14. Swimming in Circles
Swimming in Circles
Sigurd & Valerie
The morning after the gala, I leave the fortress before most of the household stirs. I pass through the lower airlock and shift once I reach the outer trench, letting my true form fill the open water around me.
I swim several miles before slowing, then spend far too long circling the same stretch of trench.
Freezing currents slide over the rough ridges of my hide.
I drive my tentacles through the dark, sending smaller creatures scattering among the rocks.
The movement should be enough to empty my head, but it only gives my frustration somewhere physical to go.
A shoal of bioluminescent fish erupts ahead of me in a flash of silver before vanishing into the dark. I swim through the space they leave behind and concentrate on the pull of the current against my body. But eventually, my thoughts return to the Great Hall.
Valerie had handled the room as though she belonged there.
Ancient families watched for the human at my side to stumble, and she gave them nothing.
She stood beneath the blue-green glow of the flora in her surreal dress, answering every challenge with the same calm precision she brought to her library.
I watched her from across the hall and wanted nothing more than to go to her. The urge is becoming harder and harder to ignore.
A violent surge slams into my flank and knocks me sideways before I can complete another circuit of the trench. I twist through the current and spread my limbs to steady myself as another rush of displaced water rolls over me.
A familiar shape descends through the darkness above me.
My mother is fully shifted, her form cutting through the water with effortless control.
Blue light moves along the markings on her hide, catching against the uneven seabed as she comes straight toward me.
She never swims this far from the fortress unless she intends to make herself impossible to ignore.
She intercepts my path and flares her tentacles against the current, leaving me the choice of stopping or colliding with her.
“You are swimming in circles, Sigurd.” Her voice rolls through the water in a deep vibration. “You are churning the trench like a juvenile.”
I hold my position and keep my tentacles close rather than answering the challenge. “I’m surveying the perimeter. Leave me be, Móeir.”
Solveig does not move aside. She watches me for another second, then shifts directly into my path when I try to angle past her.
“Don’t turn your back on me.”
One of her tentacles lashes through the dark before I can respond. It strikes my side hard enough to send a shock through my body and churn the seabed beneath us.
I absorb the blow without returning it and anchor two tentacles against the volcanic rock until the disturbed water settles around us. She has not struck me in two thousand years, which tells me exactly how furious she is. Apparently, Valerie has accomplished another first.
“You have to claim her properly, as is our way,” Solveig demands. “In deep water. Until you do so, your mate will not be your own. What are you waiting for?”
I tighten my hold on the ridge beneath me. “I refuse to trap her. The incomplete claim will eventually fade. I will let her return to the surface.”
Solveig answers with another strike. The impact drives a dull ache deep into my flank, and she closes the distance between us.
“You are being a coward!” she roars. “She conquered the Eiriksson hall last night. She is capable of surviving the deep, and in time, her mortal years will stretch to meet yours.”
I know what a completed bond can do. Valerie could adapt to the deep, just as countless human mates before her have adapted to the lives of the monsters they chose. Her years do not have to remain limited to the span she was born with.
That has never been the part that frightens me.
“Yes, Móeir, I’m aware,” I rumble back. “But she loves her town. I won’t force her to abandon it just to satisfy my own kraken greed.”
Solveig descends farther into the trench, crowding the space between us while I keep one tentacle locked around the ridge. The current shifts with every movement of her limbs, but I refuse to give her the satisfaction of seeing me retreat.
“This is the most logical outcome, Móeir. Valerie has a life on the surface, and I have no right to take it from her.”
“You hide behind your logic, Sigurd.” Solveig moves slowly around me, keeping me in her sight. “You claim to protect her by staying away.”
I turn enough to follow her movement, irritation tightening through every limb. “I give her freedom. I refuse to trap a surface-dweller in the abyss.”
Solveig comes to a stop directly in front of me. For several seconds, the only movement between us is the slow drift of silt through the water.
“You give her silence.”
The words land differently from the blows. I stare at my mother, but before I can find an answer, she continues.
“You pass silent judgment on a woman who bested me in my own hall. You decide what she can endure, what she should want, and where she belongs without allowing her a word in the matter.” Solveig’s gaze remains fixed on mine. “Have you actually asked the human if she wishes to leave?”
The current rushes past my ear slits while my grip on the rock slowly loosens. Every argument I have used for the past few weeks suddenly sounds different when she says it aloud.
I never asked Valerie.
Valerie had told me the day she’d awakened that she wanted to go home. But things had changed since then. I could see it in her eyes, in the way she’d tried to reach for me when I’d given her the flower.
“We haven’t spoken about it,” I admit. “Not for a while.”
“Then stop sulking in the trench,” my mother says. “And go talk to your mate.”
She turns and swims toward the upper trench, her immense shape gradually disappearing into the darkness. I remain anchored to the ridge for several moments after she is gone. I listen to the current move through the rocks while her words continue to follow me.
The ache in my flank is easy enough to ignore. The possibility that my mother is right is considerably harder.
The fortress feels almost unnaturally quiet this morning. I walk through the residential corridors in a soft shirt and loose trousers. Without hundreds of dignitaries crowding every archway or music drifting through the Great Hall, the place seems larger than it did last night.
I slept badly. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Sigurd standing across the hall. The adrenaline that carried me through the reception is gone now, leaving the frustration underneath it much harder to ignore. I have no idea how to reach a man who refuses to stand close enough for me to try.
A shadow shifts farther down the corridor, and Ysra rounds the corner carrying a large, dark bundle against her chest. Her shoulders hunch beneath the awkward load, and she has to adjust her grip twice before she reaches me. The familiar scent of oceanic iodine follows her through the hallway.
“That looks like it weighs a ton, Ysra.” I step forward and reach for the bundle. “Let me help you with that.”
