Behind it, in the dim, the massive form of the Leviathan churned, gray fin and black eye.
“I’m dying,” the Leviathan said simply. “We’re being pulled to the Sanctum, all of us, by the magic of my death throes.”
Matter-of-fact, precise. Neve’s whole body felt numb. She thought of what Solmir had told her in the coral prison, how the Leviathan dying would destabilize the Shadowlands entirely, speed up its dissolving. Drastically shorten the time left on their ticking clock.
And she still didn’t know what Solmir planned to do, how he planned to destroy the Kings now that he wasn’t giving Neve over to them as a vessel.
Heedless of the maelstrom of panicked thought swirling in her head, the Leviathan reached across the table and took Neve’s hand, the one still clutching the god-bone. “So here’s what I need to happen: Kill me, Neverah. Absorb my power before the Kings can.”
“Why?” It slipped from icy lips.
The look the god gave her was almost pitying. “Because your soul can take it.”
Another lurch reverberated through the ground, shaking water from the stalactites pointing wickedly toward the floor, rattling the table and all the illusions of plenty piled on it. Neve grabbed the table’s edge to stay steady, looking toward the coral prison that still held Solmir—a crack appeared at the very top, the same place the Leviathan’s tentacle had snaked in to bring her out, spreading slowly down the side.
The Leviathan stayed still, her hand still cradled in its palm, the god-bone still snug in her grip. It stared at her with those dead eyes, and behind it, the true shape of the god shuddered, flashes of massive gray bulk showing through the haze.
“We’ll be there soon, Neverah.” Even and calm, not at all like something dying. “You chose your path when you chose not to follow your sister. When you chose instead to pull the Heart Tree into you, make it something you could carry.”
The key woven into her hair was cold against the back of her neck. From the corner of her eye, Neve could see a strange, dark glow, like the shine of a star dipped in ink.
“Your way is set.” Skeletal fingers squeezed around hers. “Now all that is left is to follow it.”
The crack in Solmir’s prison widened with a groan. A bloodied, silver-ringed hand thrust out, clawed at the rock. “Neverah!”
“He believes in you,” the god murmured. Another crash, shaking the cavern. The death rattles of something divine, bringing it slowly to destruction, the gravity of rotten magic pulling them all toward doom. “And, for what it’s worth, so do I.”
The ocean held in stasis above their heads was changing. Neve couldn’t look at it directly—something about it was blurred, like two thin pictures laid over each other so that the lines tangled. It was the dark sea, but it was also the inside of some huge cavern, almost pyramid-shaped, the hollow body of a mountain. Bones lined the walls, huge ones, twisted ones.
“Time grows short, Shadow Queen.” The Leviathan still sounded calm, but the bite of its fingers into her skin tightened. “Either take my power, or they will.”
Become more monstrous, or the Kings would.
Your soul can take it.
A repetition in her mind, the Leviathan speaking without sound for the first time. Its voice in her thoughts was as vast as its body, something that made her head ache to try to contain.
There was something bolstering about having a god believe in you.
Neve closed her fingers around the bone. She lifted her hand from the Leviathan’s. The corpse-puppet sat back, waiting. Even the churn of the dying true god at the back of the cavern grew still, that one massive black eye fixed on her.
“How?” she murmured.
“A blade across the throat will suffice.” The puppet’s smile widened. “We are tied together by more than seaweed.”
So Neve lunged across the table and swiped the sharp end of the god-bone across the Leviathan’s neck.
Stillness. It was a profound thing, after spending so long with that ever-present rumble beneath her feet, the slight vibration of a breaking world.
Slowly, the corpse-puppet’s head lolled back, the bloodless gash across its dead neck widening, widening as the weight of its head pulled at the wound, ripping the rubbered flesh. Behind it, the vast shape of the true Leviathan shuddered, that massive eye still fixed on her, lidless and staring.
The weight of the head tore through spongy skin and desiccated sinew, snapped brittle ossified bone. It fell to the ground.
And the cavern shook like the world was ending.