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.
NINETEEN
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.
A point of lava rock got him in the shoulder as he came down. No time for blood. No time for pain. He scrambled to his feet and found Keko across the minefield of upset earth.
She’d fallen, too, the roiling ground continually moving underneath her, and she couldn’t find her feet. Her defensive position was terrible. Griffin could see her trying to stand, to get up and fight back, but her balance was being constantly tossed about. That said a lot, considering what Griffin knew her capable of. Fear for her grabbed hold of him with tight, shaking hands.
The Son went at her, obliterating the space between them, hitting her squarely on. The sound was ugly, terrifying. Rock on skin and muscle. She went down, blood spattering from where the rough edges of his body had snagged and stabbed at her.
As in the canyon with the prayer, the Son was intent on destroying Keko alone, Griffin nearly invisible. Griffin had to use that, so with a roar, he sprinted toward them.
A scream cleaved the daylight. Keko. The Son was winning and Griffin’s heart nearly exploded with worry.
He hopped from tilted rock to tilted rock, coming around the mound formed from the Son’s entrance. Griffin had no knife this time, but it didn’t matter. The blade would only shatter against this body. And rock was not skin; he could not burn the Son with ice as he’d done to Makaha, and the Son’s movement would break apart any freeze.
At last he reached Keko, and he realized he’d been a fool to ever doubt her ability or consider her lost. She was on her back, the Son above her. Her knees flexed between their bodies, her feet planted on his chest, strong thighs holding him at bay. She was pummeling his face with her elbows and fists, little rivers of silvery crimson trickling down his cheeks from the blows. The Son’s exterior was more skin than rock now—a smooth, taut charcoal gray lined with veins of red, like lava rock that had been reignited and flowed again.