Rachel Aaron - The Spirit Thief

So why was she holding out, her doubt whispered. What hope was she trying to preserve? There was no help coming, no knight to ride to her rescue. Even if she could somehow get a message to the Spirit Court, Master Banage was the only wizard strong enough to have a chance against Mellinor, and he would never raise his soul against a great spirit, not even to save her. Hopelessness welled up in her chest, and Miranda choked back a sob, almost losing her rhythm as another wave crashed down. As she struggled to keep their last few feet of air intact, she couldn’t banish the thought that, even if she did somehow get out of this alive, Master Banage would never forgive her for fighting a great spirit. Especially seeing as she was doing it to protect two bounty-carrying criminals and a demonseed. Perhaps it would be kinder to everyone if she dropped her shield and let the water carry them away.

“Just concentrate.” Gin’s gruff voice was frighteningly close to her ear, but the sound of his growl lovelier at that moment than any music in the world. “Great spirits may be old and flashy, but they’re still spirits. The strength of their souls is limited by their physical form. Your strength, a wizard’s strength, is limited only by your will. That’s the secret I learned back on the steppes, when I first decided to follow you.” He pressed his wet muzzle hard against the small of her back. “I will watch your back, mistress, so never let your will falter.”

Miranda turned and clung to him, burying her face in the coarse fur of his long nose. “I will not let you down.”

The waves pounded harder than ever against the shell, but Miranda met each one blow for blow, and no water got through. With every failure, Mellinor roared and foamed, his waters churning as he struck again and was again defeated.

But just as Miranda steadied herself into this new pattern, a surge of oddly familiar spirit power shot through the black water like an arrow, freezing everything with one word.

Stop.

The waves stopped. The water stopped. Even Miranda paused, pressing her hands to her mouth to keep from crying out. Even though the word had not actually been spoken, she would know that spirit voice anywhere. It was Eli.

Like someone had opened a drain, Mellinor’s waters poured away. Miranda’s bubble shattered, and she toppled over, gasping at the fresh air. Mellinor’s water was still ankle deep on the floor, but the spirit’s attention wasn’t on her any longer. The wave had reformed itself above the shattered dais, and all its attention was focused on the gangly figure standing at the far end of the room in a circle of shattered marble.

“What a pain,” Eli said, running his hands through his wet hair. “We go to all this trouble, and the spirit at the heart of everything turns out to be an ungrateful jerk.” He stepped out of the crater he’d made when Mellinor threw him and smiled up at the enormous wave. “It’s time to go.”

“I go nowhere, boy,” the sea spirit hissed, pulling his water closer.

“We’ll see.” Eli’s smile widened, and he opened his spirit.

The room changed. Every spirit, from the stones underfoot to the air overhead to the clothes on Miranda’s body, was suddenly wide awake and focused on Eli like he was the only thing in the world. His open spirit was quick and airy as it raced through the throne room, but there was something different about it, something Miranda had never felt in a spirit before, wizard or otherwise. It felt like light. There was no other way of describing it.

Eli walked casually, seemingly oblivious that he was the object of so much attention. As he walked, the spirits made way. The dirt from the flood rolled aside when he came near, so did the fallen stones and the broken glass, making a clear path. Miranda watched in amazement as the room rearranged itself to make Eli’s walk easier. Even the marble trembled as he stepped on it, not with fear, but with anxiousness, as if it wanted more than anything to make a good impression as he walked the last few steps to the crumbled dais.

Mellinor had shrunk to a wavering ball. He floated over the pile of stones flashing between nervous gray and deep blue.

Eli stopped when his boots were almost touching the shattered rock that had been the first step of the dais stairs. He put his hands in his pockets and looked up at the quivering water. “Now”-the word hummed with power-“I need you to get up.”

It was not an enslavement, as Miranda had been bracing for. It was a request. Mellinor shivered, sending tall waves across his surface. “How is it possible?” the water whispered. “How was I allowed to toss you like that when you bore her mark? Had I but known, had you shown me…”

“None of that matters now,” Eli said. “Just get up. You’re ruining what’s left of Henrith’s throne room.”

The remaining loose water leaped back into Mellinor’s sphere, and the floating ball of water churned as the sea spirit tried to make himself smaller. The best he could manage was still twice Eli’s height. He was about to try again when Eli’s voice stopped him.

“That’s good enough,” the thief said. “Now, please understand that we are, in fact, very sorry all of this happened to you. You have every right to be angry at Gregorn and his descendants, but you need to understand our position. This kingdom”-he pointed toward the ruined windows where dawn was just beginning to tint the sky-“it’s not yours any more. You need to move on.”

The sphere of water spun slowly on its axis, its light muted to a deep, cold blue. “Where would I go? My home was here, my seabed and my fish. Without the land, I am nothing. A homeless spirit is no better than a ghost.”

“You’ll go where all water eventually goes,” Eli said gently. “To the ocean.”

“The ocean?” The light at the spirit’s heart fluttered madly. “Not there. I’ll die before I go there. You’ll have to kill me first.”

“Why are you so afraid?” Eli said. “All of your water has been through the ocean thousands of times.”

“But he hasn’t.”

Eli sighed and turned to watch Miranda hobble toward them, clutching her sides. Her face was pale and exhausted, and fresh yellow bruises stood out stark on her pale, waterlogged skin. Her eyes, however, were determined as she dropped to the ground beside the thief, breathing heavily.

“Water spirits flow in and out of each other,” she gasped. “Rain falls and makes creeks that flow to rivers and, eventually, as you say, to the sea, but,” she said and looked up at the slowly turning water, “a sea is more than the water that passes through it. Even the smallest creeks have their own souls separate from the water that fills them. You can’t just blithely send that soul to fend for itself in the ocean.”

“She speaks the truth,” Mellinor rumbled. “The ocean is a hungry mass too large to have a cohesive soul of its own. As soon as I joined the waves, that mob of water spirits would tear me apart. They would split me into smaller and smaller pieces with each tide, and with every split I’d grow weaker and stupider, until I could no longer remember my own name.”

Eli shook his head. “You’d still be alive.”

“To what end?” Mellinor’s light flashed wildly as the water heaved. “I’d be worse than a ghost. At least if I dry up here, I can die as myself, with my soul intact and entirely my own.”

“Is that really what you would prefer?” Eli said.

The sphere bobbed in the approximation of a resolute nod. “If you won’t let me have my land, yes.”

Eli thought a moment, then nodded gravely. “Very well, we’ll do as you ask.”

Miranda looked up at Eli, horrified. “You can’t just kill him.”