The Great White is left behind in a churning cloud of dark silt and boiling ozone.
We are falling. Tumbling blindly into the true abyss.
The dark world outside the shell is a terrifying blur of speed lines. Inside the shell, it's pure, terrifying chaos. Glass jars topple and shatter. Heavy pieces of scrap metal clatter across the shifting floor.
I slide helplessly down the curved calcium wall. My severely injured shoulder scrapes against the rough stone.
The pain flares bright, white-hot, and consuming. Then, it mercifully fades into a cold, creeping, absolute numbness.
I look weakly across the chaotic room at Kael.
He slumps heavily against the base of the copper cage, his broad chest heaving with each frantic gasp. The wildness in his eyes burns through the dim blue light. His dark hair, once so meticulously kept by my own hands, now spills in a chaotic halo of tangles around his face. My crimson blood paints streaks across his pale skin, a violent contrast against the exhaustion etched into his features.
He spots my eyes through the pulsing glow.
He crawls toward me. The brutal acceleration pins us both to the floor, making swimming impossible. He drags his heavy body through the white sand, each movement a desperate struggle against the crushing gravity, until he hovers directly above my face. The sand clouds around us, tiny particles dancing in the erratic blue light.
His large hands tremble as they reach for me. His fingers trace the line of my jaw, then move to the shredded mesh vest hanging in tatters from my uninjured shoulder. They hover over the horrific wound on my left, the torn flesh still bleeding steadily into the warm water.
He pulls back, his own hand now painted crimson. The sight of my blood on his skin shatters something in his expression. His dark eyes widen with a terror so pure it eclipses even the electric glow surrounding us. He stares at the blood on his fingers, then looks back at my fading eyes, a desperate, silent question passing between us.
He opens his mouth, the muscles in his scarred throat straining against the venom's paralysis. I watch, my heart aching, as the shape of my name forms on his lips.
Vaelis.
But no sound comes forth. Only the deafening roar of the overcharged engine and the grinding of the shell against the dark ocean floor answer his silent plea.
He collapses onto his broad chest, burying his face in the white sand beside my limp hand. His heavy fist strikes the floor once, twice—a devastating, silent tantrum of pure grief that vibrates through the sand and into my bones.
I desperately want to tell him that everything will be alright. I want to tell him I heard his heart anyway, that I proudly watched him hold his own against the swarm, that his silence speaks louder than any battle cry.
My good hand, numb but mobile, reaches out. My fingers brush against his dark hair, coarse against my skin, exactly as I remember.
"Kael," I whisper, my voice barely a fragile breath in the chaotic water. "How I've missed you."
His heavy head snaps up instantly. He looks deeply into my eyes. Heavy, silent tears are freely streaming from his eyes, cutting clean tracks through the silt on his face
I try to offer him a comforting smile, but the heavy darkness is rapidly creeping in at the edges of my vision. The wonderful warmth of the shell is fading away. The agonizing pain is fading.
Everything is becoming very quiet.
"I'm so tired," I murmur, my heavy eyelids fluttering shut.
Kael violently shakes his head. He grabs my face between his large, warm hands.No. Please stay.
But I can't. The heavy current is pulling me away again. It is not the ocean current this time. It's something infinitely deeper.
I close my eyes.
The very last sensation before the dark takes me is his warm forehead pressed firmly against mine. I feel the frantic, heavy, thudding rhythm of a heart desperately beating fast enough for the both of us.
The Reef surfaces in my mind.
The central plaza blazes with light so intense it hurts to see. Mira stands there, her polished iron spear held at a jaunty angle. Taren flanks her, his silver eyes fixed on the distantwaves. The Vanguard Commander looms on the high dais, his iron helm catching the sun.
They all smile. Their beauty is a weapon.
"Look at him," Mira says, her voice a cheerful, cutting thing as she gestures with her spear toward my chest. "Look at that vibrant red. It draws the eye."
