Chapter 14
Cerban
Sneaking out of the accommodation block had been easier than I could have hoped for. And it had totally been worth the look on Maelis’ face when she’d spotted me waiting outside her diving shack.
The planet’s sun had barely breached the horizon as we waded into the water, a sea so calm it looked like an entirely different ocean. The chaos of the storm had scrubbed the shore clean, leaving behind sand as smooth as glass and a silence broken only by the rhythm of the waves.
Maelis adjusted the straps of her gear with brisk efficiency, her movements sharp but steady. She’d doubled her tanks this time, checked every gauge twice. Her determination glowed brighter than the rising light.
Still, my chest tightened. I remembered her limp body in my arms, the way her breath had faltered, and every instinct in me screamed that bringing her back here was madness.
Yet when she caught me watching, her lips curved in a small, wry smile. “Don’t look at me like I’m about to break. I’m fine.”
“You nearly died.” My voice was low, rougher than I meant.
She tugged her mask into place, her eyes never leaving mine. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
I swallowed hard. She wasn’t wrong. I was here because I couldn’t let her out of my sight. Because the thought of her facing the sea without me was unbearable.
She hesitated, then reached for my hand. “Wait. Before we go under, you need to know this.”
I raised a brow. “I know how to swim.”
She gave me a look sharp enough to slice kelp. “Not swim. Communicate. I know you can talk underwater, but I can't.” She lifted her hand, fingers curled into a fist. “This means low on air.” Then she pressed the heel of her palm flat against her throat. “Out of air. Emergency.”
I watched carefully, committing each movement to memory.
She pointed two fingers at her eyes, then toward me. “This means I’m watching you.”
A faint smile tugged at my lips. “You will be watching me?”
Colour flushed her cheeks, but she didn’t back down. “Yes. And this–” she made a circle with her thumb and forefinger, the other three fingers extended – “means okay. If you see me do this, I’m fine. If I don’t do it back, I’m not.”
I copied the gesture, my larger hand dwarfing hers. “Like this?”
“Exactly.” For the first time since the storm, she smiled – small but genuine. “Good student.”
Her praise stirred something warm in my chest, stronger than the dawn light. I tightened the straps across my chest and adjusted my regulator. “Stay close,” I told her.
She rolled her eyes, but the faint quirk of her lips betrayed her amusement. “You already made me promise.”
We slipped beneath the surface together, the world shifting instantly from air to water, silence to song. Currents whispered against my skin, fish darted from our approach, and the reef stretched ahead like a sleeping giant waiting to be explored.
She swam with strong, confident strokes, her light cutting through the dim water. But even with her training, even with the new gear, I stayed close enough to feel the brush of her bubbles across my skin.
Because this time, if the sea tried to take her again, it would have to take me too.
We slipped beneath the surface together, the world shifting instantly from air to water.
Currents whispered against my greenskin, fish darted from our approach, and the reef stretched ahead like a sleeping giant waiting to be explored.
My gills drew in cold water, filtering out the oxygen.
My entire body relaxed as I was home. I could live on land, but it would never feel as good as this.
Maelis swam with strong, confident strokes, her light cutting through the dim water. But even with her training, even with the extra gear, I stayed close enough to feel the brush of her bubbles across my skin. Just in case.
The sea was calm after the storm, the water clear as glass. Schools of fish glittered like falling stars, weaving in and out of the coral. She paused now and again to shine her torch into crevices, eyes bright with excitement behind her mask. I loved seeing her like this. So full of life.
I followed her gaze to a hollow where a creature stirred.
An eight-armed flabby sort of beast, its body shifting colours as it flowed out into the open.
First pale, then dark, then rippling in patterns of bronze and green that reminded me of home.
I would have loved to ask Maelis what it was called, but I knew she wouldn't have been able to respond.
It was unfair to speak when she could not.
She froze as she spotted the creature, holding up a hand to halt me. She hovered perfectly still, only the gentle flick of her fins keeping her suspended. Her reverence was palpable even through the water.
The creature regarded us for a long moment, its intelligent eyes reflecting the beam of her torch. Then, with a graceful unfurling of arms, it spread wide, drifting like a ghost across the sand before disappearing into another crevice.
Maelis turned to me, her eyes wide with delight. She tapped her fingers against her mask in the gesture she’d shown me – watching you – and then formed the round circle with her thumb and finger. Okay.
