how to get it?
But my thoughts hid over the memory of Theia’s words.
The Breath of Safiro. The Scale of Safiro. Only one Naiad can reach them.
I shook my head at him, mouth grim. He lowered his palm, fingers straight.
“If you’re calling to the water here, it won’t answer,” Xiane said, watching him. “It’s freshwater, not that that should matter, but it won’t answer our call.”
“I assumed.” He sighed, the air billowing softly from his mouth in a small cloud. “Had to try. We could devise something. Some kind of bridge.”
Xiane’s jaw feathered. “We’ve tried.”
Aegir rotated on his back foot, peering more closely at the wall. “There are dry sections. We might climb across.”
“Tried that as well.”
“Have you attempted saltwater?” Pheolix asked, his dark brows furrowed. “Transporting a few buckets from the sea?”
“More than once.”
“Could throw you in,” Selena muttered under her breath.
Xiane dipped her head. “Haven’t tried that yet. A few Naiads have fallen in. We find their bodies a day later, washed up on the island shore. Only one has survived.” She released a regretful breath, shaking her head slowly. “But she couldn't walk or speak. She died the following day.”
Selena craned her neck, staring down below. “If we could measure the depth,” she started, “then the distance across, then the height from here to—”
I ran, splashing through the cold pool, and dove.
My sister’s scream followed me all the way down.
26
Selena
Xiane grabbed my arm. “We can’t stay here.”
The pool at our feet thrashed, disturbed from Cebrinne’s steps. I leaned over it, staring into the black. “CEBA!”
The rock beneath our feet shuddered, glowworms swinging in their silk threads. Xiane yanked, but I whipped my arm away. Across from me, Aegir faced the darkness as well, poised as though he might jump after her. Then the walls gushed, the thin trickles of water spurting and rushing, the echo of them panging in my ears. The cavern floor shook again, lurching us violently left and right.
