Chapter 12
Father.
The word curdled in Nyxarion's chest as he looked upon the only other living Korrides.
Nyxaroth.
Sovereign king of Threnakar.
Lounging in Vorynthar's throne, tail coiled throughout the remains of what had once been Kore's cradle. The seat of power Nyx had shaped from bone and reef, now violated by the king who had always insisted the Black Sea was an uninhabitable waste.
Untamable.
The male who'd exiled him. Who'd watched Nyxarion's first bride drown, laughing at his failure, then used her misshapen corpse as evidence for the tribunal that had made his only son an outcast.
Exile had come after everything had already been lost.
Resurrection had been grueling. A thing he'd clawed from noxious currents, from the hands of murderous kings.
But rebirth had come from a woman he'd saved and destroyed. A creature who'd rebuilt him, just as surely as he'd created her.
And now his father dared to lounge in his throne as if awaiting tribute. As if he had earned the right to so much as breathe in the poisoned tide without Nyxarion's explicit permission.
Two scholars of the Deep Court drifted behind Nyxaroth's shoulder. Painted in shades of gloomy Abyssari blue, their faces slack with something worse than curiosity.
Hunger.
Their eyes found Kore and stayed there, tracking the shimmer of her belly with flat, reflective eyes.
A low, grinding snarl turned the water around Nyxarion foamy with fury.
Keening, Kore pressed against his spine, her fingers curling into his scales as she cowered in his shadow. He felt her pulse quicken, tasted her fear when it bled through his gills.
Without conscious thought, one arm swept behind him.
The motion was pure instinct—territorial, possessive, almost violent in its gentleness because his precious living flame was frightened.
And for that…
… his father would pay.
Keeping her pressed to his spine, her belly warm against his skin, Nyxarion's lips peeled back to expose his teeth. Spines shivering as he postured. Defending his bride.
His child.
Shifting his bulk, Nyx spread his fins wide until the membranes blocked Kore from their sight entirely. His tail swept in a slow arc, positioning itself between her body and the throne. Every ridge of scale along his spine lifted—a deadly display.
Venting heat, agitating the bacteria living in the grooves between his scales until he glowed brighter than he’d ever done before.
But he could not hide what she was.
That her scent was electric and bright. Unmistakably Siren.
And he could not stop her ethereal biolume from bleeding around his silhouette.
A sunset after a storm.
Warm light and impossible color.
At the sight, Nyxaroth's pupils contracted. Lips peeled back in a sneer of pure disgust. Uncoiling a loop of his tail from around the base of the throne, the old king shifted.
The movement was deliberate. Absent haste.
Pure obsidian without Nyxarion’s indigo undertones, his father’s scales were black enough to swallow Vorynthar’s glow. Tracking his son’s defensive flare to the glow bleeding past his fins, cold eyes grew slitted and narrow.
And then, reeking of something sinister, Nyxaroth’s lips curved.
It was a wretched thing to behold.
"So," his father said in a voice oozing thick globs of condescension. "It appears the exile succeeded at last." He flicked his spines, an arrogant summoning gesture Nyx had long since grown to hate. "Let us see it, then."
Summoning the Deep Court had been a mistake.
He knew that now.
That exactly as he’d accused Kore of doing, he’d allowed Thalos to drive him to distraction. To be rash and unthinking.
Nyxarion went still.
Knowing the Raskoril wouldn’t feast on his own bloodkin, his eyes slid left. To the Trident. Marking the distance to that ancient weapon, where it was embedded in the sea floor.
Too far.
Always too bloody far.
Baring his teeth, Nyx said nothing.
He didn't have to.
All it took was a current.
A gust.
And the truth of what was hiding beneath Kore's navel drifted toward the elder Korrides.
Alarm showed in the flick of ancient, weathered spines. The flash of crimson beneath his jaw, where his filaments worked to filter that scent. Tasting her in the water.
And then, "Congratulations," Nyxaroth spat, and snapped the word to pieces between his fangs. "You've finally managed to keep one of your abominations alive long enough to breed it."
Nyx bared every tooth he owned. Ignoring his jab. "That's my throne, Father."
A squall of scorn rolled through the antechamber.
Laughter, both low and cruel.
The sound of a king who had witnessed his son's disgrace and found it satisfying.
"Your throne?" The words were heavy with venomous contempt. "You have no throne, exile. No title or rank. Nothing but the name I allowed you to keep out of some misguided sense of… pity." Tapping his claws against the throne, Nyxaroth sneered. “A mistake.”
