The shanty grows louder, and with it comes something I haven't felt since the chapel—genuine warmth. The water around me begins to shimmer with phosphorescence that isn't the sickly green of decay, but something golden and alive. Small fish dart toward the sound, their scales catching the light and throwing it back out in rainbow patterns.
I begin to hum along with Theron's distant song, letting my voice weave through his bass notes like silver thread through bronze. The priest-shade claps his hands over his ears, but our harmony is already spreading through the necropolis, awakening things that have slept too long in the dark.
The kelp chains encircling my wrists loosen another degree, and I work frantically at the knots while the priest-shade is distracted. The blessed shell helps, its smooth edge sharp enough to fray the rotting fibers. Each strand I cut feels like a small victory, a step closer to freedom.
"Sing louder," I whisper to myself, pouring more strength into my voice. "Let him know where you are. Let the whole necropolis know that love has come calling, and it won't be turned away."
The bell tolls one final time, its voice fading into echoes that seem less certain than before. In the silence that follows, Theron's shanty rings clear and strong, and I know he's close now—close enough that when he finds me, nothing in all the drowned halls will be able to keep us apart.
The shell in my hands pulses brighter, and somewhere in the distance, I hear the sound of stone cracking as an ancient causeway yields to the power of a voice that refuses to be silenced.
21
THERON
Ienter the necropolis heart through a passage that opens like the throat of some massive beast, and what lies beyond steals the breath from my lungs. The drowned amphitheater spreads before me in terrible majesty—a vast circular arena carved from black volcanic stone, its tiered seats rising in perfect symmetry toward a ceiling lost in phosphorescent mist. This was once the crown jewel of the dark elf city, where their greatest artists performed for audiences of thousands.
Now it serves a darker purpose.
A thousand shades hover in the water above the seats, their translucent forms arranged in perfect choral formation. They hum in minor key, their voices weaving together in harmonies that make the very water vibrate with sorrow. The sound is beautiful and terrible—a lament so pure it could make stones weep, so mournful it seems to drain color from the world.
The water here is different, cold as winter ice and clear as crystal. Each note from the drowned choir turns it more solid, more glass-like, until I feel as if I'm swimming through liquid diamond. My movements grow sluggish, each stroke requiring tremendous effort as the water thickens around me.
And there, at the center of the amphitheater's stage, stands Eurydice.
She is bound in ice, encased from feet to shoulders in crystal that gleams with inner fire. Her dark hair flows around her like kelp in the current, and her eyes—thank Zukiev, her eyes still move, still see, still hold recognition when they find mine across the vast space. She is not dead, not yet, but the ice creeps higher with each note the choir sings.
"Eurydice!" I roar, my voice echoing through the amphitheater like thunder across the sea.
At my voice’s command, the thousand shades turn toward me in perfect unison. Their hollow gazes fix on my form, and I feel the weight of their collective sorrow pressing down like the depths of the ocean itself. They have been waiting for me, I realize. Waiting for a living voice to join their eternal song.
I plant my hooves on the amphitheater floor, feeling the smooth volcanic stone beneath my feet. The shell-bell on my wrist chimes soft as snowfall, and I draw upon every blessing I've received—the Tidemother's warming oils, the winter stag's benediction, the love that burns in my chest like a forge-fire.
I start singing a war-shanty that my wise grandfather taught me, something with the force of storm waves and the fury of righteous battle. This is not a song of sorrow or lament, but of defiance—a melody that speaks of those who stand against the dark, who fight for what they love no matter the cost.
"Stand fast, ye guardians of the light,
Let no shadow steal your song,
Though hell itself should bar the right,
The just shall triumph over wrong!"
My voice crashes through the amphitheater like a battering ram, each note carrying the power of living lungs, living heart, living love. The drowned choir wavers, their perfect harmony disrupted by this intrusion of hope into their realm of despair.Some of the shades cover their ears, recoiling from the alien sound of joy in their sanctuary of sorrow.
The war-shanty builds, growing stronger with each verse, and I feel the water around me respond. The crystal clarity begins to crack, hairline fractures spreading through the liquid ice as my voice pounds against the choir's magic. The amphitheater itself starts to tremble, ancient stones loosened by vibrations they were never meant to endure.
Cracks spider across the ice that holds Eurydice, starting from where my voice hits it strongest. The frozen prison begins to shatter like a window struck by a stone, sending shards of crystal spinning through the water. Her eyes widen with hope, and I see her lips moving, trying to add her voice to mine despite the ice that still holds her throat.
The drowned choir wails in harmony, their voices rising to counter mine, but they sing only of what was lost, what died, what failed. I sing of what endures, what lives, what refuses to surrender. My war-shanty speaks of love that conquers death, of heroes who brave the abyss for those they cherish, of dawn that always comes no matter how long the night.
The amphitheater floor buckles beneath my hooves as the two songs clash, competing magics tearing at the very foundations of this ancient place. The choir's lament tries to drag me down into their endless sorrow, but I climb higher with each note, my voice reaching toward the surface, toward light, toward life.
The ice around Eurydice begins to fall away in great sheets, the crystal barrier no match for the force of my song. But even as I sing her free, I can see new dangers gathering in the shadows beyond the amphitheater. The necropolis will not give up its prize easily, and this victory is only the beginning of our trials.
Still, for this moment, I sing with all the power in my chest, my war-shanty echoing through the drowned halls like apromise written in bronze and starlight: nothing will keep us apart, not death, not sorrow, not all the weight of the sunken world.
22
