29. Ocean Blue
Ocean Blue
Flora’s hands instinctively reached out to catch herself, but the glass barrier beneath the surface of the well was nowhere to be found. She kept falling, past the shallows, and her body was soon enveloped in the warmth of the water as she spun.
She panicked to hold her breath, kicking and flailing her arms until she was what she thought to be upright.
She looked up, and there they were. Elizabeth’s feet pressed down above her head.
Flora fought past the glowing blue webs that entangled her, grazing her skin like seaweed.
She swam up, placing her hands on the icy film, but she couldn’t reach through.
Flora banged at Elizabeth’s feet, and through the glass, she could make out Siren’s blurry figure, his eyes flickering with yellow and orange in the ripples of the water.
Davy’s empty face was half submerged, his hair floating against the glass.
And though Lunara’s water had stifled the pallor of death, what remained of him was no more than an empty chalice.
Flora gritted her teeth in anger, but she was almost out of air. As she reached desperately for the figures above, her head began to feel light. Her vision began to darken. And as her mind grew tired and numb, she inadvertently gasped a breath.
Gasping once more, the dark tunnel around her vision began to widen. Somehow, underwater, she could breathe.
And once she realized she was safe for the time being, her mortal terror veered toward curiosity.
Elizabeth’s blue vines trailed down past her, grasping at a vivid red light.
There, they anchored the crimson flower in place.
From it, Flora could hear a voice, smooth but rasping, though its words remained intangible.
She swam around the flower, searching for detail where the petals distorted in the motion of the water.
It was a lily, a red lily, much like the night lilies on the surface, though its petals were blackened at the ends as though it were beginning to rot.
Cautiously, Flora reached out and touched its velvety surface.
She felt an avalanche of memories tear through her mind, memories that were not her own.
There were memories of playing in the forest with what looked like a young king Velo, memories of a sharp pain in the chest caused by a man with green eyes, and memories of a beautiful woman waiting at the edge of the water, a smile on her face that made the madness of the whole world fall silent.
Just touching the flower, Flora felt powerful, powerful in the same way Elizabeth and Siren had been. Startled, she pulled her hand away.
Azura, she thought.
The red light of the flower pulsed through Elizabeth’s blue vines, and Flora wondered if that was what fed her power—the borrowed blight and blessing of the Moon’s Shadow.
Flora looked down below. In the darkest depths of the water, she saw the source of the soft, melodic hum.
Colorful lights twinkled and flowed like a stream, a subtle voice radiating out from each one.
Flora swam down toward the light, but for as far as she could swim, she didn’t seem to get any closer.
It was as if the twinkling colors and their soft chatter were a hundred miles away.
Flora looked around at the infinite sea, every direction the same.
Still, she noticed numerous lilies of various shades and colors slowly drifting down.
Most were well spaced out, but there was a wave of them nearer to the surface that sank together in a cluster.
Flora swam closer, and the orchestra of their whispers grew louder.
Fallen lilies began to brush her skin, filling her mind with hints of memories and sorrow and lives spent thinking they had more time.
There had to be hundreds. Hundreds of souls that departed from Emyre all at once.
Flora pressed through the luminant cloud, hoping to find familiarity in the sea of babbling strangers. But one memory jolted her soul in passing. Flora saw her own face, paralyzed and watching in horror at the edge of the city wall.
“I just wanted to live,” the girl had said, and those were the last words she ever spoke.
Flora froze. She watched as the pale pink lily brushed along her arm, then swirled down toward the depths below with the others. She squeezed her eyes shut—overwhelmed as the newly departed souls enveloped her with feelings she couldn’t console.
The voices babbled on, and Flora kept her eyes closed. For a moment, she just listened.
Her eyes flicked open.
Not far off, another lily caught her eye with a deep ocean blue. The voice that whispered from it was one she’d heard before. Flora swam closer to the flower, barely the size of her palm, and the iridescent trim of the healthy petals came into view.
Davy.
She reached out and touched it, and the memories of her brother flowed through her mind. She held the lily gently between her hands, its light in her eyes bringing her as close as she had ever been to his mind. A fragment of a soul, Sona had called it.
Flora took the blue flower and carefully tucked it into the largest of her pockets, its glow muffled by the dark fabric. She looked down, watching as the cluster of fading night lilies continued down toward the sea of distant light below.
