A Change of Plan
Vaelis
TheHouseofDriftis no longer a sanctuary. It's a prison. The engine's hum is now the sound of a lock turning, sealing us inside with an unwanted guest.
Mira lies on the white sand near the humming copper cage. Her body is rigid as a piece of sunken driftwood. Something wicked has turned her pale skin a bruised, unnatural violet. Black veins stand out against her neck like creeping vines of dark magic, pulsing with the slow, stolen beat of her heart.
Her breathing is a terrifying thing to witness in the dim blue light.
Inhale.
A full minute of suffocating silence passes.
Exhale.
It's the shallow, rhythmic sigh of a corpse yet to realize it is dead.
I sit on the soft bed of woven nets, glaring at her rigid form. My bandaged shoulder throbs, a dull reminder of the Great White's jaws, but the pain deep in my chest is sharper. It is the cold, jagged edge of betrayal. I study the face of my former friend, the lines of her face frozen in a rictus of shock. I recall the shared meals in the barracks, the easy laughter during long patrols, the whispered dreams of a future beyond the war. I recall the exact moment she abandoned me to the frenzied shark swarm, the image of her retreating form seared into my memory like a brand.
Kael sits in the white sand beside her frozen body.
Of course he does.
He wipes the gray trench silt from her face with a cotton cloth. His movements are gentle. He checks her slow pulse with his scarred fingertips, his touch light against the bruised skin of her neck. He adjusts the heavy scrap-metal blanket he laid over her chest, folding the sharp iron edges under the sand to trap the ambient heat of the engine.
He treats the soldier who ruined his life with more tenderness than the Council ever showed him.
"Stop this," I say. My voice is low, dangerous.
Kael looks up from his task. His dark eyes are calm.
"Stop caring for her like that," I snap, my voice cracking under the strain. "She deserves no mercy. She came here to murder you, Kael. She tried to fire an explosive harpoon into our home."
Kael pauses his gentle work. He looks down at Mira. He shifts his dark eyes back to my face.
He lifts his hands into the space between us.
She is broken, he signs with stiff fingers.We fix.
"We fix things possessing value," I counter, crossing my arms tight over my chest. "She has no value. She's a traitor."
Kael shakes his heavy head. He points a finger to the humming copper engine. He sweeps his broad hand toward the curved calcium walls of the shell. He points a single finger at my beating heart.
We fix everything.
It is a simple, maddening philosophy. Kael refuses to judge the broken debris of the ocean. He simply decides if the wreckage can find a new purpose. To his pure soul, Mira is nothing but another piece of damaged salvage floating in the dark.
I rise from the soft nets. A restless, angry energy burns in my blood. I glide over the curved floor of the calcium shell. I glide over piles of rusted gears and jars of sea-glass.
"She made mepoison youin the trench," I mutter to the empty air. "I know for a fact that she did."
I stop swimming. I hover directly over Mira's paralyzed body.
She looks small. Without her shining silver armor, without the performative authority of the Reef Guard, she looks like a helpless stranger. Her face is frozen in a rictus of pure terror. Her wide, unblinking eyes stare up at the glowing ceiling moss.
"You think she can hear our voices?" I ask the room.
"She hears every word," Bolt crackles from his copper cage. The eel is dim today. His electrical energy is spent from the frantic escape. "These are the effects of an Abyssal Drought. It freezes the muscles. It does not freeze the mind. She is trapped inside her own skull. She is screaming in the dark."
