It's a nursery.
The space is smaller than the others, more intimate. The walls glow with the softest blue-white light, gentle enough not to hurt new eyes. Pools of varying depth fill the floor, each one the perfect temperature for different stages of development. Coral shelves hold things I don't recognize but somehow understand are toys, teaching tools, objects meant for small hands that might have tentacles or might not.
“Forty seasons preparing,” he says quietly. “Hoping.”
The weight of his patience, his faith that someday I'd exist and find him, is overwhelming. Four decades of building this, ofpreparing for children that might never come, for a mate that might never arrive.
“This one never doubted,” he continues, moving to what's clearly a nest of sorts. Soft plant matter woven with something that shimmers, creating a space large enough for two adults and many small bodies. “The currents promised. This one just had to wait.”
We leave the nursery in silence, my throat too tight for words.
The tour continues through rooms for food preparation, for storage, for purposes I don't fully understand. Every space is beautiful, functional, and waiting. The whole palace feels like held breath, like it's been sleeping until now.
Finally, he brings me to the highest chamber, one that requires swimming up through a vertical tunnel. We surface in a room with no walls, just pillars holding up a coral canopy. From here, I can see in every direction.
The reef spreads below us in patterns that make sense now. Aylth's territory is vast, organized, cultivated. But what catches my attention is the view upward.
Through clear water, I can see the surface far above. And breaking through it, a black spire of volcanic rock.
“The portal island,” I say.
“Yes.” He moves beside me, tentacles creating a living chair for me to lean against. “Highest point in this one's territory. Never submerges, even at king tide.”
“The portal will open there.”
“In nineteen days.”
We both stare at it. This black finger of rock pointing up toward a world I came from. A world where Sam is safe now, where the credits I earned have bought his escape from rising waters. The irony isn't lost on me that I fled drowning only to find myself deeper underwater than I've ever been.
“Female could return,” Aylth says carefully. “Portal opens both ways.”
“I know.”
“Does female want to return?”
The question hangs between us like the island hangs above us. Do I want to return? To what? Sam is safe. Miami is underwater. My job as a rescue swimmer is obsolete when there's no beach to patrol. What waits for me is refugee camps and climate grief and the slow collapse of everything.
Here, there's this impossible palace. This devoted creature who spent forty years preparing for me. A life that's alien but not empty.
“I don't know,” I answer honestly.
He accepts this with a nod. “Nineteen days to decide.”
We descend back to the main chamber as the day progresses. He shows me how the palace responds to different times, how the bioluminescence shifts with rhythms I'm only beginning to understand. He feeds me foods I don't recognize but that taste perfect to my modified palate.
As night falls, we retire to what's clearly meant to be our chamber. The master bedroom, if palaces under the sea have such things. The bed is that nest-like structure but larger, more elaborate. The pool beside it steams gently, perfect for soaking.
“Female is quiet,” he observes as we settle into the warm water.
“Processing.”
“This one showed too much too quickly.”
“No. I needed to see. To understand what you built. What you waited for.”
His tentacles move through the water, creating gentle currents around us. “Female understands this one's devotion now?”
“I'm beginning to.”
