Naia
The shadow moves through the deep water like a living mountain.
I've been pressed against the transparent wall of our chamber for hours, watching Aylth circle the massive thing since he dove out to confront it. They've been sizing each other up, neither attacking yet. The thing dwarfs him.”
“Stay here,” Aylth had commanded.
I promised. But that was before I saw the size of what approaches.
The creature rises from the trench, and my mind struggles to process what my eyes report.
It's not one creature but something that looks assembled from nightmares.
A head like a prehistoric shark but larger, much larger, with multiple rows of teeth that glow faintly blue.
The body is serpentine, easily two hundred feet long, covered in scales that look like volcanic glass.
But it's the tentacles that make me gasp.
Dozens of them, different from Aylth's. These are covered in barbs that trail poison through the water.
“Our scent,” I whisper, understanding hitting me. The weeks of breeding, the pheromones saturating the water. We've been broadcasting our presence to everything in the ocean. This thing came hunting for prey distracted by mating.
Aylth stops his approach about fifty feet from it. Even from here, I can see his threat display, tentacles spread wide, patterns flashing along them. He looks so small against this thing. The creature's head alone is the size of a shipping container.
They circle each other, and I realize Aylth is trying to lead it away from the palace. Away from me. But the creature isn't following. Its massive head turns, and even through the water, through the walls, I swear it looks directly at me.
It knows I'm here. Knows I'm the weaker prey.
The attack comes without warning. The thing doesn't lunge at Aylth but at the palace itself. Its massive bulk slams into the outer wall, and the entire structure shudders. Coral that took decades to grow cracks in seconds. Water begins seeping through hairline fractures.
Aylth attacks then, wrapping his tentacles around what would be the creature's throat if it had one.
His patterns flash brilliant white, the threat display becoming actual weapon as his bioluminescence strobes at frequencies that should stun.
But the creature barely notices. It shakes its head, and Aylth goes flying, hitting a coral pillar hard enough to shatter it.
The creature rams the palace again. This time, an entire section of wall gives way. Water rushes into the art room, the pressure difference creating a vortex that starts pulling everything toward the breach.
I can't stay here. Despite my promise, despite Aylth's orders, staying in the palace means being trapped when it collapses. And it will collapse if this continues.
I dive through the flooding corridor, using my new swimming strength to fight against the current.
The palace groans around me, structural coral beginning to fail.
Through windows I see Aylth recovering, launching himself at the creature's eyes.
His claws find purchase, tearing, but those barbed tentacles wrap around him, and I see him convulse as poison hits his system.
The weapons room. I remember it from Aylth's tour. If I can reach it...
Swimming through a palace that's actively breaking apart requires every enhancement the tonic gave me. I hold my breath for the entire journey, forty minutes of navigating flooding passages and collapsing walls. When I surface in the weapons room, half of it is already destroyed.
But the spears are still there. Not just spears, I realize, examining them closer. The coral has been shaped into hollow tubes, the insides coated with something that glows angry red. Poison. Aylth's own toxins, concentrated and weaponized.
I grab three of them and one of the nets, then dive back out through a hole in the wall. The open water hits me like a physical force. Without the palace's protection, the currents from the battle toss me like a leaf.
Aylth and the creature are locked together now, tentacles versus tentacles. But Aylth is losing. The poison makes him sluggish, and the creature's barbs tear through his scales. Blue blood clouds the water around them.
I swim above them, using the chaos as cover. The creature is focused entirely on Aylth, probably thinking I'm still cowering in the palace. When I'm directly over its head, I dive.
The first spear enters through its eye. The coral pierces the soft tissue easily, and whatever poison Aylth coated it with works immediately. The eye clouds over, goes dark. The creature's roar vibrates through the water, a sound that makes my bones ache.
But now it knows I'm here.
One of those barbed tentacles whips toward me faster than thought. I barely twist away, feeling barbs tear through the water where I was. Another comes from the other direction. I can't dodge this one.
Aylth's tentacle intercepts it, wrapping around the barbed appendage before it reaches me. The poison floods his system again, and I watch his eyes roll back. But he doesn't let go.
“The mouth!” he manages to scream through the water. “When it opens, the mouth!”
The creature turns toward me, jaws opening. Inside is worse than outside. Not just teeth but a forest of them, spiraling back into a throat that seems to go forever. The blue glow is stronger here, and I realize these teeth are venomous too. One bite would liquefy me.
I throw the second spear.
My aim is perfect, or lucky, or both. The spear goes straight down its throat. The creature convulses, its whole body spasming. The barbed tentacles release Aylth, who sinks toward the reef. But it's not dead. It's angry.
It comes at me with everything. Jaws wide, tentacles spread, moving faster than something that size should move. I have one spear left and nowhere to dodge.
So I don't dodge.
I swim straight at it.
The move surprises it for a crucial second. Instead of swimming into its mouth, I go under, then up, using its own bulk against it. The third spear goes into its other eye from below.
Blind now, poisoned from inside and out, the creature thrashes. Its tentacles whip randomly, destroying more coral, creating underwater avalanches. One catches me across the back, and the barbs inject their poison before I can pull away.
Fire races through my bloodstream. My vision starts to tunnel. My lungs forget how to process oxygen.
But the creature is dying too. The internal poisoning from the spear in its throat is working. Its movements become less coordinated, then sluggish, then stop. The massive body sinks, two hundred feet of predator defeated by cleverness and coral spears.
I try to swim to Aylth but my body won't respond properly. The poison makes every movement feel like swimming through glass. He's floating near the destroyed section of palace, blue blood still seeping from dozens of tears in his scales.
“Aylth...” My voice doesn't work right either.
He stirs, tentacles moving weakly. When he sees me, his eyes widen in horror. “Poisoned. Female is poisoned.”
“So are you.”
We're both dying. The irony that we defeated the creature only to die from its toxins feels cosmic in its cruelty.
But Aylth moves, using the last of his strength to pull me against him. His mouth covers mine, not in a breathing kiss but something else. He's pushing something into me, a secretion that tastes different from all the others. Medicine. Antivenom. Something his body produces to counter toxins.
The fire in my blood cools. My vision clears. My lungs remember their modified function.
“Now you,” I say, but he shakes his head.
“Cannot produce more immediately. Used it all for female.” His tentacles wrap around me weakly. “This one will heal. Slowly. But will heal.”
I get us both to the palace, or what's left of it.
The master chamber is intact, somehow, though water reaches higher than before.
I pull Aylth onto the sleeping ledge, counting his wounds.
Seventeen deep gashes from barbs. Multiple toxin injection sites.
Three scales completely torn away, leaving raw flesh exposed.
“Need time,” he says, already fading toward unconsciousness. “Body must regenerate. Must heal. Three days minimum.”
“I'll protect you.”
His laugh is weak. “Female will protect this one?”
“Yes.”
His eyes close, and I watch his body begin the healing process. The wounds seal slowly, so slowly. The scales begin to reform at a rate that would be invisible if I wasn't watching for it. His fever drops as his system focuses entirely on repair.
I stay awake that first night, watching the shadows in the water. The creature's corpse has attracted scavengers, but none approach the palace. They know this is Aylth's territory still.
But I also see other shapes. Other hunters, drawn by the scent of blood and weakness. They don't approach yet, but they're watching. Waiting.
Aylth was right about young hunters having short memories for pain but long memories for humiliation.
They know he's vulnerable.
And they're coming.