I can't do that to him. The thought of his golden eyes clouding with pity, of his gentle hands trying to care for something this broken, is a worse poison than any witch could brew.
I press the heavy silver mirror flat against my chest. The glass is freezing against my bare skin, a cold anchor in the dead water. It is the last piece of him I am allowed to keep.
I can't stay in the trench. I can't go back to the Reef.
There is only one direction left for a creature with no voice and no pack.
The Blue.
The open ocean. The vast, terrifying wasteland beyond the continental shelf where the deep water runs wild and the floor drops away into the true abyss. It's a place for exiles. For broken things that cast no shadow and have no sound.
I grab the heavy iron scraper from my patrol belt. It's the only thing I have ever truly been good at holding.
I take the silver mirror.
I take nothing else.
I slip out of the dark niche. I don't say goodbye to the pack. I am not welcome.
I swim slowly past my family. They don't even look up from the bloody carcass. Rusk violently fights with Torin over the last piece of prime meat. Jora tests her sharp spear against her thumb. Mother is already sleeping once again on the high ledge.
I am already a forgotten ghost to them.
I leave the cave. I leave the Outskirts entirely behind.
I turn my broad back on the Reef, ignoring the faint, mocking glow of the surface where Vaelis is living his bright, beautiful life without me.
I turn my face toward the endless, empty dark of the abyss.
And I swim into the silence.
Chapter 9
The Bleeding Signal
Vaelis
Theseameasurestimein currents, not light. It marks the passing of hours by the subtle shifts in pressure, the rhythmic falling of organic silt from the world above, the slow leaching of warmth from your bones until the freezing cold becomes a permanent part of your marrow.
I've hovered over the flat basalt stone of the Anvil for three complete current shifts.
My hands are empty. My body trembles.
I stare into the pitch-black of the abyss where Kael vanished. I stare until my golden eyes burn and my vision swims with phantom gray shadows, hoping one of them will solidify into the heavy, scarred shape of the mer I was beginning to love.
He's not coming back.
I lower myself onto the hard stone, wrapping my arms around my chest to hold my ribs together. My sternum is cracked wide open.
I replay the horrific moment a thousand times in my head, searching the memory for a mistake. I search for a slip-up, a wrong word, a sudden movement to explain the sheer violence of his departure.
I arrived at the Anvil exactly when I promised. I left my scales bare of the ridiculous pearl dust, true to his request. I brought him the sweetest fruit from the high gardens, wanting to give him another taste of the sun.
The way he looked at me when I offered the fruit burns in my mind. His black eyes were soft. They held a raw, terrifying vulnerability, making my breath catch in my throat. He reachedout and covered my hand with his heavy fingers. His skin was rough like sandpaper, but his touch was gentle. He held my hand for a lingering, agonizing second.
He ate the fruit.
And then, he broke.
