Roe laughed. “No one is going to make the woman with the leviathans do anything she doesn’t want to do.”
“Good,” Mayara said.
They separated, still holding hands.
There were other things she wanted to say to Roe, about how they were still in this together, even if they were on different islands, and about how she thought of her like another sister. She knows, Mayara thought. She feels the same way.
“I’ll see you again soon,” Mayara promised.
Escorted by the Silent One, Mayara walked through the still-ruined city streets down to the docks. She wore the same kind of wrap dress she’d worn when she left home—a new one, since her original dress had been through too much to be wearable anymore, but an ordinary one so she wouldn’t be recognized as anyone connected with royalty or power.
She and the Silent One boarded a small ship. An air spirit was lingering by the sails, ready to blow them home on her command. Unwrapping the lines from the dock, Mayara pushed away. The air spirit—a glass bird—filled the sails with air.
They slid through the harbor.
Mayara stood at the prow of the boat and looked at the ruined city, slowly being rebuilt by humans and spirits under Queen Rokalara’s direction. The palace towers were broken, as if sheared by a massive knife, but the grove still stood, above water once more, its rib cage gleaming. She knew Roe had stationed two heirs in the grove at all times, in case of double tragedy and to guard against another Lanei. In the city itself, people scurried between the wreckage of the houses, carrying tools and supplies.
It will heal, she thought. We all will.
“Ready to go home?” she asked the Silent One.
The Silent One removed her mask. She kept her back to the city, out of either habit or caution, so no one would see her, but Mayara saw. And she saw her sister was smiling. “Yes,” Elorna said. “Take me home.”
SHE BROUGHT THE MONSTERS HOME, INSIDE HER HEAD, BUT SHE also brought her long-dead sister. Reasonable price to pay, Mayara thought. Standing at the front of the boat, she leaped onto the village dock—it was mostly mended, she noticed. She wrapped a line around one of the posts, securing the boat, and watched the air spirit as it flitted away across the harbor.
It bothered her a little that the spirit knew where she lived. But then she felt the power coiled inside her, drawn from the three leviathans who napped fitfully in the Deepest Blue, and she stopped worrying about a little bird.
Elorna hesitated. “What do I tell people?”
“Tell them it’s a miracle. Or tell them you were unjustly imprisoned. Or tell them the truth. Or tell them a different truth every day they ask. The ones who love you won’t care. They’ll just care you’re alive and home.” Mayara held out her hand.
Elorna took her hand and climbed out of the boat. It rocked gently behind her in the waves of the harbor.
In front of them was their village. It looked better than the city. Granted, it hadn’t started out as grand, so perhaps it looked good to Mayara only because it hadn’t had that far to fall. Or maybe it’s beautiful because it’s home.
She pulled Elorna along the dock, stepping gingerly over broken boards and hopping over holes, and then they were on the sand. The clamdiggers were out, bent over the shore, baskets on their backs, trowels in their hands. On the rock jetties, the grandmothers were perched like waiting cormorants, except with fishing poles.
One of them was Grandmama. She saw them first—her sharp eyes missed nothing. “Could it be true? Have our lost girls come home?”
“Yes, Grandmama,” Mayara said, running across the sand to hug her. “We’re here.”
Elorna lagged behind, as if suddenly shy, but after embracing Mayara, Grandmama reached past her to squeeze Elorna’s hand. “Makes me feel twenty years younger to see you girls. Or else question whether I’m still alive. Nah, back hurts too much to be dead. Give me a hug.” She pulled Elorna in for a hug too.
Mayara saw tears brightening her sister’s eyes.
All the clamdiggers and fisherwomen clustered around them, touching Elorna’s gray robes, clucking over Mayara as if she were a chick that had wandered off from the henhouse. She didn’t tell them about the monsters in her head, and they didn’t ask how Elorna was still alive. Seeing the gray robes, they’d probably guessed. Or maybe it was enough for them that the sisters were home.
After they’d greeted all the elders, they walked hand in hand toward their parents’ house. It was in the heart of the village, and all around them people came out of their houses to stare, hug them, cry, tell them the latest news, offer them food, and welcome them home. By the time they reached their parents’ door—which was battered but still standing and, Mayara noticed, decorated with Kelo’s charms—they had a small train of people following them.
“I’m scared,” Elorna said softly.
“Think of it like a dive,” Mayara said. “Deep breath. You’ll feel strange at first, and then you’ll belong.”
And then you’ll drown, the snake said in her head.
Shut up.
Mayara opened the door. “Mother? Papa?”
From within, she heard, “Mayara? It’s Mayara!” Papa’s voice.
She guided Elorna inside and saw her parents had guests: Queen Asana’s parents. She recognized them from the rescue at Neran Stronghold. Kelo made it safely! If they were here, he must be too! She wanted to see him so badly that for an instant she couldn’t think. But then she remembered where she was and pushed Elorna forward.
“Papa?” Elorna said. “Mother? I’m home.”
Mother gave a cry like a wounded gull. Papa staggered, steadying himself on the back of a chair, but Mother flew to her without hesitation. She touched Elorna’s cheeks, her hair, shook her shoulders, squeezed her tight, pushed her back, and then began to cry.
This is what joy looks like, Mayara thought.
Humans, the snake said. So excitable.
You woke up grumpy and decided to destroy a city, remember?
She thought she felt the snake laughing but then thought that must be impossible.
A hand squeezed hers—the queen’s father, sitting in one of her parents’ chairs. “Our granddaughter, Roe. Is she . . . ?” He couldn’t complete the sentence.
