Chapter 11: The Basin Names Them

Zoe walked up out of the Basin on a stair of water that was not there a moment before.

It rose under her feet in clear steps and sank behind her as she climbed.

She stepped onto the stone rim, dripping and calm.

Her nightdress was dry.

I fell on my knees and caught her.

She was warm, and her heart was going hard against my ribs, and she was laughing.

"Mama, I can breathe down there. It's so quiet. Did you see?"

"I saw."

"It said my name, Mama. It said all of it."

"What name?"

I felt Kyros kneel beside us.

I did not look at him.

The old keeper limped to the rim with his stick and bent over the water.

The Basin had gone dark and still, but a pale ring of light still moved around its edge.

"The Basin has answered," he said in his cracked voice. "Let the court hear it."

Nobody on the high bench moved.

He lifted his stick, and the water in the pool rose in a thin column, taller than a man, and spoke.

It was not one voice.

It was a hundred, soft and clear, and every person in the cavern heard it.

Zoe, daughter of Kyros and Halia.

Heir of the tides.

I stopped breathing.

Beside me, Kyros made a sound I had never heard from any person.

"No," he said. "That's not."

The water went on speaking.

Halia, queen of the tides, wife of Kyros.

Drowned in this Basin ten years ago on the night of the dark moon, by a hand that is known to the water.

My head swam.

I held Zoe so tight she squeaked.

"Mama, you're squashing me."

"Sorry. Sorry."

The column of water sank back into the pool.

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