The crowd answers the roar. A terrifying cacophony of clicks, hisses, and snapping jaws fills the trench.
I turn to the shell.
"We must shed weight to climb," I announce, my voice carrying over the din. "Strip the hull. Gut the interior. We carry nothing but iron and muscle."
The scavengers swarm the House of Drift. Spider-Crabs coat the exterior walls, tearing heavy barnacles, rusted scrap, and rotting kelp from the wood. Inside, Vaelis and I dismantle the waterlogged furniture. We shove the large oak table out the front door. We toss the spare canvas cots into the silt.
Mira clutches her sailcloth blanket. "Do nottouch my things!" she croaks, swatting a Lantern-Fish from a pile of empty glass jars.
"You possess nothings, you grumpy old mer," Bolt crackles from his cage. "You sit in a pile of garbage."
Pip scurries across the bare floorboards. The tiny crustacean wears his dented helmet. He wields a rusty sewing needle, brandishing the makeshift spear above his head. He snaps his tiny legs together, vibrating with war fury.
A deep laugh rumbles in my chest.
"Ah, a fierce warrior," I praise the tiny beast. "Aim for the eyes, Pip."
Pip clicks his legs in celebration and charges a floating piece of lint.
Vaelis hauls a crate of rusted tools toward the porch, the muscles in his back and arms flexing with the strain. Before he can set it down, I'm on him, taking the full weight of the crate from his hands and tossing it into the dark water with a careless splash. He stops, chest heaving, sweeping the damp crimson hair from his forehead.
"Thank you," I rumble, my new voice a low vibration that I pour directly into the small space between us. "For your support. For your understanding."
He swims close, deliberately crowding my space in the cramped shell. He traces the line of my jaw with a fingertip, a touch that sends shivers down my spine.
"Thank you for saving me, Kael," he whispers.
I cup the back of his neck, my fingers tangling in the wet silk of his hair, and pull him to my mouth. The kiss is a heavy anchor in the chaos, a desperate affirmation. I pour all my gratitude, my fear, and my fierce possessiveness into it. He tastes of salt and anticipation, and when he opens for me, I deepen the kiss, a raw, claiming sound rumbling in my own throat.
We break apart, gasping, sharing the same water, the same breath, the same unbreakable bond.
The barren walls of our home surround us.
We are ready.
"Bolt!" I roar, shaking the kelp. "Now!"
The copper cage flares white-hot. The jury-rigged engine screams in protest.
The House of Drift shudders. It lifts from the seabed, silt cascading from its spiraling spire. The rusted gears grind against the heavy gravity of the sludge.
"Hold formation!" I command the army, my voice booming over the engine noise. "Surround the shell! We play the vulnerable core. You play the heavy armor!"
The scavengers mobilize.
Swarming the rising shell, the Spider-Crabs latch onto the wooden hull. Their metal-patched shells create an interlocking shield of rusted scrap. The Eel-kin weave through the gaps, charged with blue electricity. The Hammerhead takes the point, leading a driving wedge of heavy muscle.
We become a moving mountain of furious debris.
"Accelerating ascent!" Bolt crackles over the mechanical hum.
The shell groans, a deep protest of stressed metal, and then we rise. The ascent is violent, a rocket punching through the viscous, yellow smog of the Silt. The environmental transition is a physical shock. We leave the blind, cloying gloom for the crystalline, biting cold of the Twilight Zone, the water so clear it feels like breathing glass.
Far above, the High Plaza shimmers, a beautiful galaxy of bioluminescent coral and electric light suspended in the endless dark.
Our path is blocked. The Perimeter—an automated military defense grid. It sprawls before us like a iron curtain. Nets hang like deadly lace, proximity mines float silently like predator eggs,and sentinel turrets, dark and patient, track us with unseen heat sensors.
"Contact," Mira rasps from her position inside the shell, her tone devoid of its usual bitterness, sharpened by purpose. "Grid Seven straight ahead. Active heat sensors. They have a lock on the engine core."
