Thaddeus struggled to hold on to J, who was fighting against him with everything he had.
“Dita!” J cried. “What’s that monster doing to ’er?”
Thaddeus felt helpless, watching as Rémy was held fast by two of the goddess’s guards. There was fresh movement behind him, and Ikshuvaku appeared, his terrified soldiers parting to let him through. As he looked down into the cavern, the smug look on the jeweled man’s face turned first to shock and then to fear.
“What devilry is this?” The raja’s horrified voice was so hushed that it was almost lost beneath the pounding beat of the drums.
“What’s the matter, raja?” Desai asked quietly. “Not entirely how Sahoj described it when he spoke of the Sapphire Cutlass?”
The jeweled man opened his mouth to say something else, but no sound was forthcoming. After a second he shook his head and tried again. “He told me she would become another servant,” Ikshuvaku murmured. “That once she was awake, she would do my bidding and none other’s.”
Desai’s mouth twisted into a grim smile. “Does she look as if she’s likely to take your orders, Ikshuvaku? Does she look as if she would take the orders of any mere man?”
The raja tried to say something, but managed only to stutter, “This … this power …”
“It should not exist,” Desai finished for him.
The raja fell silent again, continuing to watch as the Sapphire Cutlass turned her attention to Sahoj. The mystic stepped forward with a deep bow, and appeared to say something to the woman.
“Are her legs truly made of sapphire?” Thaddeus asked, somewhat mesmerized by the play of flame-light that danced through the strange woman’s transparent limbs. This all felt unreal, somehow, and he wondered whether that was the point of the never-ending drumbeat, which now almost felt as if it were coming from inside his own skull.
“She is becoming the stone,” Desai answered. “See the power that radiates from her even now? When the transformation is complete … she will be unstoppable.”
“Surely you exaggerate, as always, Desai,” said the raja, his tone straining to achieve its usual languid mockery. “Sahoj clearly thinks she can be controlled, or he would not be so close to her.”
Desai cast the raja a pitying look. “He does not seek to control her. He seeks to join her — to stand at her side and feed from her fortunes, even as he did with you all these years. Your power is almost spent, but hers is rising and it will be greater than the world has ever seen. What better place to enjoy such power but at its right hand?”
“The tattoo,” Kai spoke up. “Is it really so important? They all have them.”
“It is how she will recognize her followers and bestow her power upon them,” said Desai. “Any without it will serve as slaves — or perish.”
“The Comte de Cantal had one,” said Thaddeus. “So we have to suppose that all those other people on the list do, too.”
“Indeed,” Desai agreed. “They have been planning this for years. Decades, perhaps. It seems her followers are spread throughout the world, awaiting this awakening and the power of her true strength. With it, no mortal will be able to stand in their way. They will own the world.”
“What do we do?” The words were spoken by the raja. When the eyes of the group turned to him, he squared his shoulders and set his jaw. “I do not have the tattoo. I will not serve and I refuse to die,” he spat.
“The only chance we have now is in the opal,” Desai said, turning to look at Upala. “It may be the only thing that can stop the transformation.”
Upala pulled her opal pendant from beneath her shirt as she looked down at what was happening below them. It glowed faintly in the dim light of the cavern. “What do I have to do?”
“Nothing,” Kai said forcefully as he stepped forward. “Whatever has to be done, I will do it.” He held out his hand to Upala. “Give me the stone.”
“No,” said the pirate woman. “You gave it to me. It is mine.”
“I will return it to you,” Kai told her, gesturing with his hand at the opal. “When this is done, you can have it back.”
Upala looked at him steadily. “You are injured,” she pointed out. “Whatever has to be done, I am sure it will need to be fast. Tell me, old man,” she said, her gaze still fixed on the pirate captain even as she addressed Desai. “What must I do?”
“The opal must drain her power,” Desai told her. “To do that you must press it to her forehead and hold it steady. For as long as it may take.”
Kai spun to look at him. “You have got to be joking.”
Desai shook his head. “I am afraid not.”
“You are not doing it,” Kai said, turning back to Upala. “I am your captain — it’s my responsibility. Give me the opal.”
Upala took a step back. “I will not,” she said calmly. “The gem is mine. You gave it to me. I accepted it and now I accept the responsibility for using it.”
“But I didn’t know!” Kai burst out. “When I gave it to you, I didn’t know all this. I just wanted … just wanted to …”
Upala moved closer. “You wanted to … what?”
Color sprang into Kai’s cheeks. He looked away, putting his hands on his hips and adopting a swaggering stance. Upala lifted one hand and ran her fingers lightly along his jaw. He reacted quickly, reaching up to grab her wrist and clutching it tightly against his chest.
“You are my captain,” Upala said softly, “and I am your talisman. I will do this. It is my duty. It is my right.”
“You’ll never make it,” Kai said thickly. “They’ll kill you before you even reach the demon.”
“Have a little faith, Captain Kai.”
He tugged her a little closer. “If I have ever had faith in anything, then I have it in you.”
Upala smiled, a spark of bright beauty against the backdrop of nightmare playing out below them. She stepped away from Kai, turning to face the rest of them as the captain’s hand released her wrist and slid down to grasp her fingers instead.
“I will need a diversion,” she said. “Or Kai’s right, I will not make it. Fight like tigers, my friends, and we may still prevail.”
“What about Dita?” J asked. “We can’t just leave ’er like that! We’ve got to ’elp ’er.”
“Go for the girl first, if you can,” Desai told Upala. “Her transformation is new, and you may still be able to reverse it entirely.”
Upala nodded. “All right. Now, enough talk. It is time for action.” She let go of Kai’s hand and drew her sword. “Carve a path that will make them think we are launching a full-on attack.”
“And you?” Thaddeus asked. “What are you going to do?”
Upala smiled at him. “I shall take a stealthier route.”
She went to move away, but Kai reached out and pulled her back, spinning her toward him. They stared at each other for a split second, and in it Thaddeus felt his stomach drop. He knew that look — he had looked at Rémy that way so many times that it was impossible to count them all.
“Don’t die,” Kai begged Upala quietly. “That’s an order. Don’t. Die.”
Thaddeus looked away as their lips met. His eyes sought out Rémy instead, her black-clothed figure drowning in the impossibly huge sea of gold and blue that flooded the cavern below, and his heart turned over. These past days and hours had been about the fate of the entire world, and yet in the few seconds of yearning he had felt radiating from Kai and Upala, Thaddeus recognized a simple truth.
None of it mattered to him without Rémy.