I returned the gesture, though what I really wanted was to pull her close, to press my forehead to hers and tell her she was more beautiful than anything in the ocean.
Instead, I swam at her side as she angled her body downward, toward the shadowed drop where the reef gave way to the cliff face. The cave waited below, a darkness cut into the rock.
The calm of the reef faded with every metre of descent. Here, the water was colder, still touched by the storm’s aftermath. Sand drifted up in lazy clouds, obscuring the jagged cracks and crevices.
My gills flared as the current shifted. The ocean was restless here. I tasted metal on the water.
The cave was near.
The cliff face loomed, dark and jagged, its surface scarred by cracks that reached down into the gloom. Maelis slowed, her torch beam sweeping back and forth, deliberate now. I matched her pace, every sense alert.
Then I saw them.
Bubbles, faint but unmistakable, trickling from a narrow seam in the rock. They spiralled upward in silvery threads, catching the light like strands of glass.
I tasted them against my gills and shivered. Not plant gas. Not volcanic vent. Something else.
Maelis pointed sharply, excitement vibrating through her whole body. She hovered in front of the seam, her gaze locked on the tiny streams.
We stayed there, watching.
One… two… three… four… five bursts. Pause. One… two… three… four… five.
The rhythm was the same as before. Steady. Intentional. Too precise to be anything but deliberate.
Maelis turned to me, her eyes wide behind the mask, and tapped the okay sign, then jabbed her finger toward the bubbles as if to say, Do you see it?
I nodded once, slowly, then mimicked her gesture back. Yes.
We hovered in the water, silent witnesses to the sea’s secret song. The bubbles pulsed on, as though the cave itself was breathing.
My chest tightened. Whatever lay beyond that seam, it was no natural formation. It was waiting. Calling. And I knew, with a certainty that dug deep into my bones, that if we followed those bubbles, we would not return unchanged.
Something caught my eye, further to the right. More bubbles, separate from the main group.
They rose from a lower crevice, faint at first, curling through the current.
I frowned. That fissure hadn’t been there before. I was certain of it.
The water here carried the taste of new stone – raw, unsettled. The storm must have shifted part of the cliff face, peeling back a layer that had hidden the opening before. A natural disguise, or perhaps not so natural.
I gestured to Maelis, drawing her attention to the spot. She angled her torch toward it, and as the beam cut through the haze, the water shimmered strangely, as though light bent around the crevice itself.
A shimmer like that didn’t belong in a geological formation.
Maelis’s eyes widened behind her mask.
"The storm must have uncovered it," I said aloud, breaking the silence.
She nodded and watched the bubbles.
Five bursts. Pause. Five bursts.
Up close, I could see faint traces along the stone – smooth lines too regular for erosion, like something once sealed the passage shut.
My skin prickled with the memory of finfolk architecture: the fluid patterns, the deliberate symmetry.
This was something familiar - but how? I knew my ancestors had crash-landed on Earth many generations ago, but the story of Jonet and Ma'vel had taken place in a country called Scotland, far to the east of here.
I hadn't realised the finfolk had spread across the planet's oceans before they'd been rescued and brought home to Finfolkaheem.
Maelis reached out and ran a gloved hand along the edge of the opening. The moment she did, the shimmer flickered again – like static beneath the surface – and then vanished. The bubbles thickened, streaming past us in perfect synchrony.
We froze, waiting for the water to settle. When it didn’t, she turned to me, her expression unreadable. She pointed at the entrance as if to ask, Go in?
Every instinct screamed no, but I also knew that whatever secret the storm had unearthed, this was the only way to find it. And Maelis needed this. She needed closure.
I gave a sharp nod. "Slowly."
Maelis went first, her fins stirring a trail of silver bubbles that curled after her like smoke. I followed, one hand brushing the smooth stone, half expecting it to spark under my touch. My greenskin was tight, my muscles ready to jump into action. This could be a trap.
The dark passage narrowed so much that stone scraped against my skin as I squeezed through, then opened suddenly into a chamber that took my breath away.
Light flickered faintly along the walls – not from Maelis' torch, but from veins of metal threaded through the rock. They glowed with a pulse that matched the rhythm of the bubbles. I felt the vibration hum through my bones, through the water, through my very blood.
This was no ordinary cave.
It was something built.
And whatever it was, it had been sleeping here for a very long time.