Chapter 27 #3
Odi grips my bicep, tugging me out of the way. “Let me try.”
She clambers on, flapping her arms in an upward motion to keep as much of her weight on the plate that she can. It does even less. We’re too buoyant to make a difference.
“We’re missing something,” I say, glancing around for some sort of clue.
Odi runs her fingers over the edges of the lower plate, and a few bubbles stream out from a hidden seam. I’m hopeful for a second, watching the door, but it remains steadfast.
She looks deflated, her shoulders dropping as she returns back to the stones. “What if we try standing on the lower one?”
I nod, and we take turns. Each time the plate moves, then it resets. The siren statues flanking us seem to sneer, their blank eyes watching us fail.
“We’ll have to find something heavier,” she hisses. “How long do I have with this sea stone?”
“All up, an hour. I’d say we have about forty minutes left,” I answer, distracted by the leaning figures higher up. She stops, turning to follow my attention. There’s something about them. Something that’s different than the others we’ve seen.
“They aren’t attached,” she says.
She’s right. The last statues were secured to stone, crumbling, but holding fast. Any self-respecting sea dweller would realise the clue for what it was. Underwater structures have to withstand the ocean. There isn’t even a plant pot that would be unsecured in Nareth.
We move as one, working together to lift the least decayed statues we can find. First, we place one on the higher scale. It depresses, sending the second scale too far up, so we haul another statue, and for some reason it sinks the second scale flush with the ground.
We hover side by side, chests heaving. Odi’s brow furrows, and I long to reach out and brush the creases of worry from her face. We’re running out of time.
Then she looks up at me like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “The guilt-sown bone. We have to be on the scales.”
I’m already shaking my head, glad the water can sap the heat from my skin. “We’ve already tried.”
“It’s balance,” she insists. “Not just the weight. Together. At the same time.”
There’s so much certainty on her face that I step onto the scale, wrapping my tail around the statue for balance. My stomach dips as the slab shifts with a thunk, rattling below me before settling only a bit lower than before. It’s nearly even with the other now, but still a hairsbreadth off.
Odelia ignores my dismay and steps on the opposite side, sweeping her arm up to flatten her feet on the stone.
It dips an impossible fraction.
Then locks.
Bubbles surge around us and she looks at me with an earth-shattering smile as a low gear-shifting rumble vibrates through the water.
My heart stutters. Not only is this woman violently beautiful, and a badass with a weapon, she’s also ridiculously smart, and I’m glad she insisted on joining me down here, because I could not have done this without her.
The temple still trembles as we approach, stone dust clouding the water.
The way in yawns before us.
Odi squeals with delight, spinning to throw her arms around my neck. I hesitate from the shock of her display of sudden affection, but then I give in and crush her to my chest, being mindful not to disturb her sea stone bubble.
After a few seconds, she pulls back, her face slightly flushed. I smile, and gesture towards the doorway. “After you.”
It’s dark when we enter. The only light is the soft glow of the sea stone.
The room isn’t overly large, but big enough that I can be fully upright without hitting my head on the ceiling.
The walls are smooth stone, yet void of carvings, or windows.
Nothing says I’m the key, come get me. There is only a tunnel to my left, leading downwards.
Odi hovers at the dark entrance, her voice hesitant. “I think if we’re going to find the key, it’s going to be down there.”
I nod. “Want to take bets on what else is waiting along with it?”
She gives me a look, ignoring my answering grin. Then we slip into the tunnel, the walls narrowing as we push deeper, the sea pressing heavier with every stroke. The glow of Odi’s sea stone casts a pale shimmer across the rock, catching on the weeds that sway with the current.
I gesture to a stretch of long, ribboned fronds drifting like banners. “Blue kelp,” I tell her. “It only flowers once a year. My father cut one of its blossoms the day he asked my mother to be his queen.”
Mother had told me the story countless times in my younger years. The memory ghosts through me, sharp and bittersweet, but I push it down.