Behind him, the Deep Court’s scholars exchanged glances. Their biolume flickered with undisguised contempt.
"You were stripped of everything," Nyxaroth continued, his voice silken, almost soft with mockery, "for the very same heresy currently cowering behind your fins.
" Ancient eyes gleamed when he glanced past Nyxarion’s fins.
Head tilted, lip curled back. “A Siren,” he spat, and it was an ugly, petulant sneer.
"The same grotesque abomination that cost you your birthright.
Have you learned nothing from your first failure? "
For a moment, Nyxarion held his silence.
Unmoved.
And then he tsked, laughing. Dismissive. "Nothing, Father?" he crooned, voice laced with a mocking edge as his fingers closed around Kore's dainty little wrist. Urging her to be still. Calm.
That small body tucked tighter against his spine, and he felt her press her face against his shoulder.
Seeking comfort in the monster who adored her.
It was a soft thing that only fueled the storm whirling inside his chest.
For he was Nyxarion Korrides, First Sovereign King of the Black Sea, and he had drowned the flesh of the sun. He had been tamed by the tempest that burned in blackest water, claimed the divine flame that set the Deep ablaze.
For her alone, he would yield.
To the annihilation of all others.
His lips curled around something far more dangerous than a snarl.
"Perhaps," Nyx drawled, "the ‘nothing’ you're referring to is the Black Sea?
" he asked, lacing his voice with the sort of menace that vibrated well below hearing.
A thing felt in the marrow. "The same current you spent eons insisting could not be claimed?
Too poisonous," he hissed. "Too anoxic. Much, much too hostile for Pelagorn blood.
" He let the words drift, one by one, each a precise cut.
"A place you were unequal to taming, Father. "
A feral light flashed in eyes swallowed by the inky dark of ballooning pupils. The silver irises reduced to a thin, seething band, and Nyxarion tilted his head.
Slow.
Calculated.
The action of a predator who had long ago stopped pretending to be anything else.
"Look around you," he murmured. "This sea, this poisoned tide answers to me, Father. Every current. Every creature and polyp that should not be here. Each and every breath you take exists because I willed it into being." His fingers tightened around Kore's wrist.
And then, tugging her free of his shadow, he pulled her forward despite the way she'd gone stiff and reluctant.
She blazed in the dark.
Sunset scales caught the antechamber's dull, blue glow and scattered it.
"I am certain the ‘nothing’ you speak of cannot be her," Nyx purred, his tone dropping to something reverent as Kore curled tight against his side.
"Even your faded eyes cannot look upon her and see an abomination," he crooned, nosing at the edge of her jaw.
Scenting the beguiling flavor of his tiny, gravid queen.
"My glorious bride is the most magnificent creature in all seven seas," Nyx murmured, tossing each syllable with deliberate care.
A gauntlet thrown.
And for a moment, he indulged. Admired the way Kore's scales rippled with violet and gold, shifting wildly to storm-glass green before flirting with frosty silvers. Obsessing over grey-gold eyes that lifted to meet the ancient glare of Threnakar's fossilized king.
And did not flinch.
Nyxaroth's sneer deepened, carving fresh lines into a face weathered by centuries of stagnant rule. For one fractured heartbeat, something else flickered in his gaze. A thing that might have been recognition. An ancient predator acknowledging another's successful hunt.
But the contempt gushed in too fast to be sure.
"Impressive?" he hissed, bitter and acerbic.
"You break the Accord—the very law that saved our kind from annihilation—and you want accolades for it?
" Jabbing one gnarled finger toward Kore's luminous form, he bared his fangs.
"Praise? For that?" Gills flaring crimson, clouding the water between them with the scent of his disgust, Nyxaroth’s composure crumbled.
“Another Siren," he seethed, scales lifting to purge the heat of battle the ancient hadn’t felt for longer than Kore had been alive.
"Another heresy. And for what? To risk war over a tight human cunt? "
It was crude.
A reduction of the argument Nyx had never stopped having with his father.
One he did not care to continue now, with Kore clinging to his scales. The aroma of her fear lay heavy in his gills, bleeding through his lungs in jagged pulses.
Palm landing on the small of her back, pressing her close to his skin, he steadied her and refused the bait. Denying his father the satisfaction of watching him bristle.
In its place… a smile.
Something born of the dark. Forged in a poisoned tide, tempered by the heat of a divine flame.
“You think I tamed the Black Sea and risked the wrath of Caelith Mare for her body?” he drawled, head tilted to inspect the elder Korrides from slitted glare.