“I am yours,” came the whisper in her ear. But of course that was just the wind, pushing them toward the sea, into her death.

Death came with the implosion of the whole world against her skin, a great crush and wet suffocation, and the sound of a mountain being thrust into the sea. She went deaf with the power of that sound, and blind from the brightness of the dying sun. Then blackness took over her vision.

To her surprise, the crush lessened. She was being cushioned, bouncing in something unseen. Floating again amongst an undulating black.

Death was surprisingly peaceful. She waited for the Queen’s greeting, for her forgiveness, for her welcome into the afterlife.

And then Keko breathed.

Her lungs contracted, gasping. There it was: Damp, sweet air flowed between her lips and into her throat. It filled her lungs and pumped her chest in and out, in and out.

What the—

Her eyelids flew open. She was floating in a bubbling, frothy world—a water world made of a million shades of blue and green. Water flowed all around—above, below, on all sides—but it did not touch her because she was balanced in the middle of some sort of giant bubble. Her limbs were weightless, her hair swirling around her head.

The foam and bubbles racing around her incredible cage of air popped and fizzled, clearing away the murk, finally giving her a view of the ocean below the waterline. The ocean, as far as she could see.

The water cage shivered, and she knew this was Griffin’s doing. Indeed, the bubble itself was Griffin. Him. All around her.

She was alive but trapped.

The cage began to move. It pushed through the water, slowly at first, dragging her with it. Then it started to pick up speed. Unable to control anything, she panicked, trying to throw her fists against the walls, still wanting to fight the man who’d taken her, but her movements were waterlogged and ineffective.

He was pulling her back to the mainland. She just knew it. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to allow it, to just let him throw her from a cliff into the ocean and drag her back to the Senatus in a cage made of fucking water.

She screamed at him, her voice sounding muffled and wimpy.

She squirmed, her limbs and threats coming off puny and slow.

She reached for her magic, but the fire died on her tongue the second she opened her lips. It was still there, not dead, not diminished, just unable to be released within Griffin’s confines.

Fuck him. Just . . . fuck him.

The bubble cage was zooming now, the parting water churning past, rolling off the sides of Griffin’s magic. Off Griffin himself. He shot them through the ocean, in and out of pockets of shadow and sun, light and dark. Schools of fish darted out of their way. Reefs stretched out their hard fingers, trying to pop the bubble, but Griffin deftly steered around them. The great looming shapes of migrating whales passed in the distance, their eerie, sorrowful sounds amplified in her watery prison.

Keko continued to fight. Her mistakes would haunt her forever, but perhaps no mistake bigger than the one holding her now.

Minutes, or maybe it was hours later, she felt them start to rise, to slant diagonally up through the water. Outside the rounded walls of her cage the shades of ocean blue paled. Rolling onto her back in sluggish, delayed movements, she watched the glitter of the sun lay itself over the top of the water. Long beams of light tried to make their way down to her. Then more and more. They pierced Griffin’s magic, striking her, blinding her.

He was bringing her to land again, and when they popped out, she was sure they’d be surrounded by Ofarians. Griffin—and all of them—better be ready for one crazy fight. She steeled herself, preparing. She expanded her chest and took in all that godforsaken damp air. She liked that—using the very oxygen Griffin gave her to prepare the weapon she was about to use against him.

The light above, twinkling in the water between the bubble and the surface, grew and grew in intensity. The pressure in her ears and body lessened. She could see the waves now, tipped with choppy white.

The bubble cage burst free from the ocean. It tumbled across the surface, spinning and spinning. Land appeared below—a harsh, jagged shoreline. They sailed up and over it, then the cage was no longer water, but a fine mist, swirling all around her in a dizzying, solitary tornado. She was nauseous and disoriented, and when she felt that mist coalesce back into Griffin’s body—his arms and legs still wrapped tightly around her—she felt furious.

They hit the ground, rolling again. With an “oof” and a moan, his clamp on her loosened, and then released her completely. When her body stopped jouncing over itchy dry grass and rocky soil, she somehow got her limbs to obey and pushed herself up to hands and knees. The world seemed determined to pitch her back into helplessness. All she could focus on without heaving was the spinning ground.

A large male hand rested on her back. It calmed her, though she didn’t want it to. When the hand skated gently up her spine to hook her hair off her neck, and a smooth current of refreshing air hit her skin, it jolted her back into reality.

She shook Griffin off, scrambling away and shoving to her feet. He remained kneeling, letting her go, merely looking up at her with oddly resigned eyes.

“Get up,” she snapped. “Fight.”

He dabbed at his cut lip and flicked a glance off to one side. “Look around you first. If you still want it, then I’ll give it to you.”

It was difficult to look away from him, but that’s exactly what she did. And took in a completely unexpected sight.

They were on a tiny island whose entire, uneven shoreline could be seen from their vantage point. Hard, pitted earth rolled in all directions, and beyond that, the vast, endless ocean. No other land in sight. In the center of the island jutted up a flat-topped rock, split raggedly down the middle, looking like a petrified giant clam. From that crack spewed a river of magic that Keko could feel in her chest and in her soul. She knew that magic. She’d wanted it and had made it her prey.

Griffin hadn’t brought her to the mainland. He’d taken her right to the Source.

She swiveled back to him, her jaw working but no words coming out. Maybe there was nothing he could say that would prove his loyalty to her, but apparently there was something he could do.

Another dab at his split lip. “I tried to tell you. I—”

His pupils dilated. His eyebrows came together and he looked far past her shoulder. Just like the day in the canyon with the Queen’s prayer.

And that’s when the Son of Earth burst from the ground and attacked.

No tree to possess this time. The Son of Earth unfurled from the ground in a tumble of lava rock, his black craggy body splitting away, reversing gravity as he grew taller and wider. The chunks of his arms shot out from his sides, his head coming together in a clatter of stones, fitting together in a horrifying puzzle. A small earthquake shook his lower half, and the massive chunk of rock severed down the middle, forming legs. The whole thing took less than two seconds.

He took a pounding step toward Keko and Griffin. Then another. And then the fight began.

Griffin had been warned. He knew this was coming. He’d even agreed to this, to letting the Children have Keko if she got within reach of the Source, but even as he’d taken both their bodies over the cliff on the Big Island and plunged them into the ocean, he’d clung to the belief that he’d somehow find a way around Aya’s ultimatum.

He still believed he would, if only now because he had no other choice. It gave him something to fight for. Something worthy.

As Griffin rocked to his feet, Keko fanned out wide, wisely splitting the Son’s attention. If she could maneuver to the stoneman’s back, Griffin could attack from the front. Except that Keko never got that far, because the earth gave a giant lurch under the Son’s rocky feet, levering him into the air and arrowing his massive body right at her. At the same time, the earth below Griffin belched, throwing him airborne in the completely opposite direction.