I bow to the winter stag, pressing my hand to the salt-stone in a gesture of gratitude and respect. "Thank you for your guidance, ancient one. I will not forget your blessing."
As I swim toward the new passage, the frost-salt crystals chime louder, their music joining my voice in a harmony that seems to call out across the vast spaces of the necropolis. Somewhere in the distance, I hear an answering melody—faint but unmistakable, sung in a voice I would recognize across any distance.
Eurydice, calling my name through the blessed waters, her song growing stronger as I follow the path the winter stag has opened for me.
The current carries me forward, and with each stroke, I feel the distance between us shrinking. The shrine's blessing flows through my veins like liquid starlight, and I know that nothing—not the dead, not the dark, not the deepest terrors of the drowned realm—will stop me from reaching her now.
14
EURYDICE
The blessed warmth from Lyralei's hairpin spreads through my scalp like sunlight on winter morning, and for the first time since my capture, I feel truly hopeful. The kelp chains at my wrists have loosened enough that I can work my fingers into the knots, picking at the slimy fronds with renewed determination. Each strand I loosen feels like a small victory against the darkness that wants to claim me.
I glimpse movement across the broken dome of what was once a grand hall, and my heart leaps as I catch sight of a familiar silhouette moving through the phosphorescent gloom. Golden mane streaming in the current, massive shoulders cutting through the water with powerful strokes—it's unmistakably Theron, following some passage I cannot see from here.
"Theron!" I call out, but my voice emerges as barely more than a whisper in this liquid realm. The distance swallows the sound before it can reach him, but I see him pause, his head turning as if he heard something at the very edge of perception.
I hum his name instead, letting the melody carry where my voice cannot. The tune is one we shared during harvest festivalsin Milthar, when the fishing boats returned heavy with their catch and the whole harbor rang with celebration. My soprano rises clear and sweet through the water, and I watch as his golden head turns toward the sound like a compass needle finding true north.
The shades around me grow agitated at my singing, their forms flickering like candleflames in a breeze. They press closer, their hollow gazes fixed on my face, but they don't try to silence me. Instead, they seem drawn to the melody, moving in slow circles around my pillar like moths around a lantern.
"Pretty music," whispers one, a child-shade with seaweed hair. "Warm music. Like mother used to sing before the deep-sleep came."
Others echo the sentiment, their voices creating a strange harmony that both supports and haunts my song. They remember music, I realize. They remember what it was to sing for joy instead of lament, and my voice awakens those buried memories like spring water melting winter ice.
I work faster at the kelp bindings, using the distraction of my singing to mask the movement of my hands. The fronds are ancient and tough, but the silver hairpin helps—its pointed end sharp enough to pierce the rotting kelp and create leverage for my fingers. Black sap bleeds from the severed strands, pooling around the base of the pillar like spilled ink.
A new sound reaches me through the water—the chiming of frost-salt crystals, clear and bright as temple bells. The shades freeze at the sound, their heads turning toward its source with expressions of wonder and fear. I know that music, though I've never heard it before. It carries the same blessing-power that flows through Milthar's sacred places, the same protective warmth that emanates from objects touched by divine grace.
"He found the old shrine," breathes a maiden-shade with flowers in her hair. "The winter stag has blessed his path. Oh,child of the surface, your golden bull carries the light of the ancient powers now."
Hope flares in my chest like a struck flame. If Theron has been blessed by whatever guardians watch over this place, then perhaps we truly have a chance. Perhaps love and faith and stubborn determination really can overcome the hunger of the dead.
I hum louder, letting my voice carry across the ruins with renewed confidence. The melody soars through collapsed archways and over broken walls, threading between the coral gardens where phosphorescent blooms pulse in rhythm with my song. I pour all my love into the music—my memories of dancing with him beneath festival lanterns, of sharing quiet mornings wrapped in his warmth, of the promises we whispered to each other in the darkness.
The kelp chains loosen further, the blessing-music seeming to weaken whatever dark magic holds them together. I manage to slip one hand free, then work frantically to untie the bonds around my other wrist. The silver hairpin proves invaluable, its blessed metal cutting through the rotting kelp like a knife through paper.
But even as I work to free myself, I feel the necropolis responding to the growing connection between Theron and me. The water grows colder, the shadows deeper. Somewhere in the distance, I hear the priest-shade's voice raised in angry incantation, calling upon powers older and darker than the winter stag's blessing.
"Hurry," I whisper to myself, attacking the last few strands of kelp with desperate urgency. "Hurry, before they realize what's happening."
A drowned child slips something cold and smooth into my newly freed hand—a shell polished to mirror brightness, itssurface inscribed with symbols that pulse with faint light. "For the warm songs that make us remember."
I clutch the shell like a talisman, feeling its power join with the hairpin's blessing. The combined radiance pushes back against the creeping cold, creating a sphere of warmth around me that the shadows cannot penetrate.
In the distance, Theron's voice grows stronger, and I know he's found whatever path the shrine opened for him. The sound of his singing makes the kelp chains around my ankles grow slack, and I realize with a surge of joy that I might actually be able to free myself before he arrives.
"Almost there," I whisper, working at the final knots. "Hold on, my golden bull. I'm not going to be a captive when you find me. I'm going to meet you halfway."
The shell in my hand pulses brighter, and somewhere in the phosphorescent gloom, I hear the sound of approaching hoofbeats cutting through the water like thunder through the deep.
15
THERON
The Archive Trench yawns before me like a wound in the seafloor, its walls lined with countless scrolls of sea-silk that drift and undulate in the current like living things. Each scroll glows with a sickly phosphorescence, and as I draw closer, I can see that they're covered in dark elf runes that seem to writhe and shift when I'm not looking directly at them. The water here feels different—thinner, hungrier, as if it wants to steal more than just warmth from my body.
The trench is narrow, forcing me to swim single-file through a corridor of hanging scrolls that brush against my shoulders like grasping fingers. Each touch sends a chill through my fur, and I realize with growing unease that these aren't ordinary records. They're curse-scrolls, repositories of dark magic that the drowned elves used to bind their enemies and preserve their power.