I’m sorry, Flora thought, and with a flickering of color, their voices seemed to soften. And thank you.
She kicked her feet and swam toward the surface.
The red flower was what Elizabeth wanted—the one that held both her husband and the source of her arcane power.
So, Flora swam up, again untangling the web of vines around the red lily. The stranger’s presence radiated around it, its tone as bittersweet as it was dreadful. She clasped it in her hand, and it was as if he shared the voice in her head, watching the petals of his lily through her own eyes.
She looked to the glass ceiling, where the silver-haired woman crouched above. Elizabeth extended her arm, reaching through the barrier between them as if it were nothing. Flora reached for the hand, but the woman recalled it as if she expected the lily alone.
There was a muffled voice above the water, Siren’s voice. In response, Elizabeth’s hand extended once again toward Flora. This time, she didn’t recoil when Flora took it, and she began to pull her up, up through the surface.
Flora gasped, her lungs somehow not flogged with water as she broke through to the shallow water. The bright red flower dimmed in the open air.
Siren said something to her from where he stood, but Flora didn’t listen as she glanced toward her brother.
Elizabeth’s blue vines grew dark, snapping away like dried grass as she pulled at them. She bent over her, snatching the red lily from Flora’s hands.
“Yes, my love. Finally,” she said, her fingers brushing the surface of a crimson petal as the shriveling vines peeled from her face. She stepped over Flora and knelt beside Davy’s head. “Come home, my love.”
Flora scrambled to her hands and knees, splashing as she scuffled and dove. She reached into her pocket and took the blue lily in her grasp. With the dimming flower in her clutch, Flora reached for her brother.
Startled, Elizabeth hissed. “What are you?—”
The lily in Flora’s hands began to break apart, shattering into tiny specks of blue light, floating down to Davy’s body.
Elizabeth snarled, holding her own flower to Davy’s body. It, too, began to shatter as bits of red light drifted through his skin. Elizabeth clenched her fist as the flower dissolved through her hand. She lurched for Flora, gripping the collar of her shirt.
“How dare you?” she yelled, her dark eyes burning with anger. “I’ll rip you limb from limb for trying to take him from me again.”
Intently, Elizabeth blinked her eyes. When nothing happened, she paused, her nostrils flaring. She blinked her eyes again, hoping to summon the pallor of the Moon’s Shadow. But, her irises remained a deep brown.
Elizabeth gasped, releasing her grip on Flora. She shot her glare to the scarred servant at the edge of the water. “Kill her,” she commanded. “Tie her to a branch by her hair, and shred her entrails like paper.”
The figure at the edge of the water stood still, his expression blank. Elizabeth glanced back sharply. The flower was gone, and so was her power. Realizing her predicament, she turned to Siren.
“No,” he said roughly. “I’ve gone too far already.”
Elizabeth began to panic, glancing back at Davy. She knelt down and craned beside him, taking his face in her hands.
“Come back to me,” she pleaded. “Azura, come back.”
Flora rose to her feet, looking down at the pitiful sight. The woman cradled her dead brother’s corpse, whispering to him as though he were the man she lost years ago.
The man in the tattered clothes suddenly gasped, his eyes rolling back as a strained groan trailed from his throat. He gritted his teeth, spit seething through as a low noise rumbled in his throat.
“Look at me, Azura.” Elizabeth wrapped his head in her arms, a miserable grin on her face as she stroked his hair.
Siren took a step toward Flora in the water. “Florabelle, you should come with me,” he whispered urgently.
She flinched at the sight of his hand. “No.”
“Please, we need to get you out of here before he–”
“That’s my brother.”
He tripped on his words, his eyes wide and startled. “Your...?”
The man in the shallows coughed, the water spilling from his lips.
Elizabeth’s eyes lit up. “I’m here, darling. I’m here,” she assured him. He groaned as her delicate hands helped him sit forward.
“Fuck,” he spat.
“... my love, are you alright?” she asked.
“I... I… ” he mumbled. “I haven’t felt hungover like this since New Year’s.”
Elizabeth sputtered. “You what?”
“Bean! Hey, what’s up?” he beamed, noticing his sister as he went to rub his eyes. “I feel like I haven’t seen you since…” He trailed off. “Oh my god.” He laughed. “You made it out of the city alive?”
Flora couldn’t move. She could have sworn she had no tears left, but there was one. One warm, happy tear at the corner of her eye.