Chapter Thirty-Two
“What do you propose we do?” Calroy lowered his guard, willing to listen.
He took my hand and held on, smiling, like he still didn’t trust I was real.
Minha lowered her weapon and moved toward the pool, Ranis beside her. The keeper had vanished without a sound.
“The queen’s power is not an object she wields.
” Palto hovered near the waterfall, his form shifting with the mist. “The energy lives inside her now, fused to her blood the moment the earth god’s power transferred to her.
You cannot take it from her the way she took it from him.
The only way to end her is to restore the earth god.
When he returns, his power will revert to him. ”
Calroy’s jaw tightened. A low sound left his throat, close to a growl. “You think me a fool?” The air around him crackled. “You want me to restore the god who helped destroy everything we built. Who handed the queen the means to kill us.”
“No.” Palto’s form flickered in and out.
“I’m not saying he deserves his power back.
I’m saying the moment the power reverts to him, use the pure stone to capture the energy before he can claim it.
The stones merely hold the essence of gods.
It is the only vessel strong enough to contain what she carries. ”
“And what happens to the queen?” I asked.
“She becomes mortal,” Palto said. “Then you do with her what you will.”
“Good,” Ranis murmured.
I turned the word mortal over in my mind. For someone who had ruled as immortal, who had never feared death, what would that feel like? Would she know it the moment it happened? Would she feel the edges of herself suddenly becoming fragile?
“Then we march to her castle and bring her down.” Minha’s expression hardened, her jaw set.
“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Ranis countered.
“It’s not.” Calroy exhaled a long breath. “She had onyx embedded within the walls around the castle.”
Palto nodded. “It was built for one purpose. Any divine power that crosses that threshold is absorbed into the stone. She cannot be challenged on her own ground. Not by any god. Not even you, Calroy.” He looked between us.
“Which means she will try to draw you there. But won’t she be surprised to find out Theron is Calroy. ”
“So we draw her out instead,” I said.
Palto’s gaze settled on mine. “But she will not come without leverage. She has had it for some time now.”
“Nam and my family.” I sighed. I didn’t want them to be taken as hostages. “She knows they’re Seaborn, but she doesn’t know I’m Yeri. So we get them out first. Between Calroy’s power and mine, we can bring down the royal family of Jeju too.”
“Don’t forget me.” Minha twirled her dagger, smirking.
“And me.” Ranis bowed.
“Thank you.” I meant it to the depth of my marrow. “So that’s our plan?”
I wanted to rescue my family. And this felt like the moment everything we had been building toward.
“There is something else you should know.” Palto’s form stilled. “Yeri, you don’t have your power back.”
“What do you mean?” Calroy’s expression darkened. He looked like he wanted to hit him, but his fist would go straight through water.
“I felt something when Calroy and I touched.” I glanced down at my fingers. “Energy moved through my blood.”
“That was recognition,” Palto said. “Your souls knowing each other. But you are the goddess of the sea, Yeri. You must return to your full form before that power can resurface.”
“Speak plain language.” Minha pointed the dagger at him. “Or I’ll introduce you to your own keepers.”
Palto’s form flickered. If a spirit could look unsettled, he managed it. “Yeri’s memory only just returned,” Palto said. “Her power hasn’t had time to catch up yet.”
Catch up. “How long will that take?”
“I have no answer.”
“It’s fine, love.” Calroy’s thumb traced my cheek. “I’ll carry the weight for both of us.” His eyes held mine. “We’re going to get your family out of Jeju. And my mother out of Caelum. I don’t know the exact plan yet, but I’ll figure it out.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “Don’t I always?”
Something warm moved through me, not just the present moment but the ghost of another one, old and familiar.
He’d said those words before. In another life, in another body, with wings folded at his back and the sea crashing below.
And he’d meant them then the same way he meant them now.
Calroy didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep.
“Yes, my love,” I said softly. “You always do.”
Palto’s form rippled. “What is your verdict regarding Rowhan? Do you agree to restore him?”
“How do we know this isn’t a ruse?” Calroy’s jaw tightened, the warmth leaving his eyes. “To undo everything all over again.”
“You don’t,” Palto said.
“That’s not good enough.” Calroy snarled.
“It never is.” Palto’s form drifted closer to the edge of the pool.
