Chapter 5
LILA
The tidal pools hold secrets the open ocean refuses to share.
I crouch at the edge of a shelf carved from volcanic rock, watching bioluminescent algae cluster along specific depth gradients.
The pattern is too precise to be natural, too deliberate.
Someone has been cultivating these blooms, manipulating the marine environment in ways that require both knowledge and resources.
The question is why.
My sample vials clink against each other in my collection bag as I extract another water specimen, careful to maintain sterile protocols despite the fading light.
The sun drops toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of copper and rust. I should head back to the inn before full dark, but the data I'm collecting refuses to fit any natural model I know.
The algae concentrations follow a mapped progression, with the highest density in the deeper zones where surface light fades, tapering off in shallower and darker waters.
The bioluminescence pulses in synchronized intervals that suggest chemical signaling between colonies.
And the cellular structures I've been examining under the microscope contain organelles that shouldn't exist in any known marine species.
Someone engineered this. Or something did.
The folklore Catriona mentioned comes back to me—stories about dragons living in deep waters around Skara.
I dismissed it as local color, stories fishing communities tell to explain unusual phenomena.
But what if the stories contain kernels of truth wrapped in myth?
What if something is living in these waters that science hasn't cataloged?
I shake my head, annoyed at myself for entertaining fantasy. I'm a marine biologist, not a cryptozoologist. The answer to the algae blooms exists in chemistry and biology, not in fairy tales about mythical creatures.
Still, the question nags at me. What did I see in Finn's cave that night? The bioluminescent displays moved like they were breathing. The cellular structures defied classification. His eyes reflected the glow like polished gemstones.
A branch snaps behind me.
I freeze, instincts honed by years of solo fieldwork in remote locations screaming warnings. That wasn't the sound of an animal moving through underbrush—too deliberate, too heavy. The footsteps are human, trying and failing to stay quiet.
I set down the sample vial with careful precision, my hand sliding to the dive knife strapped to my thigh. The coastal path winds through a section of forest before opening onto the cliffs overlooking the village, dense enough for cover and isolated enough that screaming would accomplish nothing.
Another footstep sounds closer this time.
I stand slowly, positioning myself so the tidal pool is at my back and the open path ahead. My collection bag hangs from my shoulder, samples I can't afford to lose but won't have hands free to protect if this turns into a confrontation.
Men step from the trees.
They're dressed too well for hikers, wearing dark jackets despite the mild evening temperature and boots meant for urban streets rather than coastal terrain.
The one in the center is older, weathered, with shoulders and arms that speak of years spent training rather than hours logged at a gym.
The others flank him, younger and harder, moving with practiced efficiency that speaks to professional experience.
They're not locals or tourists. Nothing about their presence suggests coincidence.
"Dr. Mercer." The older man's accent carries Eastern European inflections—Russian, maybe Ukrainian. "We need to have a conversation about your research."
My grip tightens on the knife handle. "I don't know you."
"No. But we know you." He takes another step forward, and the younger men spread out, cutting off escape routes with practiced efficiency. "You've been collecting samples. Asking questions. Making inquiries that attract unwanted attention."
"Marine biology isn't a crime."
"It is when you're investigating things that don't concern you." His smile doesn't reach his eyes. "The algae blooms, the drownings, whatever you've been finding in those samples you keep analyzing. You're building a case. We can't allow that."
Ice floods through my veins. They know about my research. They've been watching me, tracking my movements, probably monitoring everything I've done since arriving on Skara.
"Who sent you?"
"That's not relevant." He gestures to my collection bag. "What matters is that you give us your samples, your notes, every piece of data you've collected. Then you leave this island and forget you were ever here."
"And if I refuse?"
The man on the right pulls a knife from his jacket—not a dive knife like mine, but a combat blade meant for killing. "Then we make you disappear like the others who asked too many questions."
The threat slams into me with sickening clarity. These men aren't environmental activists or concerned locals. They're enforcers who silence problems before they become threats to whatever operation is running on Skara.
