Revel (34 page)

This was the treasure, the power of Trespass Island that he’d schemed for. Killed for.

I didn’t know what I expected to see inside. Something otherwordly or magical, perhaps. Rays of light emanating from a fantastical realm of the gods. A spill of gold and jewels. Or even Poseidon himself. But it was none of those things.

It was the sea.

When the first fissure in the wall opened, water shot out. A thin stream, pushed with such force and velocity that it cut through the air.

It was a knife of water.

Hiss
. A fine blue blade cut Xarras’s head from his torso.

A mist of blood rained into the air and Xarras’s face flew past me, his mouth open in surprise. I could have sworn he blinked.

The torrent of water, beneath unimaginable pressure, cut into the far wall of the tunnel and gouged into the stone, practically melting it away. Another heartbeat and it surged to a thick column that blasted into Xarras, shooting his still-standing body across the room with the force of a hundred fire hoses.

Seawater. It was nothing but seawater coming through the Archelon. Thundering. Raging. Millions of gallons, and every second flooding the tunnels.

The floor shifted beneath my feet. Clutching the irregular, lurching surfaces, I slipped through the deepening surge of water toward Jax. I still had the cuffs on my wrists, which made my movements awkward. I grabbed on to him, trying not to panic at the feel of his skin. It was cold.

He slumped against me as deadweight. There was no pulse in his neck, no flutter of life in the gills on his abdomen. And as the water washed over him there was no answering change in his body. No fin emerged from the spiny processes on his back.

We had to escape before the entire system of tunnels collapsed. Xarras had been wrong about the Archelon; it didn’t contain the power of Poseidon. Or maybe this
was
his power unleashed. The earth-shattering force of the whole ocean itself sweeping through this portal.

Kephalos’s words came back to me. My destiny on this island was not only betrayal.

It was destruction.

I pulled Jax’s limp body to me. He sagged to one side, his arm weighed down by the sword that he still somehow had in his fingers. Stubborn even now. I pulled the sword away and let it sink in the whirling rush. I was still hampered by the heavy cuffs on my wrists.

I couldn’t see Xarras’s decapitated body; he was gone, swept away. I wouldn’t find the antidote to the poison. And I would never find my way out of these tunnels.

And Jax was going to die. My dark, scarred angel.

For a moment I let myself sink down into the whirling chaos around me. I closed my eyes and tried to block out the roar of the water. It would be all right to just stay with him and hold him. We would stay here together. Until the tunnels collapsed and buried us.

No.

I thought about Gran and longed for her strong, no-nonsense presence. She wouldn’t lose her head or panic. Where was she now? What would she tell me?

That I didn’t need to be brave. I just needed to keep going.

But I didn’t want to. Not without Jax. He was paralyzed. He couldn’t breathe on his own.

So why don’t you do something about it?

I had to get the cuffs off. Now. I was so desperate to help Jax that my mind became hard and focused on each step that
I needed to do. If only it wasn’t too late. I concentrated on the dark metal rings.

The water swirled over our heads now. Probably from the effect of glowstone in the exploded portions of the tunnel, there was the faintest of green lights illuminating the eerie scene around me. But fear put blinders on my vision. All I saw, all I cared about, were those cuffs.

I funneled my thoughts into a single command and let my voice out.

“Break!”

The cuffs shattered like eggshells.

Done
.

With my hands free I did the only thing I could think of. I breathed for Jax the way he’d done for me at our first meeting.

I kissed him.

As the water swirled around us I kissed Jax, pressing air into his mouth gently over and over. It seemed like minutes passed with no change. His skin was icy and there was no movement of his chest or the gills on his abdomen.

The green light was nearly extinguished. I felt the water churn around me, pelting us with rocks and debris. I tried to maintain my position, clinging to whatever seemed solid as I puffed air into Jax’s mouth. It was dark. So dark. There was nothing in the world for me now except Jax’s heavy weight in my arms and my fervent prayer, spoken to him over and over with every bit of will that I could summon.

Breathe
.

Until at last I felt him stir. Inhale. Exhale. And he kissed me back.

Between our minds the thoughts passed. And I heard him speak to me.

“Kardia mou,”
he said. The same thing he’d said to me on the beach. Somehow I didn’t need a translator. I knew what it meant now. I could sense the meaning in my mind, in my soul.

My heart
.

His hands grasped my shoulders. “My father?”

“He’s gone, Jax. We have to get out of here. The tunnels are breaking up!”

When he didn’t respond, I knew. We were trapped. If the tunnels had been mazelike before, what condition would they be in now? Blown apart by the force of the Archelon opening, they would be reduced to rubble and dead ends. Impossible to navigate even if I had a clue which way to go. Which I didn’t.

But in the darkness a faint glow illuminated Jax’s face, and I saw his gaze fixed on something in the water.

“Look.”

I turned. I was hallucinating. There were flowers floating in the water around us.

No. Not flowers. It was a multitude of tiny glowing fish, their semitransparent bodies sparkling with neon colors of the rainbow. They flitted past and lit the dark water like tiny beacons.

“Follow them,” said Jax.

