Interlude #3
I lower myself into the fine white sand, my scarred fins spreading wide as my body settles. The warmth seeps through my skin, a slow tide of heat that fights against the perpetual cold that lives in my bones.
Pip scuttles back inside, now having completed his work on the shell, his tiny arms clicking softly against the sand as he curls up securely against my neck. His small weight is a comfort, a living warmth against my cold scales.
The shell grinds steadily forward, carrying us further away from the bright reef, further away from the looming war, and further away from the beautiful mer who stole my heart.
I am Kael. I am the silent hunter for the House of Drift.
And I am alone.
It is better this way. I close my eyes, the faint blue glow of Bolt's light painting the inside of my eyelids. The silence is a blanket, heavy and suffocating, but it is familiar. It is mine.
Time blends together. The routine of the House of Drift becomes the rhythm of my existence. Hunt. Feed Bolt. Patch the shell. Clean the copper. Sleep. Wake. Repeat. The world outside the shell is a uniform gray, the world inside a shifting dance of blue light and shadow.
Today, I am returning to the House of Drift with a heavy brace of small eels, their bodies still warm from the faint thermal vent where I found them, when the sensation hits.
A vibration.
It is faint, trembling through the cold water like a distant heartbeat. I stop completely, my lateral line flaring wide to catch the sensation. It is not a fish. It is not a rumbling thermal vent.
It is a drum.
War drums.
The realization hits me like a physical blow, the air rushing from my dead lungs in a silent gasp. The eels slip from my grasp, their bodies falling slowly down into the silt. I ignore them. I swim rapidly upward, cresting a high ridge of silt to get a much better view of the horizon.
Far to the east, many miles away, the water is clouded with frantic movement.
I can't physically see the individual armies, but the disturbance is obvious.
The chaotic, violent displacement of thousands of heavily armored bodies clashing together.
The very water shudders with the force of it, a distant signal of a battle I can't see.
The Reef has gone to war, as Vaelis had predicted.
The freezing water turns colder than I thought possible. Who fights in the Gray Wastes? The Basalt-Kin would not come this far for the Reef. No tactical advantage.
Unless the Reef army marched down here under a manufactured lie.
My gaze fixes on the distant churning cloud of silt, the water moving with violence.
The terrified confession Vaelis made in the vent field surfaces in my mind.
Vaelis is safe. I force the thought into the crushing silence.
He is a decorated fighter, but also a high-ranking Red Prince of the inner circle. The arrogant Council would never risk their celebrated, beautiful artisan in the meat-grinder of the Gray Wastes. They keep him safely protected in the palace now, far from the slaughter.
I make the logical thought true.
But the relentless rhythm of the war drums gnaws at my gut. I turn from the eastern horizon, snatch my dropped eels, and swim rapidly back to the shell.
When I enter the main chamber, Bolt vibrates with agitation.
"You felt it," he says immediately. "Stupid, noisy, messy war... We must move now. If that fighting spills into the flats, they will strip this shell and melt me down."
I point firmly west. Deeper.
"Yes," Bolt agrees quickly. "Deeper. Batten the hatch, shark. We run."
I pull the heavy kelp curtain shut. The House of Drift lurches forward, grinding painfully against stone as we flee the noise.
I am cleaning the intake valves when the shell violently stops. The sudden halt throws me across the room against the curved wall.
Bolt curses loudly. "Snagged! Something caught the high spire!"
I grab my iron scraper and swim out of the opening into darkness.
We are wedged in a narrow canyon of jagged rock. The shell lodged against a low overhang, something heavy tangled in the drift-nets draped over our roof.
I swim rapidly up to the high spire.
War debris.
Broken iron pikes, their tips bent and twisted. Shredded banners of woven colors, their vibrant patterns now muted by the gray water. It's all snagged and tangled in the shell's upper spire.
I work quickly, my iron scraper slicing through the ropes. Each cut sends vibrations through the water, a faint counterpoint to the distant war drums. The final rope parts with a sharp snap, and the debris falls away, tumbling slowly into the dark canyon below.
I turn to go back inside, my task complete.
But something catches my eye.
Caught tightly on a jagged piece of the shell's calcium spire, flapping listlessly. A piece of torn fabric, delicate and out of place among the crude metal and heavy nets.
