The Girl Who Belonged to the Sea by Katherine Quinn

Chapter Forty-Nine

Margrete

The next timelight struck the tumultuous waves, it wasn’t borne of electricity. It was a cataclysmic collision of transcendent rebirth and the commanding force of pulsating love.

Margrete choked as she breached the surface. Unused to lungs that could breathe water, she coughed out the salty liquid and greedily gasped for air.

In her trembling arms was a body belonging to a king. His muscled form weighed her down, but Margrete fought against the current. She screamed his name, over and over again, as one might say a prayer.

Or a curse.

The smoldering heat within her swelled with each passing moment that Bash didn’t gasp for air. With every second he didn’t open those eyes and smile.

Her arms tightened around him protectively, and that mystical fire within her blossomed. It erupted and shattered. Broke her and put her back together again. Margrete felt like she was being remade from the inside out.

The waters, as if sensing the divinity flowing through her blood, responded, lifting her and Bash above the crests. They were pushed to the western shores. To land. To safety.

The sound of the sea was all she could hear—the melody comprised of both tender and vicious notes. Margrete cradled Bash as the celestial aria lulled to a soft whisper, and the tide delivered them at last to the sands.

Without the aid of the waters at her back, Margrete struggled to lift the king, to haul his limp frame farther up the beach. But something just as potent as the Heart’s power gave her the strength to carry him, to gently lower him to the fine golden grains.

“Bash!” she screamed. There was no response other than the crashing waves.

Placing her head to his chest, she listened for a heartbeat, a sign of life.

She heard nothing but the empty silence of death.

Margrete cursed and took him by the shoulders, shaking him. When he didn’t rouse, she pounded her fists against his chest.

Nothing—his chest remained unmoving.

The war raged all around her, but she paid no mind to the distant cries of battle. She couldn’t breathe, not when Bash couldn’t.

In a fit of panic, she pummeled his chest with her hands, struggling to restart the heart she knew had ceased to beat. Time passed in a blur, but still she worked, her voice hoarse from shrieking into the night. It might have been his name she called, but it was guttural and raw and altogether animalistic.

It was the sound of anguished defeat.

“No.” She sniffled, her hand quivering as it reached to cup his cheek. He looked so pale, so frozen. “Wake up!”

Her tiny fists banged against him once more, bruising and violent in their descent. She cared for nothing but the rise and fall of life—of air filling his lungs.

He remained so very still.

“You can’t die,” she whispered under her breath. “Your people need you.”

Sheneeded him.

“Don’t you dare,” she threatened, swallowing painfully. Every inhale was excruciating. Every minute he didn’t stir roused a new wave of agony inside of her. “You—”

Margrete stopped.

She lifted her hands from his unmoving chest. The moon shone on his handsome face, and he appeared to be sleeping. Peaceful. This sickened her all the more.

He was but another soul that the sea—no, Darius—had taken, and for reasons she didn’t yet understand.

It was then that the most astonishing thought occurred to Margrete.

The sea was where he lost his life.

The sea had nearly taken her life.

Margrete held some of the sea’s powers. Malum’s powers.

With renewed purpose, Margrete inhaled sharply and placed one hand on either side of his face. She gripped him tightly enough to bruise, but her mind had already begun to drift into a realm beyond the physical: into the place where the sea and her own life mingled.

Where Malum’s sacred essence dwelled.

“Bash, come back to me,” she ordered, her heated breath tickling his pallid flesh. The wind picked up in response, and a ghostly breeze stroked her cheeks and tousled her curls. “I demand it.”

As the words fell from her tear-stained lips, her body shook, and the sacred warmth of a god’s stolen heart seared her insides.

Margrete screamed as a thousand images flashed through her mind.

Cruel gales and beautiful sunrises. Gulls with spread wings gliding across the vast sky. The full moon grazing the top of seafoam waves, its light filtering to paint the depths with magic.

Margrete sensed a pack of wild dolphins beyond the breaks. Great whites hunting for their meal. She glimpsed the vibrant coral reefs and spotted an orange starfish on the sandy floor. Freshly hatched sea turtles swam for the first time in the blue deep, and rosy jellyfish whirled above their green shells. There was an entire world beyond the shores, full of striking beasts and achingly beautiful creatures of color.

She sang to them all, called to them as she pleaded for a single soul to be returned to her. The dolphins gave a high-pitched whistle, and the sharks slowed their pace and ignored their bloodlust to listen. The jellyfish glowed with foreign light, and the sea turtles flapped their flippers. Farther away, a pod of blue whales emitted a reverberating reply of their own.

