Chapter 17
"Silver-tongued prick," Nyxarion hissed, jaw clenched hard enough to make his enamel squeal as Vorynthar's spires penetrated the gloomy abyss.
His return to the Deep was supposed to be a balm. A soothing embrace that compressed his lungs and forced the stress to leak from his blood. Instead, he found himself carrying a thousand times the weight of the entire Black Sea crushing down upon him all at once.
The negotiations for the Covenant were underway.
That fragile, tender pact they'd spent three tides bickering over. Bargaining and compromising. Constructing the framework through clenched teeth and scarcely restrained violence.
Tentative, but… promising.
Enough that both had agreed to keep it secret until after the birth. Until the effects of both venoms on the infant were known, and the evidence of what they'd done might speak for itself.
But, just as Thalos had turned to leave, he'd tilted his head and opened that fucking mouth.
"Watch for the tears," Thalos had said. Off-handed.
Casual. Lips curled around a particularly sinister smirk.
"Little crystals of salt. She might excrete them between her scales.
Like pearls. It's… exclusive to Thalassari mothers in the second trimester, and…
well, I wouldn't have mentioned it, except…
of course…" He'd shrugged, a sly grin slithering across his lips.
"Kore can't go without her sun clams, can she?
Poor thing. And if she's already displaying one trait exclusive to the Hollow Court… why not two?"
He was right, of course.
The way Kore groaned around every bite of succulent flesh, each swallow bringing a flush of color to her cheeks?
Thalos had noticed. Used it. Dressed her symptoms in pretty words and levered them into yet another trap, for if a second Thalassari trait appeared during her pregnancy… Thalos' claim would be stronger than Nyxarion's.
The battle for his child would slip through his claws.
Negotiations for the Covenant, his argument for dissolving the Accord—all of it would implode before it might ever have a chance to rise.
All that he had built, everything he'd fought so hard to claim, would belong to the Shallows.
To Thalos.
Hissing, he dove through the layers. Punishing himself with a brutal, uncontrolled descent, for in his fist, another fucking bag of those accursed mollusks.
A gift from Thalos.
Each iridescent shell was yet another twisting barb lodged behind Nyxarion’s ribs.
One he would happily take, pain he would endure without question, if it had meant only that he might watch her glow and know his child was nurtured beneath her scales.
But it was tainted with the fetid stink of his own yellow fear.
Diving into the tunnels, snaking past the massive angler fish guarding the mouth of his inner sanctum, Nyx entered the antechamber. Eyes catching the dim glow as he swept the throne room.
There.
Nestled together in the bowl of calcified ribs, Kore lay curled against Sera. Tucked beneath the general’s chin. Breathing slow and deep, the coral around her reflecting the peaceful rhythm of her languid state.
Sleeping.
Again.
Almost constantly, now.
His throat flexed, working to swallow a lump of something hard and foreign.
It was strange to see her this way. To witness that strange, human dive into vulnerable surrender, and behold the chaos of her dreams when they spilled out into the Raskoril. Something he’d never tire of watching.
It was a whisper.
An echo of her humanity she would never lose.
And for a moment, he simply watched the way Sera’s claws drifted through her hair. Listened to the low croon his Virelii general hummed as Sera indulged.
She looked small in Sera’s arms.
Fragile.
He swallowed again. Hard.
And, meeting Sera’s gaze, he flicked his fins. It was a tiny gesture. A summons meant to bring his general and leave his Siren to her slumber.
Moving with ethereal grace, Sera lifted Kore. Weightless and buoyant, she settled her against the throne and slid free. Gliding across the chamber with a careful flick of her tail.
Voice hardly a breath of sound, Nyx tilted his head. “Well?”
One arched, Sera’s lips twitched. “Give her some credit,” she murmured, fins spreading in a slow creep, fanning to hold herself still. “The girl immolated an ancient with a stray touch. Perhaps it’s safe to say you don’t need to worry overmuch.”
"It drained her,” he returned, and his gaze slid back. Helplessly. “She’s exhausted, even now. Tides later."
Lips twitching, Sera twisted around him. “She’s calm. Adjusting.” Her face softened, just for a moment. Just long enough to let him glimpse the Virelii she occasionally allowed herself to be. “The child keeps her anchored.”
And for a moment, they merely watched her. Quiet together, lulled by the gravity of the moment.
But Sera’s gaze slid back to his. Coy, when she asked, “Are you going to tell me why Thalos is still feeding your bride Asterion venom? Or do I have to pluck the information from your scales myself?”
