It takes every ounce of discipline I possess to pull away. The physical separation is like tearing a muscle.
"Go," I command, turning my face toward the open water. "The current is waiting."
He lingers. His gaze burns into my back.
"Will you be here?" Vaelis asks, his voice breaking slightly. "If I come back?"
I stare out into the crushing gray of the trench.
"The deep does not move," I say.
It's a promise wrapped in a warning. Vaelis understands the threat. His eyes still burn a phantom brand into the heavy muscle of my back.
Then the quiet rustle of his fins echoes as he pushes off the stone. He swims past me, a flash of red and gold heading toward the exit.
He does not look behind him.
I follow at a distance. I trail him through the shadows of the rising wall, making sure the lingering eddies do not pull him off course. I watch his lithe, powerful strokes carry him higher, ascending into the warming water.
When the glow of the reef becomes a solid, blinding reality above us, I stop.
This is the boundary. I belong to the pressure. He belongs to the light.
I watch Vaelis cross the threshold. I watch the vibrant colors of his world swallow him whole, hiding him from my sight.
I am alone again. The water around me is the exact same temperature it has always been, the exact same crushing weight I was born into. But as I turn my back on the light and descend into the trench, the sea is colder than it ever has been.
Chapter 5
Worth Burning For
Vaelis
Theartoflyingis not about silence. It's about noise.
If you stay quiet, they fill the gaps with their own fears. They look at your stillness and see rebellion. But if you give them noise, polite, decorative, expected noise, they stop looking. They take the performance and swallow it whole, satisfied the world is exactly the shape they were told it would be.
"The currents have been kind this season," I say. I tilt my head enough to let the ambient light of the plaza catch my jaw. It's a practiced angle. Humble. Striking. Attractively unassuming.
Elder Soryn nods. His expression relaxes into that familiar, suffocatingly condescending approval. "Indeed. The reef recovers quickly when we respect the boundaries. You have done well with the restoration crews, Vaelis. We were concerned, after your overnight disappearance. But you have been exemplary."
Exemplary.
The word tastes like sludge in my gills.
I smile, offering him a soft, grateful expression requiring monumental effort to keep out of my eyes. "I only want to be useful, Elder."
"And you are," he assures me. He pats my shoulder. His hand is dry and withered, like old parchment dragging against my skin. "Your dedication to the inner gardens has been noted. It is good to see you embracing your place here. Some mers wander. You have learned the value of roots."
He is talking about a cage, but he calls it a garden.
I keep the smile fixed in place until he finally swims away to lecture a pair of younglings hovering near the food. The momenthis back is fully turned, the muscles in my neck lock up, rigid with tension.
The gathering today is loud.
It's the seasonal Turning Feast, a celebration of the warming waters, and the central plaza is a riot of forced cheer. Woven kelp banners and bioluminescent lanterns are strung tight between the coral spires, casting a bright, inescapable glow over everything. Hundreds of betta-mers glide through the open water. Their fins trail expensive, dyed silks. Their voices form a constant, overlapping hum of shallow gossip and polite, grating laughter.
It's beautiful. It's completely suffocating.