Stingrays, seahorses, octopi, squids, crabs, clams, eels—

The entire ocean answered in a jumbled chorus of abundant life.

“Come back to me, Bash.”

A sharp pang struck her chest, lasting but a heartbeat. It pierced her heart, and an exquisite light blinded her vision.

And then she heard it—

His inhale.

“Bash!” she shrieked. She helped him turn onto his side as he retched saltwater and the remnants of death.

Minutes passed before he turned to face her, and the sight of him, alive and breathing, was the most beautiful thing she’d ever witnessed. But the handsome face she’d grown to love had changed.

His eyes…They were no longer the shade of emeralds, and no golden flecks dotted his irises. The sea had taken his life and returned his soul after death. Because of this, he would be forever changed.

Bash met her gaze with adoration and tender affection—with irises of silky midnight and ashen smoke.

“P-princess,” he sputtered, coughing.

Through her own altered blue eyes, Margrete drank in the darkness of his murky pools and glimpsed the beauty of their eternal night.

“Y-you were n-nearly lost to me,” she stammered, disbelieving that he was here in her arms, color slowly returning to his cheeks. “Darius. H-he used his power on you, looked right at you as he slayed his brother. As he killed Malum. He wanted to kill you, too, and I think he…I think he succeeded.”

And with Malum’s powers, she had brought him back.

“Malum is dead?” Bash fought to raise himself onto his elbows, alarm twisting his features. Margrete snaked her arms around his torso and held him upright.

“He turned to sea foam before my eyes,” she said, her chest tight. She didn’t know Malum, but a piece of him had resided inside of her all her life, and in that way, she felt the loss of him.

“What happened to Darius?” Bash asked, his eyes growing sharper, his body tensed as if preparing for the fight to come. And there would be a fight. Darius had all but promised he’d come back for her.

That she was next.

“I’m not sure what happened to him,” she admitted. “I dove in after you.”

Bash shook his head. “You can’t swim. I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either, Bash, but when Darius sent you below the waves, I experienced this…heat. This strength. I can’t explain it, but I feel him. Malum.”

Bash placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, his fingers shaking. “Whatever it is, we will find out together. Remember, you’re no longer alone.”

She smiled. “And neither are you.”

Bash squeezed his eyes shut before opening them to gaze upon her, his stare brimming with a thousand unspoken words.

Words he would never need to speak for her to understand.

So instead of answering him with her voice, she lowered her lips to his, tasting the sweetness of rebirth.

The kiss was a gentle caress. A reminder that life flowed through their veins, air filled their lungs, and, for the moment, they were not defeated. They were whole.

Bash pulled away first, just enough to peer into her eyes, which were full of unshed tears. He looked at her as if she were the most beautiful and enchanting being he’d ever glimpsed.

But it was time for her to release him—

Time to face Darius and her father.

Margrete knew what she had to do, and she implored Bash to trust her.

“I have to do this.” She cupped his stubbled cheeks before helping him stand. “Alone,” she added when he raised a brow. “This isn’t only between my father and me, but between me and Darius. That strength I told you about? I feel it now. And I know I can face whatever is out there.”

“I don’t like this.” Bash sighed, his Adam’s apple bobbing with emotion. He placed both hands on either side of her face, his touch freezing against her heated skin. “I can’t lose you, Margrete. I won’t.”

Fear rang clearly in his voice, and Margrete gave him a grim smile. “Bash, this thing inside of me…I have to do this.” She tilted her head to the south side of the island, to where the Iron Mast was moored. To where two gods had battled. “You have to trust me, as I’ve trusted you. What I need is for you to make sure Birdie is safe. Please.”

A war raged in his eyes, but Bash nodded, his jaw clenching. “I’ll find her,” he vowed. “And I do trust you, but if something happens to you—”

“It won’t,” she promised, but they both knew she couldn’t promise such a thing.

“Then go,” he said, reaching for her hands. “But come back to me, princess.”

“Always, Bash.” Margrete dropped his hands and stepped back to the waves. She held his eyes until the waters grazed her calves, and then, with one final look, she turned and faced the sea that called to her.

She closed her eyes and listened to the ethereal whispers that danced across her mind, her lips moving, echoing the voices of the ancients.

And then Margrete Wood was rising, the waters at her feet lifting her above the swells.

She took her first step forward.

The waves followed.