"I knew your parents well," Thalos says, his voice dropping to a reverent whisper. "They were two brave mers who died on the ridge after you were born. You carry her rebellious spirit. Your mother also harbored a profound fascination with potions."
My breath catches in my throat. My mother remains a complete stranger to me.
"She loved a lot of things she should not have loved," Thalos says. He gives me a sad, knowing look.
Leaving it at that, he turns his back to me, staring out into the endless, silent void of the trench.
I swim away.
The next day, the Council guards drag Thalos from the docks. They punish him for the crime of free speech. They take the wise storyteller and lock him away in the dark.
He becomes a recluse. The Reef forgets his name.
But I never forget.
As I grow older, the training hardens my muscles. The Vanguard teaches me how to thrust a spear and hold a shield wall. I become the perfect soldier.
But in the quiet hours of the night, I slip down to the Silt District. I search for the glowing cave. I search for the magic my mother loved. The old mer makes more sense to me with each passing cycle.
The Reef is a cage.
And though I stay quiet, I am tired of the silence.
Chapter 16
In Your Eyes
Vaelis
TheSiltDistrictmimicsthe rotting intestine of a dying beast.
Freezing water chokes this realm, viscous with suspended particulate, blooming algae, flaking rust, and toxic chemical runoff from the atmospheric processors far above. A film of cold, suffocating oil clings to my bare skin. Visibility ends short of an arm’s length. The world reduces to a claustrophobic tunnel of murky brown and sickly yellow, illuminated by the occasional, sputtering glow of a dying thermal vent.
Swimming flush against Kael, my uninjured shoulder brushes his scarred flank with every kick of my tail.
He is a gray shadow cutting through the heavy gloom. His imposing presence anchors the shifting, dissolving landscape. Every few seconds, I reach out to touch him, offering a grounding graze of my fingers against his rough skin. An anchor keeping me from falling into an isolated nightmare.
I clutch the silver mirror to my chest.
Terror grips me.
The dark holds no fear. I have witnessed the absolute black of the deep abyss. I have survived the crushing, unforgiving weight of the open ocean, biologically adapting to its pressure. I have stared into the dead, black eyes of a Great White, waiting for razor teeth to tear my flesh. That was physical terror. A sharp, adrenaline-fueled spike of pure survival instinct.
This dread creeps, settling into the marrow of my bones.
Hope terrifies me.
If Oona refuses to help us, or the magical antidote proves a myth, Kael stays silent forever. I stay drowning in my guilt. The weight of his stolen voice will be the stone pulling me beneath the silt.
Navigating an unstable maze of collapsed industrial pipes, we pass through a graveyard of broken machinery the glittering Reef discarded centuries ago. The Silt District rests upon the forgotten ruins of the old city foundation. Twisted iron skeletons loom out of the smog, mimicking exposed rib cages.
"Left," I whisper into the dark. Kael cannot hear the spoken word, but his lateral line catches the subtle vibration against the water.
Memory and blind instinct guide us. I trace the precise coordinates Mira rasped out before collapsing back into her frozen sleep. North quadrant. The intake pipes.
The current shifts, a sudden, violent shove.
A surge of freezing water pushes through the rusted canyon, carrying a blinding cloud of toxic yellow smog toward us.