Before Odi has a chance to ask another question I point at a cluster of sea plants—pale stalks with sharp, twisting ends. “That one’s poison,” I chuckle. “Only if you’re fool enough to eat it. Otto would do good with it though.”
Her eyes flick towards me, a faint grin tugging on her lips.
The end of the tunnel appears, spilling us into a vast hollow, and for a moment I forget to move. Odi is frozen at my side, both of us struck by awe at the vision in front of us.
Walls of coral rise around us in great ribs of colour.
Bending and twisting like the wildflowers that grow in fields on land.
Crimson fans stretch wide, waving at us with the flowing current.
Pale fingers of branching coral glow faintly, tipped in gold and violet.
Anemones pulse as schools of tiny silver fish dart through them like stars.
Light blooms everywhere, spilling from the living creatures themselves. Soft blues, fierce greens, threads of white that curl like wispy clouds on a summer's day. I don’t know where to look first.
Above us, loops of rainbow fish turn as one, their scales catching the glow in bright flashes, a ceiling of shifting stars.
Odi hovers beside me, her mouth open in awe as the mound of coral in front of us seems to rise and fall with breath.
Peach, aqua, pink and purple clusters of coral grow from the mound like flowers of the sea.
Some change colour with every throb of their heartbeat.
Lemon yellow coral sways, their fronds falling like grass in a hidden meadow.
This cavern is alive. It’s a world breathing beneath the world.
“What is this place?” she whispers, drifting towards it.
I flick my tail, keeping my distance so she doesn’t feel like I’m hovering. We circle around the hump of coral in the centre of the space once. And yet there is no obvious place that the key might be.
“If I were a key, where would I hide?” I ponder.
Odi drifts closer, fingers reaching for a spray of lemon coral. Her hand hovers, then lightly brushes the edge of the yellow blossom.
Then the coral blinks.
An eye. Slitted, golden, opening where no eye should be.
Odi jerks back with a sharp gasp, colliding with my chest. Instincts take over, and I wrap my arms around her, ready to shield her as the cavern shudders with a low, thrumming vibration that rolls through the water.
“Odi—”
“I’m sorry, alright?” She throws over her shoulder.
The coral mound unfolds, shifting. What I thought were branches, peel back, scale by scale until the shape uncoils.
An ocean dragon—woven of coral and sea itself—stretches up to the cavern ceiling.
Long tendrils of her body ripple with light, fins like flags float around her.
Then there’s her teeth. Glinting like crystal daggers as she opens her mouth.
I hold Odi tighter, one arm around her waist, the other reaching for the blade at my hip, half ready for the fight of our lives.
But then a voice blooms inside my head, as calm and deep as the Adamaris sea. “Be still young ones. You stand in the heart of what is sacred. It’s not often I see a child of the surface co-existing with one born of this very water.”
The dragon’s golden gaze sweeps over us, not cruel, not kind—simply knowing. She is no nightmare beast, but something older, revered. Her teeth are sharp enough to tear us in half, yet her presence hums with a strange grace, a weight that makes me bow my head without meaning to.
Against my chest, Odi trembles, but she doesn’t pull away. And I, for once, have no words.
“Did she talk to you in your head?” she whispers.
I nod slowly, not wanting to alarm the giant, radiant creature in front of us.
Her voice floods my mind once again. “What is it that you seek?”
Finally, I manage to find my words. “We seek the hidden key.”
“Ahhh, I see. And what shall you give me in exchange?”
I relax my hold around Odi, only slightly. The desire to have her as close as possible is too strong, besides if her air runs out, we both know I’m going to have to . . . help out. “What is it that you wish for?” I ask the dragon, like I have everything to offer her.
Smooth timbre cocoons my mind. “Do you know the riddle that belongs to this temple?”
Odi straightens her back, squaring her shoulders. “I do. Balance the scales, feather to stone, heavier still, the guilt-sown bone.”
