Page 130 of Storm and Sea

He was about to give up everything for me.

But even as much as Nyel wanted Atreus to run to his side, he couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t let Atreus throw away everything he’d built. Signaling for Atreus to stay back was the right call.

Still…

Now, he was alone. Now, he’d have to face this reality by himself. Options played out before him like one of those moving picture things that played on the TV.

He could return to Corallina, back to his old life, where his mother would likely revert to her old ways, and by this time next year, he’d be Bonded to a nice sirena with a baby on the way.

He could live in the lighthouse. He’d be alone, with no friends and no work, nothing to keep him going. Would Atreus visit him?

Maybe he could find a new human town? But that was too risky. The only reason he’d made it so long in Baia Vita was Atreus’s help. He had no chance of carving out an existence for himself in a different human village. Plus, he doubted there were many human villages like Baia Vita.

All options left him paralyzed and anxious.

“What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?” He tugged his hair uselessly.

As the hour-long minutes ticked by, regret sank in his stomach. He began to wish he’d let Atreus take his side, even if it made him a terrible person.

Nyel startled when groaning metal echoed up the staircase. He couldn’t remember falling asleep. As the clanging steps grew closer, he huddled under the blankets, hoping whoever it was wouldn’t see him. With the black-out curtains drawn, it was dark inside the tower despite it being only midday. The door opened. All was silent.

“Ny? Ny, are you up here?”

“Atreus!” Nyel sprang from his hiding place and wrapped his arms around Atreus’s middle, burying his face in his chest. “Atreus, I’m so sorry. I’m such an idiot. I tried, but I⁠—”

“Hey, hey, it’s not your fault,” Atreus said, holding Nyel close and rubbing slow circles on his back.

Nyel didn’t know when he’d started crying, but it was like all the nervous energy he’d paced into the floors was leaking out of his eyes.

“It was an accident, Nyel. Nobody’s fault.”

“You managed to go years without an accident. And here I go, messing everything up after a few months.”

“I’ve been lucky. And I talked with Marina. I showed her what I was. She saw it, Ny.”

Nyel leaned back but couldn’t see Atreus’s face in the dark.

“W-why would you do that!?”

“Ny, it’s⁠—”

“She saw you?”

“Let’s get a fire going and talk, alright?”

Nyel wanted to argue, but the way Atreus’s hand pressed against his back, guiding him to the fire pit, made the words die before they could fully form.

Somehow, Atreus managed to start a fire in the pitch blackness, little cinders casting their space in orange light. Watching the embers grow from a dim sparkle to filling the hearth did wonders to calm Nyel’s strained nerves. He inhaled the scent of burning wood, letting the occasional pop of sparks crack away the tension in his spine.

“You’re really good at that,” Nyel complimented, sitting close to the bowl of dancing heat with his knees tucked to his chest and hands outstretched.

“Been doing it a long time,” Atreus said, tossing more sticks. “There’s enough wood in here for a few days.”

Nyel inhaled a deep breath, the question coming out on a sigh. “Why did you show her? I⁠—”

I protected you from that.

Atreus took a minute to answer. “Watching you run off, as I shouted at you like you were some kind of mon—” He swallowed hard. “It didn’t feel right. It only took a walk down the hill for me to realize I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. So I did what needed to be done.”