“She’s fine,” Mayara said. “She’s the queen, and she’s fine.” Or should that be “she’s the queen, but she’s fine”? There was a difficult road ahead for her, shouldering as much responsibility as she was. “When she’s certain it’s safe, I think she’ll send for you.”
“We’d heard rumors, but . . . thank you.”
She stayed longer, letting her parents fuss over them. And then she excused herself. Waving to people as she passed, Mayara ran the rest of the way up to Kelo’s studio.
The path along the cliff was in the process of being cleared. Mayara could see the indents where boulders had fallen and then been pushed aside, and there were recent saw marks on fallen trees, cut away so that it was easier to walk. She had to climb over a boat that was impaled in the cliffside.
The shells on the last bit of the walkway had been washed away by the rain, and the studio itself looked like a patchwork quilt: fresh wood hammered over the damaged logs. But there was something beautiful about it: new patching the old, pale green against the knotted, weathered gray.
She stopped at the doorway, listening to Kelo puttering around inside. He was whistling a sailor’s song, and she heard the sound of wood being sanded. He’s making art. She wondered what kind of charm it was and whom it was for. And then she wondered why she was delaying.
She just wanted to drink this moment in and make it last.
It won’t last, the dragon told her. Your lives are so fleeting.
I know. And that makes every dive special.
Mayara opened the door to the studio. “Kelo? I’m home.”
He dropped the block of wood he was sanding, and it clattered onto the floor. A bird, she saw. Maybe for a child’s mobile or an over-the-window
charm. He looked tired but perfect. A smudge of soot on one cheek. Scraped knuckles. Hair askew. All perfect.
He didn’t say anything. He just crossed the space between them, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her.
As she tasted his lips, she thought her heart had been deep in the blue for a long time. But now it was rising, could see the sunlight, could see the surface. It broke through. The cold was replaced with the warmth of the sun, and the darkness in her vision was replaced by the brightness all around. She was once again back where she belonged.
Once again, she could breathe.
Acknowledgments
When I first created Renthia, I drew a map. I could see it all so clearly: a world with out-of-control nature spirits would be a world of extreme natural beauty, as well as danger. Lothlórien-like forests with cities nestled in the branches. Mountains so high they pierced the clouds. Endless glaciers. And an ocean filled with sea monsters. In the Queens of Renthia trilogy (which starts with The Queen of Blood, continues with The Reluctant Queen, and concludes with The Queen of Sorrow), I got the chance to explore the forests of Aratay and the mountains of Semo.
But I wanted more.
I wanted to know what was happening on those islands I’d doodled to the south. How did the people there live? How did they survive the spirits and the sea?
I’d like to thank my incredible editor, David Pomerico, for exploring the islands and braving the seas with me. And I’d like to thank my wonderful agent, Andrea Somberg, for believing in me from the start, and my amazing publicist, Caro Perny, for always being awesome. I am so grateful to them and to Jennifer Brehl, Priyanka Krishnan, Pam Jaffee, Angela Craft, Shawn Nicolls, Kayleigh Webb, Virginia Stanley, Chris Connolly, Lainey Mays, Ronnie Kutys, Debbie Mercer, Kara Coughlin, and all the other phenomenal people at HarperCollins for bringing this book to life!
I’d also like to thank my family and friends.
A lot of characters in fantasy books are broken. Don’t get me wrong—I love stories about broken characters who heal, whose scar tissue over their wounds makes them stronger than they ever could have been before. But I also think that strength isn’t born only in pain. Strength can be born in love.
I met my husband when we were both freshmen in college. We were next-door neighbors, and we often say that us getting together was either fate or we’re both just really lazy. We meant to send flowers to the university housing department on our wedding day, but never got around to it—which I suppose is a point in the “really lazy” column.
From the very beginning, he embraced my dream of becoming a fantasy writer and made my writing a part of his dream too. Since day one, we have shared every step of this journey. We face life, with all its ups and downs and twists and quirks, together. And that has made me stronger.
So I wrote this book because I wanted to write about a woman who is made stronger by love—her husband’s love, her family’s love, and her friends’ love.
Of course, I am not Mayara. I could never dive off an ancient skull or face a sea monster. Truthfully, I don’t even like dunking my head underwater, even in the shower. But I am stronger, braver, and happier because of the people in my life.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart and the depths of the deepest blue, to my husband, my children, my family, and my friends for being my light and my joy.
About the Author
SARAH BETH DURST is the author of seventeen fantasy books for adults, teens, and kids, including the Queens of Renthia series, Fire and Heist, and The Stone Girl’s Story. She won an ALA Alex Award and a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award and has been a finalist for SFWA’s Andre Norton Award three times. She is a graduate of Princeton University, where she spent four years studying English, writing about dragons, and wondering what the campus gargoyles would say if they could talk. She lives in Stony Brook, New York, with her husband, her children, and her ill-mannered cat.
www.sarahbethdurst.com
Facebook: sarahbethdurst
Twitter: @sarahbethdurst
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Also by Sarah Beth Durst
The Deepest Blue
THE QUEENS OF RENTHIA
The Queen of Blood
The Reluctant Queen
The Queen of Sorrow
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE DEEPEST BLUE. Copyright © 2019 by Sarah Beth Durst. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Harper Voyager and design are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers LLC.
Title spread art © Rich Carey/Shutterstock, Inc.
Cover design by Elsie Lyons
Cover illustration © Larry Rostant
Cover texture © aekky / Shutterstock (gold); © Matt Antonino / Shutterstock (water); © Willyam Bradberry / Shutterstock (water); © Caracolla / Shutterstock (marble)
FIRST EDITION
Digital Edition MARCH 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-269086-9
Version 02082019
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-269084-5
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