I drop the collection bag and draw my knife in one smooth motion, transferring my weight to the balls of my feet.
The self-defense training the Institute required for solo fieldwork kicks in on pure instinct.
My heart hammers against my ribs. I'm smaller, outnumbered, and outmatched in weapons. But I'm not going down without a fight.
The man with the combat knife lunges first.
I sidestep on pure instinct, using his momentum against him, and drive my elbow into his kidney as he passes. He grunts, stumbles, but recovers faster than I expected. The second man circles left while the leader moves right, boxing me in against the tidal pool.
I can't win this. Cold certainty floods through me. I can hurt them, maybe delay them, but outnumbered with inferior weapons means I'm going to lose.
The man I struck comes at me again. I drop low, sweep his legs with more luck than skill, and roll away as he crashes into the rocks. But the leader is there, grabbing my arm, twisting until pain shoots through my shoulder and the knife tumbles from my grip.
"Enough games." His breath is hot against my ear. "Give us the research or we kill you here and take it anyway."
A voice cuts through the darkness like a blade.
"Leave. Now."
The men freeze. I twist in the leader's grip, following the sound.
Finn stands at the edge of the clearing, backlit by the moon. He's dressed in black, and the expression on his face carries cold fury that makes rational thought evaporate. Recognition flashes in his eyes—he knows exactly why these men are here and who sent them.
The leader laughs, but there's an edge to it. "This doesn't concern you, friend. Walk away."
"Mine." The word drops like a stone. Finn takes a step forward, and his movement makes the man holding me alter his grip. "Touch her again and I'll rip your throat out before your next breath."
The man with the combat knife points it at me, the blade pressing against my throat. The sharp edge bites my skin. "Back off or I cut her."
Finn goes very still, predator-still. His eyes catch the light like aquamarine stones, and for a heartbeat I see age beyond counting looking out from behind his features.
Then for a fraction of a second, his attention moves past us to the darker shadows beneath the trees, to a threat I can't see but he clearly can.
Tension locks through his shoulders. Whatever he's sensing, whoever is watching from those shadows, it changes his entire calculation.
"Last chance." His voice drops to something that resonates in my chest. "Walk away and live."
The leader tightens his grip on my arm. "You're outnumbered. Whatever you think you can do, you can't. So unless you want to watch her bleed out, you'll turn around and—"
Silvery mist swirls around Finn's body.
It appears from nowhere, crackling with electricity that makes the hair on my arms stand up. The temperature plummets. Thunder rolls overhead despite the clear sky, and the mist thickens until I can barely see his outline through the shimmering curtain.
Then the transformation happens.
One moment Finn stands there, human and furious.
The next moment the mist explodes outward and a massive form takes his place.
The creature has crimson scales that catch moonlight like molten rubies and wings that unfurl with a sound like thunder, spreading wide enough to block that same moonlight.
Its body stretches from snout to tail, coiled muscle and ancient power wrapped in armor that gleams like wet lacquer.
A dragon.
My mind short-circuits. This isn't possible.
Dragons are mythology, fantasy creatures that don't exist outside folklore and fiction.
The laws of physics won't allow it—the conservation of mass, the energy requirements for that kind of transformation, the cellular reorganization needed to shift from human to reptilian form.
But the creature standing where Finn was seconds ago is undeniably real. The ozone from the electrical discharge stings my nostrils. Displaced air from impossible wings rushes past my face. Moonlight reflects off scales that have no place in any biological classification system I know.
The dragon's eyes glow with the same aquamarine light I've seen in Finn's gaze, and when it opens its jaws to roar, the sound shakes the trees and sends seabirds screaming into the sky.
The men scream too.
The one holding me releases his grip and stumbles backward, terror written across his features in lines that age him a decade. The combat knife clatters on the rocks. The leader retreats toward the trees, his earlier confidence shattered by something his worldview can't accommodate.