I read the shape of the word on his lips.
"Please stop hurting yourself."
I turn my heavy head to look down at him. Unshed tears of pure frustration burn my eyes, blurring his perfect face.
I open my mouth. I point a trembling finger to my paralyzed throat. I shake my head.
"I know," Vaelis says, his voice barely stirring the warm water. The profound sorrow in his golden eyes threatens to pull me under. "I know what Mira took from you."
I wrench my hand out from under his touch, the sudden loss of his warmth a physical ache against my scarred skin.
My hands fly up, making jagged, panicked gestures. Sharp, broken movements. I point to the heavy kelp door. I point to him. I mimic the menacing shape of a swimming shark with my flat hand, then mimic a guard throwing a spear.
I need to tell him a complex story. I need him to know the truth about why I left him after the fruit. I need him to understand the reasons we are running into the abyss.
But my gestures are clumsy. They lack structure and logic. Pathetic charades.
My hands fall to my sides. I look at him in pure agony.
Vaelis studies my face, a deep confusion building in his expression. "The shark? Are you trying to say you killed the Great White?"
I shake my heavy head, the movement sharp and violent.No.
I try another path. I point a heavy finger to the distant Reef. I point to him. I use both hands to trace the shape of a high crown resting on a head.
"The ruling Council?" Vaelis guesses.
I let out a silent growl, a frustrated vibration locked deep in my chest. I hit my own forehead with the heel of my palm, the impact sending a dull thud through the water.
I can't explain the truth to him.
The complexity of my racing thoughts remains trapped behind the impenetrable barrier of my silence.
I turn away. I lean my head against the wall, defeated. My shoulders hunch forward under the suffocating, crushing weight of my isolation.
Vaelis remains in place, staring at my back. He understands the toll this takes on my soul. I'm an instinctual creature of the dark trench. My kind navigates the world by producing vibration. Without my resonant voice, I'm blind. I'm lost in the dark without a map.
I stare at my hands resting on the wall.
The vibration of his shifting weight travels through the sand floor again. I feel his gentle fingers press against my tense arm.
I refuse to turn around. I can't bear his pity.
His grip tightens, a physical plea that vibrates through my skin, into my bones.
I turn to face him. I know I look exhausted and broken.
Vaelis lifts his fine hands into the space between us. My gaze, previously fixed on the white sand floor, shifts upward, drawn to the soft shape of his mouth. His lips form the words with deliberate precision.
"Please look at me."
My heavy head rises slowly, my dark eyes finding his golden ones. The warmth in them seems to push back the suffocating darkness of my silent prison.
"Your beautiful voice is gone," his lips shape the words, a truth that lands like a stone in my chest. "But your strong hands remain."
I look down to his hands, then lower to my own. Skepticism courses through me. My hands are scarred monuments to violence, built for crushing and tearing, not for the delicate art of communication.
"Watch my hands," he mouths the command, his expression earnest.
