Chapter 7
The descent into Vorynthar’s heart was agony. Liquid relief.
Blistering pain where she ached to be stretched and filled—a reprieve, when her fragile system was stitched back together by the pressure of the Deep.
The current carried them in tense silence. Nerissa’s hand firm on Kore’s wrist as the Tide Mother guided her through the watery depths, where the light was born of the reef below, and the cold claimed everything.
Kore didn’t resist.
Eyes fixed to the slash of a heaving fluke as Nyxarion led them through the dark.
Not once looking back to see Kore, where she clung to the Tide Mother. Every pump of his tail put more distance between them, his anger a lash of brutal pain Kore couldn’t understand. Until he vanished from sight.
Keening low in her throat, Kore tried to call to him. Reaching until she lost him in the dark, and all she could see was Vorynthar’s outline blooming beneath them.
A coral lattice pulsing and vibrant in the deep.
Nerissa gasped, whispering, “Tide preserve us—Nyxarion, what have you awakened in the old waters?”
Kore knew a prayer when she heard it, and she looked, twisting to see Nerissa as they swam.
Eyes wide and fathomless, the Tide Mother was staring into the abyss, shocked by what she saw in the dark. By what Nyxarion had built to cage his fragile Siren in the trench.
But she saw suffering, too. Noticed the way Nerissa’s gills fluttered and stretched. Flaring wide as she tried to fight the pressure and lack of oxygen as they descended.
The Abyssari swirled around them, shades in the gloom. Biolume pulsing in the silent language of the abyss—unhurried, effortless, they moved at Nerissa’s pace. Brushing against the Tide Mother, checking in. Issuing a net of bubbles to keep the water around her rich with oxygen.
And Kore clung.
Watching when an elder male—scales black as volcanic glass, eyes a bottomless inky, pitch—commanded the younger warriors to create a wedge. Breaking the current and easing their passage.
Kore felt it when they passed through the worst of the poisonous layers.
And, with a gasp, oxygen flooded through her gills. Dizzying. Sweet and clean. Filtered by the reef glowing in welcome below them.
It wasn’t enough.
Nerissa wheezed. Drifting, her fins issuing a weak flutter until their escort of Abyssari warriors delivered them to the cradle that had been Kore’s prison.
Willingly, Nerissa settled in the fist of coral. Gasping where the Raskoril was thickest—breathing in the very place that Kore had been entombed. Her eyes clenched shut as she fought to simply breathe against the weight of the Black Sea crushing down upon her.
Mindlessly, Kore’s fingers drifted between her thighs.
Subtle.
Desperate.
The ache had been muted in the horror of Thalos’ challenge.
But it had returned with a fury Kore had never known.
Need.
It blistered through her veins. Scalding every nerve with the drive to seek out her monster, and beg him to breed her. To pump her belly full to bursting, and seal it all inside with a knot.
Flames of liquid heat spread through her belly, tracing the hollow between her hips, where she needed Nyxarion to attend to the pain he’d caused.
Electric blue threads of light pulsed at her throat, broadcasting her need in bioluminescent bursts that defied her control.
A tiny burp of sound escaped her, then.
Nerissa’s ancient, fathomless eyes flicked open.
“Child.”
It was a reprimand dressed in exhaustion. The Tide Mother’s gills flared wide, drinking oxygen straight from the Raskoril’s dense clusters. Chest heaving with effort, but still, she reached for Kore’s hand. Drawing her touch away.
“It hurts,” Nerissa murmured, “I know.” Shifting in the cradle, the Tide Mother drew both of Kore’s hands into hers. “You need him. Nyxarion.”
Nodding, Kore sobbed.
“He cannot come,” Nerissa murmured, brushing away the cloud of hair floating around Kore’s face. “I’m sorry, child. But it is forbidden. Neither suitor nor challenger may touch the bride.”
Each syllable slashed at Kore’s restraint. Landing with the sort of weight that drove her toward hysterics.
“The Spiral forbids contact,” Nerissa explained, her voice growing stronger. “Until the first trial is won, neither may touch you. You are under my care alone.”
Shaking her head, Kore tried to plead. To beg and bargain. Fins flaring, churning a mild current as the panic took hold.
Nerissa’s smile grew ripe with pity. “If Nyxarion violates the covenant of Spiral law, and touches you outside of the trials? Thalos wins by default. You would be given to my Sovereign immediately.”
Recoiling, Kore kicked at the seabed. Sending a cascade of silt and blue fire pulsing through the dark. Her own colors flicking with the evidence of her distress.