Spines lurching, Nyx pushed a breath through his gills.
Irritated, for Thalos had bound him to secrecy, but that silver-tongued prick hadn’t earned the loyalty Sera inspired in him.
Catching her arm, he reeled her in. Lips pressed to her ear, he whispered part of the truth. “I’m working to have the Accord dissolved.”
Eyes wide, rimmed in white, Sera went still. Utterly motionless.
“It was Kore’s doing,” he added, and the admission was laced with a smile no one could see. “My queen demanded it be rendered null. Replaced with a pact between kingdoms.”
A tiny gasp escaped her lips, but that was all.
“Peace,” he said, and it tasted strange.
Foreign. “To honor Nerissa, and return Sirens to the seas.” He hesitated, then.
Just for a moment. The instinct to guard something precious from discovery—even from Sera—made his teeth clench.
And then, “Kore is the bridge between,” he admitted.
Careful with his wording. “Her womb the chalice laced with the venom of two kings. The child is not safe in a sea that does not recognize a new tide.”
For several weighted breaths, Sera was silent. Still, right down to her gills.
And when she spoke, it was in a tone heavy and layered with shock. “You made a pact. With Thalos Asterion. Without telling your general. In secret.”
Nyxarion’s gaze ticked over to the throne. Helplessly drawn back to his bride. But, despite his pissy mood, his lips twitched. “Negotiating with that slippery little shit is difficult enough without whispers bleeding through the trench, but…” A smile flitted across his lips. “We’ve reached terms.”
“Thalos agreed?” Sera asked, voice a crackle of scarcely audible sound, but the shock of discovery was every bit as delicious as he’d imagined it might be.
It was almost enough to distract him from everything else.
Almost.
“It all hangs on the child,” he murmured, and met her wide eyes with those that were shuttered with the strain of not knowing. “Kore’s transformation was incomplete. Influenced by both venoms in the Spiral. If the child contains Abyssari and Thalassari traits, the covenant will stand.”
“And…” Sera frowned. “If it doesn’t?”
Scales lifting, Nyx vented the heat of his frustration.
“She craves sun clams,” he admitted, evasive as he watched the colors shift through Kore’s skin and scale.
Lifting the pouch of mollusks Thalos had tossed to him before they’d parted in the mid-ground.
“The child… it may not be… mine. And if that is true,” he said, forcing the words to pass his lips, despite the way they burned, “Thalos will use the babe to undermine every clause. He’s already begun his plotting. ”
Between them, the water shimmered as Nyx’s temper brought the temperature up. Tiny bubbles tickled between his scales.
“Thalassari tears,” he said at length, hissing. “Already she craves his infernal clams. If the tears appear, he’ll have grounds to claim the pregnancy as his own—”
Understanding brightened Sera’s gaze, and she tilted her head. Watching her sovereign as his words hung between them.
And then, simply, “Milk.”
Nyxarion blinked.
Blinked again.
"Abyssari milk," she said, clarifying. “In the second trimester, Thalassari excrete the tears, yes. They alter the salinity of the water around their chosen nest and force conditions more favorable for a babe’s development. But we are of the Deep, Nyxarion. Our Virelii don’t need kinder tides when we were born to the harshest of them. They need nutrients. The sort that are exceptionally rare in the Deep, the kind that only comes from a mother’s breast.”
Breath hitching, Nyxarion was rendered speechless. Ignorant.
Sera rolled her eyes. “Search for both, you great fool. But she is in the Deep now. The child won’t need a her to regulate the tide as much as it will need Abyssari milk.
Thalos may have indeed have left a mark on the child, but you won’t convince me you failed to do the same.
” She grinned, showing the edge of pointed teeth.
“I take insults aimed at my sovereign as a direct challenge, and if I catch that scent again? Discounting your prowess? Doubting your bride?” She sucked her teeth, tongue clicking as she turned to leave.
Peppering the current with the scent of her amusement.
“There will be consequences. Dire consequences.”
And then she was gone.
But her absence scarcely registered.
Felt only in the vacuum where she wasn’t, for he hadn’t been able to watch her go. Hadn’t paused to question his general’s counsel, for his attention was fixed to a single point.
Kore.
Milk.
He hadn’t known.
Threnakar’s exiled prince, First Sovereign King of Vorynthar’s deep trench, and he hadn’t known so simple a truth of his own Virelii.