Page 42 of Stolen Magic of the Deep

“Oh my God!” she blurts out behind me, voice climbing in pitch. “Will this always happen?”

Ah. There it is—the delayed realization. Embarrassment hits her about ten seconds late, but I don't need to be looking at her to feel it. It's already reaching me again in the currents that sway between us.

“Did you know this would happen?” Her tone sounds mortified, as fury rises like a tide.

“Technically, yes. But I—” I clear my throat, still facing the coral wall like it holds all the answers. “I forgot. It didn't cross my mind until . . .”

I let the sentence die.

“Unbelievable,” she mutters under her breath.

“For what it's worth,” I say quietly, “I looked away the moment I noticed.”

Not before the damage was done, Orion.

I don't dare turn around. The weight of her silence tells me I shouldn't. Instead, I go for the safer route: advice.

“When this happens to me,” I say carefully, “I always make sure to carry clothes, only when I plan to shapeshift.”

I don't suggest anything else. She is more than embarrassed.

So I wait. Letting the stillness breathe, giving her a few minutes to think. She will speak when she is ready.

“I don’t have anything in here I can use to dress myself,” she says. No added sarcasm. No heat. Just blunt and clipped.

“Well, now that you've experienced the shift—felt how it moves through you—going back into sea form should be easier. Especially here, surrounded by water. And if you shift back before sleep, you would not need clothes to cover yourself.” I pause, then continue, “You should shift back anyway to allow your scales to rehydrate properly, and if your body is ready, we might see the full transformation take shape.”

I wish I could say all of this to her face, meet her eyes, gauge her reaction, and offer her some sense of reassurance. But I do not turn around, even though every part of me wants to. The last thing I want is to make her feel any more exposed than she already does.

“This better work, Orion. I won’t swim around like this,” she states plainly.

I feel the magic before I see it, swarming the room like a tide, thick with raw power and unfamiliar weight. A sudden burst of light explodes behind me, bright enough to suffocate every shadow buried in the corners of my chambers. And just as quickly as it lit the darkness . . . it dies.

“You can turn around now. I’m back to being decent.” she says, pride clinging softly to the edges of her voice.

My head turns to look over my shoulder before the lower half of my body follows suit. Every time I glance her way, I forget how to speak.

My eyes flick instinctively to her chest just to be sure. The shimmer of scaled armor now covers what was once bare, delicate patterns woven across her skin like a second layer of herself. Modest, yet mesmerizing. The relief is immediate, but it is quickly overtaken by something else.

Awe.

The first time she transformed, it was wild and unexpected. It blew everyone by surprise—myself included. But this time I knew what to expect. I had prepared myself for the change. I hadn't prepared myself for her, though.

The bare expanse of her upper chest is gone, replaced by markings unlike anything I have seen before. They mirror the patterns etched across my own skin, curling and shifting in familiar ways, yet hers are uniquely her own. Runes I do not recognize weave between them, glowing with a soft sea-foam light as if her magic itself is awakening fully beneath her skin.

Her scales glisten in hues of sea-glass green, edged in soft blue and violet accents. They catch the light from the marilume overhead, scattering it across the walls in quiet pulses. The scales wrap across her chest and then break into bare skin over her stomach, reappearing again at her hips, flowing into a serpent tail that coils tightly beneath her.

Her tail isn't like mine, nowhere near as massive or powerful in scale, but it does not need to be. What hers might lack in size, it makes up for in precision. Hers is sleeker and more elegant. Yet it's still built to cut through the water like a blade.

She's still shorter than me, yes. But she feels taller now. There is more presence in her than before. More weight in the way she holds herself. Before, she looked dainty. Now she holds a stature that could kill.

My words evade me. Seeing her like this, it brings me back to the first day I heard her name. The distrust I felt anytime I thought or spoke it. But the day I saw her for the first time, something inside shifted.

As king, I knew I had to stay cautious. She is a land-dweller, after all. But my heart doesn't seem to care. It pounds inside me, harder than ever before, changing my perspective on her. And when I thought nothing else could make me feel more drawn to her, she transforms into a better looking version of myself, and I know I was wrong. This insatiable pull I have toward her is thicker than anything I have felt in my many years of life.

A gasp pulls me from my thoughts.

Sarah’s eyes widen in disbelief, locked onto the shimmering tail beneath her. Where I see beauty and potential, she sees something else entirely.