Chapter 20 Eurydice
EURYDICE
The solstice bell tolls somewhere far above, its bronze voice carrying down through layers of water and stone to reach the deepest halls of the necropolis.
The sound is different from the warm, welcoming bells of Milthar—this one rings hollow and hungry, marking time not for celebration but for something darker.
Each toll seems to leach more warmth from the water around me, and I feel the kelp chains responding to its call, tightening with each resonant note.
"Time grows short, little surface-child," the priest-shade hisses, his skeletal form becoming more solid with each bell-stroke. "The longest night reaches its peak, and you must choose—join our eternal choir willingly, or be dragged into it screaming."
The chains around my wrists and ankles pulse with malevolent life, and I can feel them drawing something essential from me with each heartbeat.
My breath comes shorter now, each inhalation requiring more effort than the last. The strange honey-salt water that sustained me before grows thick and bitter, coating my tongue with the taste of despair.
But I refuse to give in. I press the blessed shell to my lips, feeling its smooth surface warm against my skin.
The symbols carved into its surface pulse with gentle light, pushing back against the creeping darkness that wants to claim me.
When I breathe across its opening, it produces a soft, clear note—not loud enough to challenge the priest-shade's power, but pure enough to remind me of what I'm fighting for.
"Hold on," I whisper to myself, the words barely audible above the tolling bell. "Hold on to the warmth. Hold on to the light. He's coming."
The priest-shade circles me like a carrion bird, his burning blue eyes fixed on the shell in my hands. "Such a small thing to pin your hopes upon," he sneers. "A trinket given by a dead child who no longer remembers her own name. Do you think such baubles can stand against the weight of centuries?"
I think of the little girl who pressed this shell into my palm, her pearl-black eyes bright with something that might have been hope. She remembered warmth, remembered the taste of milk and honey cakes. Even here, even drowned and lost, she held onto fragments of joy.
"You're wrong," I tell the priest-shade, lifting the shell higher. "She remembers. They all remember, deep down. That's why you have to work so hard to keep them silent—because love doesn't die, even here. It just sleeps, waiting for the right song to wake it up."
The bell tolls again, closer now, and I feel something shift in the water around me.
The priest-shade's form wavers, becoming less solid, and for a moment I see through his intimidating facade to what lies beneath—fear.
He's afraid of what I represent, afraid of the crack I've opened in his carefully constructed world of eternal sorrow.
A low shanty begins to rumble through the stone around us, deep and resonant, growing stronger with each note.
I know that voice, know the rhythm of those words even when I can't make them out clearly.
Theron has passed another trial, overcome another obstacle, and he's singing his way closer to where I wait.
The priest-shade spins toward the sound, his robes billowing in agitation. "Impossible," he breathes. "The Choir Causeway should have silenced him. The stone mouths should have devoured any imperfect note."
"He's a sea-captain," I say, pride warming my voice despite the cold chains around my limbs. "He's spent his life reading currents and weather, timing his voice to guide ships through storms. Did you really think your carved stones could break him?"
The shanty grows louder, and with it comes something I haven't felt since the chapel—genuine warmth.
The water around me begins to shimmer with phosphorescence that isn't the sickly green of decay, but something golden and alive.
Small fish dart toward the sound, their scales catching the light and throwing it back out in rainbow patterns.
I begin to hum along with Theron's distant song, letting my voice weave through his bass notes like silver thread through bronze. The priest-shade claps his hands over his ears, but our harmony is already spreading through the necropolis, awakening things that have slept too long in the dark.
The kelp chains encircling my wrists loosen another degree, and I work frantically at the knots while the priest-shade is distracted. The blessed shell helps, its smooth edge sharp enough to fray the rotting fibers. Each strand I cut feels like a small victory, a step closer to freedom.
"Sing louder," I whisper to myself, pouring more strength into my voice. "Let him know where you are. Let the whole necropolis know that love has come calling, and it won't be turned away."
The bell tolls one final time, its voice fading into echoes that seem less certain than before. In the silence that follows, Theron's shanty rings clear and strong, and I know he's close now—close enough that when he finds me, nothing in all the drowned halls will be able to keep us apart.
The shell in my hands pulses brighter, and somewhere in the distance, I hear the sound of stone cracking as an ancient causeway yields to the power of a voice that refuses to be silenced.