She was to suffer, then. Endlessly.
Or die.
If she got the relief her body screamed for, Thalos would give her the sort of respite that came wrapped in a blade.
Vision growing blurry, Kore curled around herself. As if reacting to what she couldn’t have, the ache bloomed into something monstrous.
Trembling, lips parting as she tried to ask for more—an explanation, help, anything at all that might ease her pain. But there was only misery.
Extending her delicate hand, Nerissa bade her come closer. Long silver hair a shroud in the light, she said, “Come, child. You are trembling. Let me look and see what Nyxarion created.”
Cringing, Kore stepped closer. Toes squelching in the silt.
“Did he explain?” she asked, coaxing and gentle. “What he’s done to you?”
Kore shook her head, unable to do anything else. Sending her dark hair swirling in a slow whip.
“Of course not,” Nerissa smiled, reaching to press two fingers to Kore’s throat.
Prodding her gills. “Why bother explaining when he might simply rut and leave you to discover the consequences of his actions without guidance?” She clicked her tongue, frowning at Kore’s gill slits.
“Still raw, as I suspected. He rushed the change, the foolish boy.” And then, collecting Kore’s hands, she turned her palms up, inspecting the thin webbing between her fingers.
“Scale growth uneven. Abyssari patterning, yes, but fragile. Not yet hardened off.” A faint click of disapproval.
“Too much venom, not enough patience. Typical.”
A surprised huff of bubbles escaped her then, and Kore laughed. Emitting a squawk of sound.
Despite her obvious suffering, Nerissa’s grin was quick.
“They are all fools,” she murmured, as if sharing some poisonous secret.
“Males of any species—Thalassari, Abyssari, human, beast—every last one thinks only of the next chance to empty his balls.” Shifting, gills flashing crimson with effort to simply breathe on the bottom, he said, “They spend centuries perfecting the art of conquest. Strategy. Resonance. Spears and blades and pretty words.”
Fingers tracing idle patterns through the water, Nerissa flicked her tail and took a sip of breath directly from the polyps.
“But ask them to explain what they’ve done? To consider the female left drowning in their venom, alone and terrified?” Nerissa’s pale eyes glinted with something dangerous. “No. That requires thought beyond their cocks.”
Guiding her to spin, the Tide Mother continued her examination. Her touch gentle when it tested the spread of her fins.
“The Spiral is our oldest law,” she murmured. “Older than the Accord. Than the war that split the seas.” Voice growing steadier with every passing beat, gaining strength, she said, “It’s a contest between suitors. A challenge for breeding rights, three trials to determine the worthiest bloodline.”
At the mention of breeding, Kore’s fingers curled into a fist. And she took a trembling breath in a desperate bid to distract from the ache.
“It’s exceedingly rare for a Thalassari to call the Spiral for an Abyssari,” she murmured and her touch moved to the scales dimpling Kore’s hips. “But to hear one called for a Siren?” The ancient Virelii laughed, low and rich. “It’s never been done.”
Kore turned to look, glancing over her shoulder, one brow lifted in a silent question.
“The first trial begins with the changing of the tide. It is a maze. A contest of speed and agility. You, precious daughter, shall be held in the center. A prize at the heart of the maze. Whomever reaches you first, shall claim breeding rights for one full tide.”
Gills flaring as she gasped, Kore strained to process the horror of that statement.
“The second trial tests endurance,” Nerissa said. “The third, combat.” The Tide Mother’s smile turned brittle. “By the end, one sovereign will have earned you. The other will watch you swell with his enemy’s spawn.”
Kore’s hands flew to the empty cradle between her hips.
Horrified.
Shocked and appalled.
Nerissa dragged her closer, then. Something wicked and desperate flickering behind her ancient eyes, when she said, “I remember, child. When the seas were loud with your kind. Before the war. Before the Accord and the genocide that purged the last Sirens from our waters.” Her grip grew tight and painful against Kore’s skin for a moment.
“Sirens were everything. Born of two worlds. The bridge between both.”
Breath catching as she stared at the other female, Kore blinked luminous eyes.
Held rapt.
Shocked.
“The Thalassari feared what you might be—evolution beyond our control,” Nerissa whispered.
“So they went to war to destroy and regulate. Slaughtering every Siren they could find, and forced the Abyssari into treaties that starved them into submission.” Nerissa leaned closer, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
“But I saw them, Kore. Saw what they could do. What they could be.”