The cavern trembles once again as the dragon chuckles. “That is only the first half.”
I angle my head to the side, looking at the breathtaking creature. “There’s more?”
She nods. “Give something not given. Nor something that’s made. Something to lose, forever to fade.”
Odi twist to look up at me. “What does that mean?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
The cavern shakes as the dragon bends down so that her face—a hundred times the size of mine—is level with me. “This part of the riddle is for you . . . prince of the sea. There is little the land might offer that would flourish here.”
My brow furrows. How does she know? Perhaps the markings shimmering on my chest, or the golden royal circlet around my right bicep has given my identity away.
Odi pulls out of my grasp, eyes wide with wonder. “Even with a sea stone I don’t think this key could be obtained without the help of the seafolk. Whoever made the map . . . they didn’t want land dwellers to be able to get to it alone.” She looks to the dragon. “Or by force.”
I release a light chuckle. “Perhaps we make a good team after all.”
She huffs and rolls her eyes before she mumbles the riddle again. “Not given, not made . . .”
“Coin’s no good. Blood maybe?” I mutter, though the thought makes my stomach knot.
She shakes her head. “Blood is made. She wants something else. Something you can’t get back once it’s gone.”
The dragon's golden eyes watch us drift back and forth as we try to figure out the rest of the riddle. “We’re on borrowed time too, Odi.”
“I know,” she murmurs.
I swim back and forth. Digging through every crevice of my mind to find the answer.
Something to lose.
Then it cuts through me like a halberd through kraken tentacles. I twist to face the dragon.
“She wants a song.”
“What?” Odi sounds shocked as she swims towards me.
I run a hand through the blue tendrils floating around my face, preparing myself for something I hadn’t done in a very long time. “It’s a gift that’s never truly given away.” I look at the dragon. “Until now. Whichever one I choose will be taken from memory.”
Odi wraps a hand around my arm and squeezes. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
I glance down, offering her a smile. Her brow pinches with worry, so for once I let myself reach out and smooth it. She leans her cheek into my hand, and just like that. I’m at peace.
“We’ve lost so much for this map already. What’s a little more?” I say softly.
Odi briefly flinches at my words, like giving more is the last thing she wants to do. Then she offers me a weak smile. “Then, I guess you’d better sing.”
The dragon stills, her golden eyes fixed on me, waiting. “Choose wisely, Prince. Those who left me with this task promised much.”
I ease Odi’s arm off mine and push forwards until I’m a few paces from glinting dragon’s teeth.
The weight of her power rolls over me like a wave crashing on the shoreline.
Instinctively, I know this creature won’t accept anything but what I treasure most. My chest tightens with grief even as I drag in sea water, filtering it into oxygen.
And for the first time in years . . . I sing my mother’s song.
The heart is tender,
it whispers, it pleads.
Hear the call of the ocean,
surrender to her seas.
Child, guard your soul gently,
let it drift where it leads.
A journey will find you,
if you let your heart free.
Each note floats on the current. Vibrating through the water. It carries into the dragon, pulled from me piece by piece until I feel a small hollow of emptiness of where it used to live.
As the last note brushes my lips, the sense of loss strikes me hard, and final, leaving an ache in my chest. The dragon’s eyes narrow.
Then she dips her head, almost a bow. She reaches towards me with a broad, scaled arm.
Her fist unfurls one claw at a time until on the flat of her palm is the third key.
“Thank you for your gift, siren prince. I shall treasure it as much as you did.”
Gently I retrieve it, careful not to linger too long. And the moment I have the cool metal in my hand, she pulls back, curling into the coral mound once again like she never even existed.
Odi appears by my side. Her eyes are half-glazed, but I was careful to ensure the song never touched her.
“Boy, do we have a story to tell Bear,” she murmurs.
The words are light, but her gaze lingers on me, searching.
I flick mine down to her lips as I offer her a soft grin, shoving down yet another grief that will make its home in me.
“Last one back to the ship is a rotten sea slug.”