"You knew this was here?" I ask, turning to him in awe. The question feels foolish the moment it leaves my lips. Of course he knew.
He is not watching the vents. He is watching me.
His expression is unreadable, his jaw set in its usual hard line, but his black eyes are soft in a way they never are near the surface. There's no hunger there, no threat. There’s a quiet, steady focus that feels more intimate than any touch.
"I knew the heat was here," he says quietly. "I never looked at the rest of it. Not until you."
The words hang in the water. He brought me here to show me this secret world, this violent beauty, because I was the one who asked to see. Because I was the one who didn't run from the dark.
His frame floats with an ease that defies the crushing pressure, a predator perfectly at home in this alien cathedral of poison and light. But his attention is not on the violent beauty below. He's still watching me, his dark eyes holding an expression so raw it steals the air from my lungs. It's the same look from the hollow, but amplified by the chaos of the vents.
My chest aches, a sharp, sudden pang of a belonging so profound it borders on pain.
My fingers tremble as they find the satchel at my hip, the leather cool against my skin.
"I brought you something," I say. The Vael persona, the confident, decorative shell, dissolves completely in the deep, leaving only the shyer truth. "From the surface."
Kael's heavy brow furrows, a line of suspicion etched between his eyes. "I have no use for surface trash, Vaelis."
"It's not trash," I insist, closing the distance between us. The warm, mineral-rich water churns around us. "It's perspective."
I pull out the mirror and the comb, my movements clumsy in the face of his scrutiny.
He studies the objects, his expression blank. Unimpressed. "You brought me glass," he says, the words flat as the basalt we shelter in.
"It's a mirror," I correct him, my voice softening. "And a comb. Look."
I angle the mirror, catching the strange, violet glow of the bacterial mats in its tarnished surface. The glass is ancient, a ghost with spiderweb cracks at the edges, but it still holds a reflection. I hold it up, pushing it gently through the water until his own face fills the ornate, silver frame.
Kael flinches.
It's a minuscule movement, a sudden tightening of the muscles around his eyes and jaw, but I'm close enough to see it.
He stares at his own reflection as if it's a physical threat, his eyes hardening. He studies the flat, brutal plane of his nose. The solid darkness of his iris. The way his mouth rests in a permanent, downward curve, hiding teeth meant for tearing flesh.
"It's distorted," he mutters, his voice vibrating with a sudden, sharp defensiveness. He shoves the mirror away with the back of his scarred hand. "Why would you carry a thing that lies to you?"
"It doesn't lie," I say gently, pulling the mirror back to rest against my own chest. "It reminds you."
"I know exactly what I am," Kael snaps, turning his face away to glare back toward the roaring vents. "I don't need a fragile piece of surface trash to tell me I have teeth."
I watch him for a long moment, the heat from the vents washing over us in waves. He's so rigid. So relentlessly utilitarian. He treats his own body like a vessel for survival, something to be fueled, rested, and used as a weapon against the dark. He has absolutely no concept of the art of himself.
"Sit," I command, my voice quiet but firm.
Kael pauses, looking back at me over his shoulder, his dark eyes wary. "Why."
"Because you are a knot of tension," I say, drifting upward until I hover directly behind his broad shoulders. "And because I want you to."
Kael freezes. I can feel the war between instinct and curiosity in the rigid line of his spine. Finally, with a low huff that sends a stream of bubbles rushing toward the vents' dark plumes, he lowers his frame onto a flat shelf of basalt. His heavy tail curls around the stone with a finality that settles him against the rock.
I move behind him.
His hair is nothing like the fine, spun silk of my people. It's coarse, and dark as the abyss itself. Wildly tangled from the constant, abrasive friction of the deep. I raise the white bone comb.
"If you pull," he warns, the low vibration traveling directly through my chest, "I will bite you."
"Relax, shark," I murmur, a faint smile touching my lips. "I know how to be gentle."
