Kael tightens his iron grip on my waist. He angles his heavy body downward.
He's taking me deep into the dark. And for the very first time in my sheltered life, as the freezing water closes over my head and the false light of the surface fades away, fear vanishes.
I am chosen.
The rapid descent is a terrifying blur of dizzying speed and crushing pressure. The world dissolves into motion around me, a frantic plunge into darkness.
I'm dimly aware of the ocean water changing color around me. It shifts from the blood-clouded gray of the chaotic battle above, to a deep bruising purple, and finally to a black so absolute it is a solid wall.
Kael doesn't slow down. He swims with a terrifying, single-minded efficiency. His heavy tail beats a frantic, powerful rhythm against me. He holds me so tight I can barely inflate my lungs, but I don't care. The agonizing pain radiating from my shredded shoulder is a deafening roar drowning out everything else.
We're going too deep,a fading, logical part of my mind whispers. My fine gills can't take this crushing pressure.
But I soon realize we're not aiming for the bottom of the trench. We're aiming for the Shell.
The massive, ancient conch looms out of the darkness below us. It is a brilliant beacon of chaotic, electric blue light. The heavy kelp curtain at the main entrance is torn, flapping in the thermal current.
Kael dives for the glowing opening.
We hit the threshold. He swings us both inside the shell, using his own broad back to absorb the brutal impact as we crash onto the white sand floor.
The transition from the freezing ocean to the warm water of the shell is a shock. My chilled skin prickles. The heavy scent of sharp ozone and boiling sulfur hits my sensitive nose, chemical and alive.
Kael slams his heavy hand against the sandy floor.
I can't hear him hit the ground. I'm still deafened by the medical shock and the crushing pressure. But the intense vibration ripples through the sand.
A blinding, explosive flash of blue light erupts from the center of the room.
I squint against the glare, my vision swimming with dark spots. A terrifying monster is coiled inside a heavy cage of rusted copper pipes. It's a giant, crackling electric eel.
"Ah, you brought your Red Prince home!" the eel's deep voice booms. The sound vibrates through the water trapped inside the shell. "And you brought half the damned ocean with him!"
I look back at the main entrance.
The towering Great White is there.
The shark-mer followed our bleeding trail. His bulk is too wide for the tall, narrow opening, but he thrashes against the shell's exterior. His fists slam against the aperture. His bloody teeth snap at the torn kelp curtain, a deep voice vibrating through the water, demanding we abandon our hiding place. The ancient structure shudders under the assault. Fine calcium dust rains down from the curved ceiling.
Kael doesn't hesitate. He leaves me resting on the warm sand and swims fast to the copper cage.
He screams something silent and furious at the glowing eel.
The eel grins. A terrifying, jagged expression made of pure electricity.
"Hold onto your fins, shark!" the eel's voice crackles in my mind. "I am blowing the main manifold!"
The eel uncoils. He flares with a blue light so bright it turns my entire field of vision pure white.
CRACK.
A devastating shockwave of pure, unadulterated electricity explodes outward from the copper cage. It travels rapidlythrough the rusted metal veins fused to the shell, actively amplifying a thousand times over.
The mechanical engine roars to life. It is not a low hum anymore. It is a deafening scream of grinding metal and raw magic.
The large shell lurches.
The sudden, brutal acceleration throws me backward against a large pile of rotting fishing nets. The ambient pressure inside the shell drops instantly as the structure rockets forward. We are diving blindly down the steep continental slope. We are rocketing away from the treacherous ridge, away from the hungry sharks, and permanently away from the false reef.