I freeze in the water. This is not the heavy, woven canvas of a military war banner. It is fine silk, so thin it's nearly transparent.
And it is red.
My scarred hand trembles as I reach out, carefully working the delicate fabric free from the jagged rock. It's a recruit's mesh vest, exactly the kind of useless, transparent uniform they issue to the light infantry. Exactly the kind they would give to the bait.
The crimson is so bright it seems to glow in the gloom. I hold it up to the faint light filtering down from above, then bring it to my face, my gills fluttering in disbelief.
It's not Vaelis.
The blood lacks the familiar notes of crushed pearls and his natural sweetness. This belongs to another recruit, another Red.
But the horrifying realization hits me with the devastating force of a collapsing trench wall.
The elders initiated the draft. They are throwing their brightest, most visible citizens into the dark to draw enemy fire. They are using Command Red.
I look toward the east. The distant shuddering of battle continues, a steady rhythm through the cold water.
Then I look down at the shell. Bolt and Pip wait inside, anxious for me to clear the snag so we can run deeper, away from the war. I could join them. I could disappear into the crushing darkness where even war drums cannot reach.
But the red silk in my shaking hand holds me fast.
You are a signal, I had told him in the quiet dark of the vent field. That there is something in the dark worth burning for.
He is out there on the continental shelf right now. He is terrified. He is desperately waiting for a monster to find him.
I can't be silent. Not about this.
My fist clenches around the vest, the delicate fabric straining against my fingers. I push off the spire, propelling myself back into the shell.
Bolt looks up from his copper cage, his blue light casting long shadows. "Are we clear to run?"
I shake my head fiercely, a sharp, violent motion that sends my hair floating around my face.
I swim directly to the copper cage, the water churning with my movement. I slam the red vest against on the ground near the heavy copper bars, the impact sending a dull vibration through the water.
Bolt recoils slightly, his blue light flaring with the sudden movement. "What is that?"
I point to the vest. My finger sweeps east, toward the distant battle. Then I turn the finger toward my own chest, a gesture of absolute certainty.
He is there.
Bolt examines the fabric, his golden eyes narrowing. I see recognition dawn in his expression. The transparent mesh of a bait uniform, the crimson color of sacrifice. His eyes lift to my face, to the murderous, feral expression that must be twisting my features.
"Your Royal?" he asks quietly, the mental words barely a whisper of static. "He is in the meat-grinder out there?"
I nod once. My hands tremble with raw adrenaline and protective fury, a storm building beneath my skin.
Bolt sighs, a long crackling exhale that sends blue sparks dancing through the water. The light in his copper cage dims, then flares white-hot, blinding with raw, terrifying power.
"Well then," Bolt's vibrating voice shifts, the cynical grumble replaced by something harder. "I suppose running deeper into the dark is boring anyway."
He unfurls his length, the copper pipes humming with a high-pitched vibration that sets my teeth on edge. The engine groans as the electrical current surges through its rusted pistons.
"You want to go back to the front lines?" he asks, his golden eyes locking onto mine, burning with an intensity that matches the crackling energy around him.
I don't nod. I grab a heavy piece of scrap metal from the floor and smash it against the hull of the shell with a dull thud that vibrates through my entire body. YES.
"Alright, alright," Bolt snaps, sending a bright shockwave through the water that makes my gills flutter. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to manually calibrate a combustion flow valve without opposable thumbs? It's a sheer nightmare. And quit that, you'll crack the shell."
A grin splits his face—terrifying, jagged, alive with pure destructive electricity. "Hold on tightly, shark. I've never driven this thing directly into an active warzone before. Let's see what she can actually do against a shield wall."
The engine roars to life, a sound that travels through the water as a violent vibration.
The House of Drift doesn't turn carefully around. It spins aggressively, grinding against the canyon walls, throwing up clouds of silt. Then it launches itself forward with a force that throws me against the opening.
We don't drift anymore.
We charge.
I hold myself firmly in the main opening of the shell, the red vest tied tightly around my scarred arm. The wind of our passage rushes past me, pulling at my fins and hair.
I can't speak. I can't roar his name to the empty water.
But I'm coming.
And I'm bringing a terrifying storm with me.