Vaelis gets closer.
He speaks to the beast, his voice too soft to carry. He reaches into the kelp satchel at his hip. He pulls out bright surface-fruit. Stolen from the Turning Feast.
He holds the food out in his bare hand.
He holds it out to the monster.
Don't.Bile rises.It will take your hand. It will take your arm.
The shark-mer looks at the fruit. Then, slowly, up at Vaelis.
The monster moves. A hand, made for rending flesh. Gently, terrifyingly gently, it takes the fruit from Vaelis's palm.
It does not eat. It holds it like a jewel.
Then, Vaelis laughs.
The sound cuts through the cold water. Startling. Open. Free.
The sound of someone who has forgotten fear.
The truth settles. He is charmed.
I watch, the knife hot against my hip. The shark-mer leans forward. Its eyes come into focus. Pitch black. The empty eyes of a creature that only knows how to consume.
It has done something to him. Trench-magic. A pheromone. A siren-call. It has twisted his mind. Lured him down to play with him, to ruin him from inside out.
It's making him love the thing that will kill him.
Horror freezes me as Vaelis touches the monster's scarred shoulder. The monster leans into the touch.
My vision blurs with tears.
I can't save him. Not now. Not while he is under its spell. If I swim out, Vaelis will fight me. He will protect the beast.
I must break the hold first.
I slide back into the sponge shadows. My grip tightens on the knife. My knuckles throb.
I will not let the dark have him. I swore to protect him. I will silence this monster's song.
I don't swim fast. Fast movement attracts attention and triggers the chase.
I back away slowly. Inch by agonizing inch. My spine against the trench wall. My eyes locked on them. Vaelis's red hair floats, tangling with the shark's gray shadow. Then a ridge of rock blocks my view.
Only then do I let the scream build in my chest. An overwhelming, silent thing. I force it back down. My lungs burn.
He is compromised.
The thought hammers with my pulse.He is compromised. He is compromised.
I swim toward the Reef. The water fights me, thick as oil. The image burns behind my eyelids. Vaelis laughing at the monsterthat could bite him in half. It was not him. It could not be. Vaelis is careful. Vaelis is proud. Vaelis does not worship death.
It's the monster's voice.
The Elders' stories surface in memory—tales meant to frighten the young. Basalt-Kin do not sing like shallow sirens; they hum. A vibration travels through water, frequencies so low they infiltrate your bones, scrambling your equilibrium until up becomes down, until death becomes love.
He has been poisoned by sound.
