The maiden-shade's hands still again, and when she speaks, her voice holds a note of wonder. "You truly believe he will reach you? You truly think love can bridge the immense gap between life and death?"
"I know it can," I say with quiet certainty. "I can hear his voice growing stronger. Can you hear it? That deep bass cutting right through the water like sunlight through shadow?"
She tilts her head, listening, and I see her form flicker as hope warrs with despair. "I... I think I do hear something. Music that doesn't sound like mourning. Music that sounds like... like..."
"Like wedding songs," I finish for her. "Like the melodies you would have danced to on your special day."
A single tear slides down her pale cheek—the first genuine tear I've seen in this place of endless sorrow. She reaches into the remnants of her gown and produces something that makes my breath catch: a hairpin made of bone and silver, carved with tiny flowers that must have taken months to complete.
"For luck," she says, securing the bone and silver pin in my newly combed hair.
The pin feels warm against my scalp, infused with the maiden-shade's desperate hope. As she steps back to admire her work, I test the kelp bindings again and find them looser than before. Her presence, her kindness, her memory of love—all of it seems to weaken whatever dark magic holds me to this pillar.
"When he finds you," she whispers, "tell him... tell him that not all who dwell in the depths have forgotten beauty. Tell him that some of us still recall what it looks like to hope."
Theron's voice reaches us then, clearer than before, carrying the work song that opened the Chamber of Tithes. The maiden-shade gasps, her form becoming briefly solid as the music touches her.
"He truly comes," she breathes. "Your golden bull truly sings his way to you. Perhaps... perhaps love is stronger than the tide after all."
As she fades back into the shadows, I call after her: "What shall I tell him your name was? How shall I remember you?"
"Lyralei," she says, her voice already growing distant. "I was Lyralei, who would have been a bride in spring."
And then she's gone, leaving only the coral comb floating in the water beside me and the silver hairpin warm in my hair—tokens of love remembered, gifts from one who never gave up hoping for her own reunion, even in the depths of despair.
13
THERON
The tunnel slopes ever downward, carrying me through passages that grow stranger with each stroke of my arms. The water here has an odd quality—not quite liquid, not quite air, but something in between that makes my movements feel both sluggish and weightless at once. My lantern throws long shadows on walls carved with symbols I don't recognize, though they pulse with a faint inner light that responds to my voice when I sing.
Ahead, the passage opens into what can only be a shrine of some kind. A single column of salt-stone rises from the seafloor, carved in the likeness of a winter stag with antlers that spread like frozen branches. The craftsmanship is exquisite—every detail rendered with loving care, from the texture of the stag's coat to the wise sadness in its ancient eyes. This is no dark elf work, I realize. This predates their civilization, perhaps by centuries.
I pause before the shrine, feeling the weight of ages pressing down on me like the depth of the sea itself. The stag's gaze seems to follow me as I circle the column, and I notice that offerings have been left here—not the gold and jewels that filledthe Chamber of Tithes, but simpler things. Shells arranged in careful patterns. Flowers that have somehow retained their color despite the crushing depths. Wreaths of kelp woven with the same care that Eurydice put into the evergreen crown she made for my horns.
The thought of her wreath brings a sharp pang of longing. I reach up to touch it where it still sits among my horns, the pine and holly somehow holding their scent even in this alien realm. On impulse, I lift it free and place it at the base of the shrine, adding my offering to those left by others who passed this way.
"Great stag of the deep currents," I whisper, the words coming from some half-remembered prayer my grandfather taught me. "Guardian of the paths between, accept this token of my devotion. Guide me to the one I seek, and grant me the strength to bring her safely home."
The moment my wreath touches the salt-stone, the stag's carved eye flashes with inner light—just for an instant, but bright enough to make my breath catch. The offerings around the base begin to glow with the same soft radiance, and I hear something that might be a sigh of satisfaction echoing through the water.
An eddy clears the silt from the shrine's base, revealing something making my heart dance with hope. Footprints in the settled sediment—small and narrow, with the distinctive sole pattern of Eurydice's festival boots. She was here. She passed this shrine, perhaps leaving her own offering to the ancient guardian.
I begin to circle the column again, singing a low blessing that my mother taught me—a song for safe travels and protected journeys. As my voice rises, the water around the shrine grows clearer, and I see more signs of her passage. A strand of dark hair caught on a piece of coral. The faint impression of her hand on the salt-stone where she might have steadied herself.
"Bless the path and guard the way,
Light the darkness, lead astray
All who seek to do us harm,
Keep the faithful safe from storm."
The blessing seems to resonate with the shrine's ancient power. The stag's antlers begin to glow more brightly, and I feel a current stirring beneath me—not the chaotic flows that tried to pull me off course, but something purposeful and gentle. It tugs at my wreath, trying to pull it away from the shrine's base.
At first I resist, wanting to leave my offering where I placed it. But then I understand. The shrine doesn't want to keep my wreath—it wants to return it to me, blessed and sanctified for the trials ahead. I let the current carry the evergreen crown back to my hands, and when I place it on my horns again, it feels different. Lighter somehow, but also stronger. Protected.
A new passage yawns open beyond the shrine, one I hadn't noticed before. Its entrance is rimmed with crystals of frost-salt that chime softly in the current, creating a melody that harmonizes with my blessing song. The water flowing from this passage carries a different quality—warmer, more alive, tinged with the faint phosphorescence of living things rather than the cold glow of decay.