“But consider what I have already done. I went against the queen. Against the others. I sent you both into rebirth knowing I would face consequences for it if my plan had not succeeded. I have waited in this place, the between worlds for years, Calroy. Watching. Waiting for you to find Yeri.” His voice dropped.
“Does that sound like someone working against you?”
“It sounds like someone with a long game,” Calroy said.
“The queen would not have sent Yeri here to learn the truth about herself.” Palto’s form flickered. “She would not show Yeri her own death. She would not reunite the both of you. She wants you divided. Everything I have done has been the opposite of what the queen wants.”
Calroy said nothing. But his jaw worked.
“I made a mistake.” Palto dipped his head slightly. “I believed her once. I helped strip your power and I have carried that ever since. I cannot undo it.” His form drifted toward me, then back to Calroy. “But I can help you end her. One chance to make it right. That is all I am asking for.”
The waterfall filled the silence.
Calroy looked at me.
He wasn’t asking for permission. He was asking what I felt. After years of being Star, surviving on instinct alone, my gut was the one thing I trusted above everything else.
I studied Palto, water and light shifting together, the suggestion of features rather than the true form. But there was something in the way his figure stilled. No flicker. The restless water that had rippled through him since he appeared had gone quiet.
“We give him the chance,” I said. “But only him. Not the others.” Calroy could handle Rowhan alone if it came to that, but all four of them together was a different calculation. And there was still the matter of… “How do we know if Rowhan is willing to help?”
“In this pool we can communicate among ourselves.” Palto gestured toward the water. “Rowhan, Junio, Eules, Saura, the goddess of fire. They all regret conspiring with the queen.”
“Because she betrayed them.” Ranis laughed dryly.
“True. But that mistake cost us all dearly.” Palto’s form rippled. “They have learned their lesson the hard way.”
Calroy’s eyes darkened. “If you betray us, there will be no corner of this world or the next where you can hide from me. Not even here.” He gestured at the land of the dead. “Are we understood?”
“Perfectly.” Something shifted in Palto’s liquid form, the suggestion of a smile.
“How—” Minha pressed her fingers to her temple, squinting like she was working through a problem. “How do we bring one god back from the dead?”
“Come to the water,” Palto directed.
We moved to the edge of the pool and peered down.
Beneath the surface, suspended in the still water as if simply resting, five figures stood luminous, their features peaceful. No pain. No awareness. Just sleep, deep and endless, the kind that had no dreams.
Gods who had conspired against us, turned by a queen’s promises, and ended up here — sleeping at the bottom of a pool in the land of the dead, unaware that the two they had helped destroy were standing above them looking down.
In the center, Palto’s body among them, hands folded, eyes closed. While his spirit hovered above us in water and mist, his physical form rested below with the others.
“Do they know we’re here?” I asked.
“No.” Palto lowered into the water, half of his body disappearing beneath the surface. “We have been like this since the queen turned on us.” His voice carried no sympathy. “It is more mercy than we deserve.”
“That’s you.” Ranis stared down at Palto’s body beneath the surface.
“Yes.”
“How are you able to be two places at once?” Minha dipped her finger in the water, then pulled it back out, likely testing the temperature.
“This is my realm.” Palto’s spirit drifted back up. “I can speak and exist here in ways the others cannot. My body must remain in this realm. That is the cost of death.”
Minha crouched at the water’s edge, still peering down at the five sleeping forms. “So how do we wake just Rowhan without waking the others?”
Palto glided across the surface, hovering over Rowhan’s sleeping form. “The right one will light up when you near its owner. The essence inside will enter the body, and he will revive.”
We each opened our palms and moved toward the water’s edge.
The stones caught the dim light of the land of the dead.
Mine was steady, Minha’s both unchanged, Theron’s calm.
But Ranis’s flared, a warm pulse of gold light spilling between his fingers, casting shadows across the water’s surface.
Below us, Rowhan’s sleeping form shifted, bubbles rising around him as though he recognized the call.
“I have Rowhan’s soul.” Ranis stared at the stone in his palm.
“There is one request, if I may,” Palto said. “I would like to join your quest. I cannot undo what has been done. But one more god fighting beside you is worth more than you might realize.”
I placed mine back in my pocket. “That would require you to take a physical form. Which means I have no choice but to trust you.”