The crowd opened before Keko and closed behind Aya as the Daughter followed. As the two women advanced toward the house, the name Kekona created a series of waves across the meadow.

When Keko neared the front, one Chimeran actually did dare to touch her, a palm upon her shoulder, a simple, non-threatening contact. But the Source responded, a sizzle of blue-white zapping the man’s hand. He cried out, his face contorted in pain. When he wrenched his hand away, his palm smoked in a way that Chimeran skin should not.

Keko turned to him in concern. Though Griffin could not hear what she said to the injured man, he could see the compassion in her eyes and the clench of her fingers as she wanted to reach out and comfort him, but could not. At last she continued on through the crowd, the people giving her a wider berth.

“Don’t touch her.” “You can’t touch her,” floated the whispers all around.

Griffin could not believe she was here, Aboveground. He could not believe that the woman he looked at was flesh and magic and real. He’d watched the earth snatch her body and could not believe that anyone not a Son or Daughter would be able to survive below the surface. Yet here she was, a glittering image coming toward him. Did she see the way his chest lurched with every beat of his heart? Could she tell how his fingers were very nearly crumbling the stone balustrade in his attempt to remain still and not rush for her?

She could not, he realized, because she was not looking at him. Her black stare was focused solely on the chief.

The people pressed forward, quieting, as Keko neared the steps. When she reached the bottom step, a tight half-circle formed behind her. With astonishment, Griffin saw that her dress was made of thousands of tiny black lava rocks, all strung together in some invisible manner. All magically reflective. It swung about her legs and grazed the tops of her bare feet. The neck dipped low, openly displaying the magic behind her breastbone.

Ikaika and Bane stepped aside to let her pass. At last she turned her attention to Griffin and his breath caught. Time stopped.

In broad daylight, amidst her entire clan—even under the heavy weight of kapu—he saw what she felt for him. The whole of it, the depth of it, the sheer power of it.

And in that moment he stripped away all of his own restrictions, all his own doubt, and finally let her see his emotion in its entirety, as raw as the magic she carried inside her, far more potent than three little words. She responded with the tiniest of nods—such a testament to her strength and confidence—and turned again to the chief.

“Come here,” she told him.

To Griffin’s amazement—and to the verbal shock of everyone else in the meadow—the chief obeyed. He skirted around Griffin and descended the stairs. When he came off the last step to stand before Keko on the grass—on even ground with her, at her order—the murmurs of speculation and disorder grew.

Aya came forward, her garment of Hawaiian flowers and greenery flowing in the breeze.

The chief lifted his voice to address the crowd again, though he did not remove his eyes from his niece. “Of her own volition, her own strength, Kekona Kalani hunted and found the Source. She took the magic, the Queen’s treasure, and returned to our valley in secret to heal me. She refused to be acknowledged as Queen because she did not want to compromise me, and when the Children of Earth rose up to demand punishment for her causing a volcanic eruption where the Source was located, Keko accepted the sentence. Even though I am the one who should serve it.”

Keko’s lips parted, her eyes widening ever so slightly.

“Aya, Daughter of Earth,” Chief intoned, “because of my deception and selfishness, because of all that Kekona has done for me and all Chimerans, for her bravery and courage, I demand that I take Kekona’s place.”

A roar went up among the crowd, although Griffin couldn’t tell whether it was in protest or agreement because he was already bounding down the steps. At first his target had been Keko. For a moment it seemed like she might faint, but then at the last second he realized that his Keko was about as far from a fainting woman as one could possibly be, and he shifted his target to Bane and Ikaika. Both men looked ready to spark an uprising, to charge at the chief and throw him into the ground themselves.

Griffin pushed a palm into the general’s chest, holding him back. “This is Keko’s. Let her have this.”

Bane blinked down at Griffin and finally settled back, Ikaika following suit.

“Uncle,” Keko said, her voice as clear as a bell. The sound of it heralded silence across the field.

With a firm nod and the tiniest of smiles—a mixture of pride and resignation and sadness—Chief reached out, took Keko’s hand, and coiled the Queen’s necklace into her palm.

“Thank you,” he said. “One final time.”

Griffin looked to Aya who, inexplicably, was looking back at him. Her green eyes were positively shining with unmistakable satisfaction.

Aya ducked behind the chief. The vines and leaves of her dress snapped out to snake around the chief’s body, covering him foot by foot, masking his dusky skin in waxy green. The last part of him to be covered was Keko’s handprint, the black symbol there for every Chimeran to see.

With a spin of white hair and a great yawning of the earth beneath her feet, Aya dragged the former Chimeran ali’i Within.

Keko had to shut her eyes when Aya enveloped her uncle with her magic and the earth swallowed them both. She knew all too well how paralyzing a feeling it was—of being smothered and crushed and blinded without actually dying. You had no control over your body or your movements. You could not scream.

Come to think of it, it was similar to being encased in Griffin’s water bubble beneath the ocean, except when Aya’s magic had released Keko, she’d not been on an island beneath the sun with Griffin fighting at her side. With Aya, she’d been spit out into a deep, dank cave lit only by scant glowing rocks and filled with only the thinnest amount of air. Sight without true seeing, breathing without truly living. Down there, the sounds were unnervingly foreign, the comings and goings of the half-formed Children even more so. Sustenance had been a chalky block of tasteless nothing, meant to keep her body functional but nothing more.

What had been almost three days Aboveground had felt like three years Within.

Keko had endured it because she believed she deserved it. She’d endured it because she’d resigned herself to her fate and wanted to spare Griffin the blame.

Until the moment when Aya had finally come to her, after being left so long alone in the dark, and told her that the chief wished to take Keko’s place.

At first Keko had refused, but then Aya had told her something extraordinary and confidential. “I want nothing more than for Griffin to lead the Senatus,” Aya had said, “and he needs you by his side to gain his seat.”

“He doesn’t need me for that,” Keko had replied. “He told me his goals have changed, that he wants to rethink things.” That had been difficult to realize, even harder to say. “And they won’t let him in now anyway.”

“The new Air delegate is progressive and open. I belong to humanity above the Children now, and I support Griffin’s ideas for integration. If your uncle is no longer the chief, if you return Aboveground and take his place, you will send him to serve his own punishment for the way he sabotaged you. You will also be able to help Griffin achieve what he wants by you leading the Chimerans, which you’ve always wanted to do anyway. As Senatus delegate you can vote Griffin in. Can’t you see? He needs what you can do for your people, Keko. He needs you.”