Chapter 15 Theron
THERON
The Archive Trench yawns before me like a wound in the seafloor, its walls lined with countless scrolls of sea-silk that drift and undulate in the current like living things.
Each scroll glows with a sickly phosphorescence, and as I draw closer, I can see that they're covered in dark elf runes that seem to writhe and shift when I'm not looking directly at them.
The water here feels different—thinner, hungrier, as if it wants to steal more than just warmth from my body.
The trench is narrow, forcing me to swim single-file through a corridor of hanging scrolls that brush against my shoulders like grasping fingers.
Each touch sends a chill through my fur, and I realize with growing unease that these aren't ordinary records.
They're curse-scrolls, repositories of dark magic that the drowned elves used to bind their enemies and preserve their power.
I begin singing a navigation shanty—something simple and straightforward to guide me through the treacherous passage—but the moment my voice emerges, the scrolls react violently.
They writhe and twist, their glowing runes flaring brighter as they try to absorb the sound.
I feel my voice faltering, the vowels being pulled from my throat before they can fully form.
"What sorcery is this?" I mutter, pressing a hand to my throat where Tidemother Antea's warming oils still provide a faint protection. The scrolls seem to be feeding on my voice, draining the music from the water and leaving only hollow echoes behind.
The sea-silk scrolls press closer, their surfaces now blazing with stolen sound.
I can hear fragments of my own voice trapped within them, distorted and wrong, repeating portions of my shanty back to me in mocking harmony.
The curse-magic is trying to turn my own power against me, to make me doubt the strength of my voice.
I switch tactics, abandoning melody for something more primal.
I pound my chest with both fists, creating a rhythmic percussion that cuts through the water like hammer-blows on anvil steel.
The beat is simple but powerful—the heartbeat of honest labor, the rhythm of oars pulling in unison, the steady pulse of life refusing to surrender.
Thump-thump. THUMP-thump. Thump-thump. THUMP-thump.
The percussion doesn't give the scrolls anything melodic to steal.
Instead, it drives through their curse-magic like a battering ram, forcing them to part before my advance.
I add my voice to the rhythm—not singing, but speaking in time with the beat, letting consonants and harsh syllables cut through where softer sounds failed.
"Step—by—step—through—curse—and—hex,
Heart—beats—strong—though—magic—vex,
Drum—of—blood—and—bone—and—breath,
Pounds—the—rhythm—beyond—death."
The spoken cadence works where singing failed. The curse-scrolls writhe and hiss, but they cannot absorb the harsh consonants and driving rhythm. I push through the trench, my voice growing stronger and stronger with each measured beat, until I emerge into clearer water beyond.
But as I swim free of the Archive Trench, I hear something that makes my blood run cold. Behind me, one of the scrolls unfurls completely, and from its glowing runes comes a voice—distorted and wrong, but unmistakably mine.
"Theron Goldmane," it whispers, pronouncing my name backward in the dark elf tongue. "Captain of the lost, singer of the drowned. We know your true name now, child of the surface. We can call you back whenever we choose."
The curse-scroll has captured something essential—not just my voice, but the sound of my name in my own pronunciation.
In the old magics, knowing someone's true name spoken in their own voice gives power over them.
The dead have claimed a piece of me, and I feel the knowledge settle in my bones like lead.
I press forward anyway, following the current that carries the faint sound of Eurydice's voice. The Archive Trench falls behind, but its whispered curse follows me through the water:
"Come back to us, Theron Goldmane. Come back and join our chorus of the lost. Your voice belongs to the deep now. Your name is written in our scrolls of sorrow."
I grip the shell-bell in my hand until my knuckles crack, using its pure chime to drown out the curse-scroll's whispers. The blessed sound from the winter stag's shrine still flows through my veins, and I cling to that warmth like a lifeline.
"My voice belongs to her," I growl through gritted teeth, forcing myself to continue forward. "My name is hers to speak. Whatever you've stolen, whatever you think you've claimed—it means nothing against love freely given."
The curse follows me through the water, but I swim on, driven by the sound of Eurydice calling my name through the drowned halls—her voice warm and alive and real, cutting through the necropolis's lies like sunlight through shadow.