CHAPTER 38
 

W
hen Jax and I emerged from the mouth of the caves, the sea was alive with destruction. Fiery pieces of rock and ash rained down into the water, hissing steam as they struck. All over the island, spouts of sulfurous gas spewed into the air, blanketing everything with an eerie yellow haze. And every few moments I could see the ground tremble, rocked by some hidden disturbance.

“I can’t believe it. The Archelon was empty?” said Jax, supporting me next to him in the water. The color had returned to his skin and the dorsal fin of his water form fluttered against the rippling surface of the sea. He was still weak from the effects of the poison, and I think the supporting part was actually mutual.

“I think so. Empty except for seawater. Opening the chamber
and releasing that pressure only created giant sinkholes to the underground caves.”

A booming crack made us turn, just in time to see a wedge of the cliff face tumble into the sea.

“The island is collapsing,” said Jax. There was disbelief in his low tone.

If I had ever wondered what it would take to impress a demigod, now I knew. Jax’s eyes were filled with horrified wonder at the scene before us. I put my palm against his chest. The island had been his home too.

But the island was still swarming with people. “Could they use the boats?” I asked.

“There won’t be enough to get them all off the island,” said Jax. “And the Icers will attack anything in the water.”

There were Icers on the beach as well. I could see at least three of their hulking forms stalking through the wreckage.

“We have to go help them,” I said. “Where are the Aitros warriors?”

“They’re out there,” said Jax with a toss of his head to the open water. “Trying to defend the breach in the Hands.”

“Then find the Glaukos if you can. Bring them here.”

“Are you insane?”

“No, I’m just a monster, trying to make things right,” I said. Then I gave him a quick soft kiss. It had to be only that:
my lips were still swollen and tender from the iron ring that had torn through them.

I swam for Wreck Beach.

The Glaukos swarmed in the water before me as I stood on the sand. Teeth gnashing, they screamed in fury; the sound was deafening.

“Don’t do this,” said Gran, standing beside me. I should have known she wouldn’t stay home. She’d found a black patch to wear over her injured right eye, and the effect was intimidating. The shotgun she carried by her side helped a bit too. Every so often she would raise the gun, sight coolly along its length with her good eye and fire a shot at an Icer. So far it had been effective in keeping them away so I could approach the Glaukos.

“They’ll kill you if you get near them,” she said. “They’ve gone mad with pain.”

“That’s my fault. I have to try to help them.”

My voice is my will
.

I stood at the edge of the water. Never in my life had I felt so small or insignificant. What was I, compared to the power and the number of these things?

I was so tired; my lips were still bloody and so swollen they felt tight against my teeth.

It felt like my body might collapse as this island was doing, from the inside out.

“Men of Trespass,” I shouted, “listen to me.”

The thrashing and screaming continued unabated.

“You’ve been slaves to the First Ones,” I cried out. “They’ve used you. You’ve sacrificed your lives for this island. For the people you love.”

I might as well have thrown a feather into a hurricane and expected it to fly against the wind. They couldn’t hear me. They couldn’t hear anything or feel anything except their own pain.

My voice is my will
.

Unfortunately, my will had never sounded so weak or insignificant. Between the noise of the Glauks, the underground rumblings of the island and the crash of the surf, I could hardly hear myself think. But I tried again.

“Your families are still here. And they need you now more than ever. But to fight as men, not animals.”

They didn’t listen. Or couldn’t hear me. Either way, it was no use like this.

“You’re not monsters!” I shouted. “You’re the men of Trespass. The Icers are here. They will take this island or whatever’s left of it and leave nothing behind. Not your homes or your families. Do you even remember your families?”

I closed my eyes, trying to recall the names from the granite memorial. The men lost at sea. Only they weren’t lost. They were out there somewhere.

“I call Franklin Briggs. I call Mason Tremblay,” I yelled. I had no idea if they could hear me. If they did, they gave no sign of it. They made sounds, but not like anything remotely human; it sounded like the screech and chitter of squirrels,
only amplified a thousand times. But it was possible the frenzied motion had calmed a little.

“I call my grandfather, Charles McGovern.” I looked at Gran. She nodded and came to my side. “I call Simeon Gunn. Simeon Gunn,” I cried, “do you want this life for Sean?”

Suddenly, Jax was there beside me.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to keep you from getting killed,” he snarled.

He was in just as much danger as I was. The sight of him seemed to enrage the Glaukos. Jax represented the First Ones who had used them so cruelly. Now that the euphoria of the trapweed was gone, they probably recalled their mistreatment all the more clearly.

He stepped out ahead of me and swept the water before him. “Come out here. The power of your voice is stronger in the water,” he shouted.

Jax had created a whirlpool around me, a blue-green wall of water that kept the Glaukos at a safe distance. I stepped deeper into its rushing center and felt the cool strength of it, the endless circle of power that surrounded all life here. The sea. There was calm inside that power. Despite the tempest of savage faces around me, I began to feel stronger.

Bending to immerse myself more fully, I could feel the multitude of disturbances, flutters and cries that vibrated every molecule of water around me. I could hear the Glaukos now. And even though I didn’t understand their language, the meaning was clear.

I heard the fear and the hunger and, more than anything else, the pain.

“I’m sorry. I wanted to help you.”

The words were so inadequate. There was no reason that they shouldn’t kill me.