“I was hoping you would.” She shifts enough of the weight toward me that I can get an arm beneath it. “Madam Solveig sent it. It has been in deep storage for quite some time. It’s for you.”
That gets my attention. “For me?”
Ysra nods toward the archway behind me. “Let’s get it inside first. It will be easier to explain once you can see it properly.”
Between the two of us, we maneuver the bundle through the archway and into my quarters.
Ysra knows where to support it, so the weight is awkward rather than impossible.
She directs me toward the open floor beside the bed.
Once we lower it safely, she begins undoing the old metal fastenings that keep the material folded together.
The bundle takes shape beneath her hands.
Reinforced sleeves emerge first, followed by a thick chest piece and heavy joint seals.
Last comes a broad collar fitted with a curved glass visor.
Faint runes glow around the metal rim. They’re dim enough that I only notice them once Ysra turns the collar toward the light.
“What exactly did Solveig send me?” I ask.
“An old pressure suit made for surface-dwellers.” Ysra spreads one of the sleeves flat and checks the seams as she speaks.
“The wards protect against the cold and pressure outside the dry sections, and the helmet provides breathable air. It has limits, of course, but it was designed to let a human move through the inhabited trenches safely.”
I kneel beside her and press my fingers against the chest piece. The fabric gives slightly beneath my hand before resisting again. Up close, it looks like industrial diving gear built by someone who expected the ocean to fight back.
Ysra watches me examining it, then rests one hand against the reinforced collar. “I know what you’re thinking. Yes, it works. I wore this one myself for years.”
I look up sharply. My gaze moves from the suit to the delicate gills along her neck, something I have seen dozens of times without ever asking how she came by them.
“You were human?”
“I was.” Ysra’s expression softens as she turns one of the gloves over in her hands.
“Becoming part of the deep takes time. My lungs didn’t simply change because I chose a mate who lived here.
Until my body adapted, this suit allowed me to leave the fortress with him, walk the trenches, and visit places I could never have reached otherwise. ”
The admission changes the suit completely.
I had been looking at it as a piece of strange old equipment.
Now I picture Ysra sealed behind that thick visor while the abyss pressed against the other side.
She had not arrived here already capable of surviving this world.
She needed equipment, patience, and time, and someone had shown her how to manage all three.
My fingers move over one of the faintly glowing runes. “Solveig knew what this meant to you.”
“She did.” Ysra settles back on her heels, glancing from the suit to me.
“I won’t pretend to know everything going through the matriarch’s mind, but she wouldn’t have taken this out of storage casually.
I suspect she wanted you to understand that being human doesn’t automatically confine you to these halls. ”
That sounds much more like Solveig than any sentimental declaration would.
I look down at the armor spread across my floor.
Sigurd has spent weeks behaving as though the fortress walls mark the edge of what I can survive.
Outside them wait pressure, cold, and a world built for bodies nothing like mine.
Yet here is proof that someone else once stood exactly where I am and found a way farther.
“If I wanted to use it, could you teach me?”
Ysra studies my face long enough to make certain the question is serious. Then she shifts closer to the suit and pulls the collar toward us.
“I can, but you need to learn it properly. The seals, pressure wards, temperature regulation, and breathing system all work together. You don’t put this on and wander outside because you feel adventurous.
” A faint smile touches her mouth. “Fortunately, you strike me as someone who respects instructions.”
“I am a librarian. Complicated systems with unnecessarily specific rules are most of my professional life.”
“That will help.”
Ysra shows me the first set of fastenings along the waist and explains how the sections lock together.
With her supporting the heavier pieces and turning them into position, the suit stops looking like one enormous, unwieldy object.
Each component has a purpose, and each piece connects to the next in a way that begins to make sense once she explains it.
When she passes me one side of the chest section, the weight still pulls hard against my arms.
“God, this is heavy.”
“The support wards distribute most of that once the collar is active,” Ysra says, taking some of the load back before I can lose my grip. “Until then, don’t try to prove anything. Let me hold the weight.”
Ysra then lowers the chest piece and turns the collar toward me. Three runes glow along the inside edge, each slightly different from the next.
“These are the first ones you need to remember. Pressure, temperature, then breathing. The order matters because each ward confirms the previous one before the helmet seals.”
I lean closer and follow the sequence with my fingertip while she explains it again. The suit does not make the abyss harmless, and Ysra never suggests that it does. What it gives me is something much more useful than reassurance: a practical way to find out what I can actually manage.
“Pressure, temperature, breathing,” I repeat. “Show me the rest.”
Ysra shifts closer and turns the collar so I can reach the next set of runes. This time, I watch every movement of her hands and listen carefully as she begins explaining what comes next.
I repeat every sequence one by one, then look at the rest of the suit spread across the floor. I could spend another week studying it. Another week waiting for Sigurd to decide I am ready for something he has already decided I should never have.
I have had enough of waiting. “When you wore this for the first time,” I ask, “did someone help you into it?”
“My mate did. The first fitting is not something I would recommend attempting alone.”
“Good. I have no intention to try anything on my own. But I don’t think I have to.”
Ysra’s brows lift. “What do you mean?”
I straighten and gesture toward the suit between us. “You’ve been teaching me what the pieces do. I appreciate it more than I can ever say. But it’s not enough. Help me put it on.”
For a moment she says nothing. Then a slow smile spreads across her face, and she reaches for the first reinforced seal.
“All right, Valerie. Stand up.”
I stand, anticipation fluttering in my belly. For once, I’m not being told where Sigurd’s world ends for me. I’m learning how to step into it. It’s my choice. I’m not afraid of the abyss, or of Sigurd’s strength, and by God, I’m going to prove it.