Chapter 13

Raeve spots Kaan rowing a boat toward danger, with Pyrok present and a prisoner bound. Bells chime and the cavern’s glowing insects dim, signaling a shift. Determined to intervene, Raeve rips off her iron ring and turns to Clode, singing a lullaby to charm the airy entity into helping.

Clode responds, surging across the water and ramming the boats toward the pier with excessive force. Pyrok leaps to the second boat and hacks at the prisoner’s bindings. Clode overpowers the vessels, sending them past the pier to smash against the near-vertical shore, cracking the hulls and dumping Kaan, Pyrok, and the prisoner into the water.

The lake flares with light as an anthe rushes from the cavern, a pale, many-limbed predator closing rapidly. Realizing the trio cannot escape in time, Raeve resolves to act. She plunges inward to her icy inner lake, glimpses a tear-shaped crystal left by her Other, and briefly seizes it before Rayne’s crushing, mournful melody overwhelms her. She drops the crystal, fights through the despair, and resurfaces.

With the anthe nearly upon them, Raeve steps into the water and gathers fragments of Rayne’s broken language. Despite Kaan shouting her name, she focuses, shapes the grief-stricken notes, and begins to sing. The unfamiliar, heavy melody cuts through the chaos.

Rayne’s pervasive song in the world falls silent. The anthe, drawn by Raeve’s rendering of Rayne’s lament, stops singing and listens, halting its immediate attack and buying a crucial moment of reprieve.