She holds something small. It catches the faint, ambient light bleeding down from the glittering city above.
She pauses directly over the Anvil. Hovers exactly where Vaelis and I met. Where his hand touched mine.
A growl builds low in my chest. A vibration against my ribs. Deep. Primal.
She is tracking him.
The guard swims lower. Head swiveling, cutting through the gloom. I see her face now. The severe cut of her dark patrol cowl and the tight, anxious set of her jaw.
I know her. The female who is always hovering near Vaelis in the light. The one he calls Mira.
She found the gap in the kelp line and followed his scent trail down into the cold.
The rage returns, burning hotter now. If she finds him here with me, she will drag him back to the Elders. To the Council. She will expose him and lock him in a cage of rules. I will never see him again.
My fingers unhook the heavy, serrated knife from my belt.
I don't want to kill a guard. It would bring war. A war my kind cannot afford. But if she threatens him, I will gut her and bury her in the silt. My morality begins and ends with him.
I coil my tail beneath me. Ready to strike from the blind spot below her.
But Mira does not descend.
She stops at the edge of the twilight zone and looks down into the abyss. Her body is rigid with terror and determination. She reaches into a pouch at her waist.
She pulls out fruit.
A bright, soft surface-fruit, like the ones Vaelis brought me.
I freeze. My knuckles ache around the knife.
Mira doesn't eat it. She produces a small, gray vial and uncorks it. With a thin needle, she injects drops of dark purple liquid into the fruit's center.
The water around her hands smells of rot. Venom.
The cold in my blood is absolute. A sudden, sharp drop in temperature.
She is not hunting Vaelis.
She is hunting me.
The realization crashes through my mind like a rockslide. She knows. Somehow, she knows about the meetings in the dark. About the fruit. About the soft, trusting gestures he shares with me. She is twisting his kindness into a weapon. Turning his beauty against me.
The cruelty of it is a physical blow. Cold. Calculated. Precise.
She finishes her work. Her movements are methodical. The empty vial disappears into her patrol pouch. Not a trace remains on her hands. Not a hint of betrayal in her scent.
Mira looks down one last time. Her face, what I can see of it beneath the severe cowl, is a mask of grim determination. Then she turns. Her powerful tail propels her upward, slicing through the kelp line without a sound. She vanishes into the blinding light above.
I stay frozen against the rock. A statue carved from shadow and rage.
Long minutes pass. Her scent gradually dissipates. But another smell remains. A cloying sweetness that coats the water near the Anvil.
I recognize it. The stench of the Silt District. The dark, rotting perfume of sea witch venom.
Hush-Urchin venom.
It doesn't stop the heart. It doesn't stop the muscles. It stops the voice. Seals the throat. Silences the hum of the gills.
