5. 5
five
Orion
The ocean stretches endlessly around me, a vast expanse of silence and pressure.
My body moves with effortless precision—long and sinuous, built for these depths.
My fins flare and tuck as I glide through the shifting currents.
My tail undulates in smooth, powerful waves and my scales consistently catch the faint glow of bioluminescent life, shimmering like starlight beneath the surface.
I stop only when I must, when the ache in my limbs grows too deep or my senses dull.
I drop into a narrow trench, its cold darkness perfect for a quick hunt.
But the moment I have fed, my body carries me forward again, answering a need deeper than hunger.
The drive to find her eclipses everything else.
I move as Morin instructed along the east side of the ocean, only a few miles from the coast, getting close to the rusted bones of surface ruins the sea has claimed, now smothered in coral and silence.
I have not been to the surface in some time, but I remember it well.
A few years back, when my father still lived, I would slip away after sparring sessions to watch the land-dwellers from a distance.
Their world always fascinated me. So fast, so fragile.
Thanks to my shape shifting abilities, I could join them easily by altering my body into human form with little more than a thought.
As if I was always meant to straddle both worlds.
Finally, I arrive at the room Morin described.
The room is hidden in muck-grey water and draped in seaweed that sways like it is dreaming.
My hydro-senses stretch to their furthest edge, wide open.
I feel every flicker of motion, every subtle shift in the water’s temperature, searching for something familiar.
Preferably a trace of my father’s magic. Or would it be hers now?
I am still unsure as to how she obtained my father’s power. Especially because I do not know what kind of person she is. If she is kind, cruel, frightened, or simply lost. But none of that matters.
My father’s power cannot reside in a human. Which is another thing I am still trying to understand. Any land-dweller with deep sea magic should be considered dangerous.
I drift deeper into the chamber, letting the silence speak.
The seaweed coils lazily along the walls, and the water echoes with an incongruous charge. The magic lingers inside, but I feel more. A faint trace of tension clings to the space. Definitely human.
This is where it happened.
Her scent lingers in the current, tangled with the magic she left behind. I breathe it in, let it curl through my senses—salt and something else I am unfamiliar with—and focus. And then I follow it, every ripple, every echo and use it to guide me straight to her.
The scent of magic and salt carries me to the edge of the sea, where waves break against concrete, steel, and sandy shores. I take a moment beneath the surface, shift my form, and rise into the world of the land-dwellers.
It is jarring, every time. To feel the weight of gravity again, to breathe air instead of the endless pull of water around me, but I make the change easily. Skin smooths over scales, fins recede, and I become a man. Just another face among the crowd.
It is past sundown, so the worry about catching the eyes of strangers because of my attire is no concern to me. I find human clothing to be restricting. However, I do carry a pair of pants, old and torn, in my bag for this exact reason. I made that mistake once. I will not do it again.
Her trail pulls me inland, through busy streets and endless noise, even at this time of day, until I reach a towering building of glass and steel. Of course. Where else would someone with stolen power hide?
I don’t enter. Not yet. The building stretches high, its walls of glass and steel reflecting the sky.
The entrance glistens, glass doors outlined in gold.
I step forward, reaching for the handle of one of the doors.
A man beside the door watches me, eyes narrowing as I linger.
He wears a white shirt with a blue-and-gold vest over top and some kind of material rests atop his head to match.
How bizarre . . .
“Do you need some assistance, sir?” he asks politely, breaking my stare.
“No. Maybe. I am searching for someone. A Sarah Fischer,” I say, “Does she reside here?”
“Unfortunately, sir, I am not authorized to reveal that information.” He shifts, blocking the entrance with his body. “Without a code, I cannot allow you inside.”
I retreat. I melt into the shadows beneath the awning, maneuvering to the side, crouching on the pavement as I watch the entrance.
Without the sea to enhance my powers, I am limited.
This isn’t my world and I don’t know how to properly exist in it.
I lean against the cold structure, as my eyes remain vigilant on the bodies ahead.
Anything or anyone that gives me an angle to get inside.
The night passes, the full moon hangs overhead, but no one enters or leaves the building. I rest when I can, my senses alert even as my body begs for sleep, while she remains somewhere above, untouchable.
Morning comes, and I must have dozed off at some point, exhausted from the journey here.
Rising from my crouched position, I move slowly to the front of the building.
A figure approaches carrying a cup in each hand, and a square item tucked under one arm.
He moves with easy confidence, greets the man at the door—someone different from the one I encountered last night—and is authorized inside.
I glare past the new doorman into the vast room beyond. The man walks toward a set of steel doors on the far side, pressing a button beside a series of numbers. From here, I cannot make them out completely, but I can see which button he presses.
His mouth moves, words inaudible through the glass.
I tilt my head to the side, watching closely.
The man sighs, shifts one of the cups on top of the other, and pushes some more buttons on a panel to the left of the steel doors with practiced ease.
The doors glide open and he saunters in, disappearing from my view.
I need to figure out a way inside.
The sun climbs higher, and the street stirs with life.
The doorman is swept up in it, darting from car to car, opening doors for anyone who pulls up.
His attention finally locks onto a woman whose bag is caught in the trunk of a bright yellow car, leaving me the opening I need to slip through the lobby doors and head for the steel ones beyond.
I did not expect to get this far, I freeze.
Panic flares when the doorman bursts through the front doors, shouting after me.
I turn back to the steel doors and jab at the panel, hoping something responds.
A sharp chime sounds, and the doors slide open to reveal an empty chamber waiting inside.
I slip in just as the doorman’s footsteps close in behind me.
The doors close, but he is still shouting, still pursuing. The muscles of my neck tighten and desperation drives me as I smack my hand against the panel inside the box. It lights up with a yellow-orange tint, its purpose unknown to me.
The box lurches, then rises with a force that knocks my balance off.
I stare at the panel, waiting for this contraption to cease its movements.
Another chime rings above my head, and the doors open.
I peer my head outside and appear to be enclosed in a space that can only go left and right.
Doors line both sides, more options that I’m willing to wager.
Two young land-dwellers play at the end of the long stretched corridor and I chose to stay inside the steel box.
The metal box refuses to move. The doors remain open, mocking me with the distance between myself and the land-dweller I am searching for. The thought that this contraption is what stops me from reaching her and putting an end to this madness, stirs my magic within me.
I press my hand against the panel again. My magic, faint and sluggish on land, answers before I can stop it. The lights flicker. The buttons beneath my palm hums. For the briefest moment, the powers inside me remember the reason I am here and the steel box climbs again. Higher.
Then it stops. The doors part, not into another stretched corridor, but into a home. Sunlight pours into an open space with floor to ceiling glass protecting it from the weather outside. And the faint pulse of magic that I’ve been hunting, stares at me with emerald green eyes.
I found her.