“Mellinor?” she whispered, her voice hesitant.
Nothing happened. As the seconds ticked by, dread filled Miranda’s stomach. Had she missed him? Had she taken too long? Maybe the invading sea spirit wasn’t her Mellinor at all. Maybe she’d let wild hope cloud her judgment. Maybe she’d rushed all the way down here for nothing.
She’d nearly worked herself into a full-blown panic when the water answered. “You must be the Spiritualist.”
It wasn’t Mellinor’s deep voice but higher pitched and faster, the words clipping into each other.
“I am Miranda Lyonette,” Miranda answered, getting a firm grip on her emotions. “You must be Rellenor.”
“About time you got here,” the river replied in a snippy voice. “I was about to kick him out, Great Spirit or no. The nerve, bringing salt water into my current.”
“Thank you for your patience,” Miranda said. “Can I speak with him?”
The river burbled noncommittaly, and then the black water around Miranda’s hands grew clear, the river muck separating out to reveal a current of blue, beloved water.
“Miranda,” the water whispered in a deep, relieved voice. “I found you.”
“Mellinor…” It took every bit of self-control Miranda had not to burst into tears right there. Instead, she leaned down, lowering her face until her nose was brushing the clear, salty water. “I thought…” She couldn’t even say it. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I let you down. I left—”
“Don’t start,” Mellinor said. “We went in together knowing the risks. I can’t have you taking all the blame for something we both decided.”
“But how did you survive?” Miranda said, running her hands through his cold water. “And why are you here, in a river?”
“The answer to both those questions is the same,” Mellinor said. “After the Empress knocked you out of the water, the sea currents tore me apart. I lost nearly all my water, but I managed to preserve my core. I don’t know how, exactly. My best guess is that four hundred years in a pillar followed by my time with you gave me a greater sense of self than most water spirits. But even though I was able to hold the last bit of my soul together, I was trapped by the currents and eventually sank.”
“You sank?” Miranda couldn’t imagine it.
“Like a stone,” Mellinor answered. “I didn’t have the strength to go against the crashing waters and I was too heavy to flow above them, so I fell down into the black abyss.” Mellinor’s water trembled against her fingers. “I’ve never been anywhere so dark, so cold. I didn’t even have the strength to flow. All I could do was keep falling. I’ve never felt so helpless, even in the pillar.”
“I’m sorry,” Miranda whispered again. “I’m so, so, so—”
“Enough,” Mellinor rumbled. “Didn’t I say it’s not your fault?”
Miranda clenched her fingers. “But you suffered.”
“I did,” Mellinor said. “But I’m only telling you about it so you can understand why I did what I did next. Listen, and stop interrupting. I don’t have much time.”
Miranda nodded and motioned for the water to continue.
“I sank for a long time,” he said. “Until, finally, I hit something. At first, I thought it was the bottom of the sea, but then I realized it was moving.”
“Moving?” Miranda said, forgetting her promise not to interrupt. “Was it a leviathan?”
“Far bigger,” Mellinor said. “I’d landed on the Deep Current, the backbone of sea.”
“But I thought the sea was a mad mass of water?” Miranda said. “Too large and chaotic even for Great Spirits. That’s what you said.”
“It is,” Mellinor said. “But it wasn’t always that way.” The water paused. Had Mellinor been human, Miranda could almost picture him looking side to side before leaning in to whisper, “You remember what the Shaper Mountain showed us? About the time before?”
Miranda nodded.
“Back then, the sea was different,” Mellinor said. “It used to be that the ocean was home to the greatest spirits, the enormous forces who kept the sea moving. Now, only one remains, the Deep Current that runs from the northern ice down to the warm southern seas. It’s the largest water spirit in the world, the only one big enough that the now-mad ocean can’t rip apart. Its flow is what drives the other currents and prevents stagnation.”
“And you landed on it?” Miranda said. “What happened then?”
“What else?” Mellinor said. “I was sucked into its flow. Even I can’t fight a spirit that large.”
Miranda trembled at the thought. “How were you not destroyed, then?”
“Because the Deep Current doesn’t absorb lesser spirits,” Mellinor said. “It must remain pure and whole because it is one of the most ancient spirits, and, in turn, one of the stars.”
“Mellinor!” the river’s voice cut in, horrified. “You dare speak the Lady’s business to a—”
“She already knows,” Mellinor snapped back. “Quiet.”
To Miranda’s great surprise, the river fell silent.
“I thought that was the end, then,” Mellinor continued. “The Deep Current runs along the base of the world. Once you’re caught, there’s no escape. You don’t get absorbed, but you can’t escape, either. You can’t do anything except roll along forever until you finally give up and let your water go. But before I could resign myself to my fate, the current vanished.”
Miranda blinked in surprise. “Vanished? But you said—”
“I know,” Mellinor said. “Old, ancient, enormous, how could it vanish? It was a star. But it did. One moment I was flowing through the dark with the Deep Current; the next it was gone. Just disappeared, like it was yanked out of the ocean.”
“I don’t understand,” Miranda said. “What did you do?”
“The only thing I could do,” Mellinor said. “The bottom of the sea was still for the first time ever. I was surrounded by abandoned water without a will or mind of its own. It had to go somewhere, so I took it over.”
“You took it over?” Miranda repeated dumbly.
“Yes,” Mellinor said. “Without the Deep Current to push it, the sea’s cycle was slowing. It would eventually stop altogether. The moment the current vanished, the lesser water spirits began to panic. I had to do something. I did spend several thousand years as a Great Spirit, you know. That kind of obligation doesn’t just go away.”
“You took over the water left by a star?”
“Yes,” Mellinor said again. “That’s what I came to tell you. Until a bigger spirit comes to take the job, I’m the Deep Current, and we have a serious problem.”
“You can’t be the Deep Current?” Miranda said, her head spinning.
“No,” Mellinor snapped. “That part’s fine. I’m talking about the fact that a star vanished. The Deep Current, the king of the sea, one of the largest, oldest, steadiest spirits in the world. A water spirit so large that it drove the ocean disappeared, Miranda. It was only by chance that I was there and had retained enough of myself to take over the gap it left before the ocean went stagnant.”
Miranda took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. “How long can you do the Deep Current’s job?”
“Long as I can bear the dark, I suppose,” Mellinor said. “I’m an inland sea, I’m used to warm water and sunlight. But I can stand it for a while, especially since the currents are treating me like they used to treat the old Deep Current.”
“They’re treating you like a star, then?” Miranda said.
“More or less.” She could almost hear Mellinor’s smile. “How else do you think I was able to get a river to take my water into Zarin to find you?”
“Certainly not my first choice,” Rellenor said with a splash that drenched Miranda to the chest. “I don’t care if you took over the Deep Current’s position; how can you calmly break the Lady’s law to this human? It’s blasphemy, and if you think I’m going to keep quiet about this, then—”
“I don’t think a river could be quiet if its waters depended on it,” Mellinor snapped. “You can go crying to the Shepherdess if you want, but before you do, you should know that Miranda here is a friend of the favorite.”
The river suddenly went very still. “Friend of the favorite?” It sloshed quietly. All at once, the water began to gently lap at Miranda’s boots. “Why didn’t you say so, my lady?”
Miranda almost declared that she had never been friends with that irresponsible thief, but she caught
