Page 95 of Drown Me Gently

Just a little more, a little more.

Auren stood, thrusting the ball of white light towards the warping glass, demanding its obedience. He stood tall on his legs, chest heaving, hand engulfed in flames.

When had he shifted? His legs had returned. Human. Steady. He didn’t even notice it happened. His whole being had been focused on this.

On his Kraken.

At last, the molten glass stilled, hardening in the dry air, creaking and cracking as it settled in its weight. With a final pulse of light, the whale bone shattered in Auren’s hand. It was done.

Auren gasped, as though he’d been holding his breath. Maybe he had. He wobbled, the drain of magic almost sending him back to the sand. But he kept his feet under him because nothing could have taken his eyes from the sculpture before him.

There he was. Ulric.

The likeness was made of black glass, shining in the setting sun, casting rainbows at his feet. It was perfect.

“My Ulric.”

Unable to stop himself, Auren stumbled forward, falling into the glass embrace. It was ice cold.

“Come back to me.”

He pressed his cheek into black glass. Eyes closed. Begging. Auren ducked his face into the familiar crook of Ulric’s shoulder.

“Come back to me,” Auren whispered. “Come back to me… my monster of the deep.”

He shut his eyes. Held tighter.

Please.

A warmth.

A rush of heat beneath his palms.

Then a pulse.

A breath.

Glass cracked.

Cracked again.

And arms—flesh and bone and solid and warm—wrapped around him.

A voice rumbled in his ear, low, familiar, and choked with tears.

“Oh, my spriteling.”

Auren sobbed.

And gripped his Kraken.

Six Months Later

She was called Tritheya. With a mighty bow in the shape of the Queen, the ship was every bit as magnificent as her namesake. Auren thought it appropriate that he pay this homage to the Queen, his mother. For her gift of giving him a chance. A choice. And Auren had made his choice, even if it meant never seeing his mother again.

Because Auren was, irrevocably, unapologetically... human. He’d given all of himself to bring back the man he loved. He poured all of his divinity into that whale bone to shape the sands. Auren had cried then. They both had. At the relief, the terror, and the humbling truth of their situation. Ulric harbored residual guilt regarding their permanent humanity. Auren knew he did; he saw it in the stoop of his shoulders, or when Ulric caught Auren staring at the shore for too long.

But Auren would have made that choice a hundred times over. If it were a choice between the sea and Ulric, Auren would have stood by as the god of sun dried the sea into a desert. Because nothing called to him as strongly as the embrace of the Kraken.