The kelp shackles around my wrists and ankles pulse with their own cold life, tightening whenever I move too quickly or speak too loudly. My skin has gone numb where they touch, and I can feel something spreading up my arms—not quite cold, not quite pain, but a creeping emptiness that makes my thoughts slow and distant. The children cluster around me still, their pearl-black eyes watching with the intensity of cats studying prey, though their intentions seem more curious than malicious.
"The pretty lady grows quiet," observes the little girl with shells in her hair. She tilts her head, and the shells chime like tiny bells. "The deep-sleep comes to all who linger. Soon you'll forget the warm place above."
"I won't forget," I whisper, though even as I say the words, I can feel memories slipping away like sand through my fingers. What was the name of my favorite flower? What did fresh bread smell like? The details of my life before this place blur and fade, leaving only vague impressions of warmth and light.
But Theron's voice—that remains clear and strong, growing closer with each passing moment. I focus on that sound like adrowning woman focuses on driftwood, letting it anchor me to who I am, who I was, who I refuse to stop being.
A drowned bell tolls somewhere in the depths of the necropolis, its bronze voice carrying a different note than the ones that rang in Milthar's harbor just hours ago. This bell sounds hungry, hollow, like it's calling the dead to some terrible feast. The moment its voice touches the water, every shade in the vicinity freezes, their translucent forms going rigid as statues.
"The Tide-Herald calls," breathes the boy with barnacles on his face. "Someone new walks the deep roads. Someone who still carries the taste of sky-wind in their lungs."
The children begin to drift away from me, drawn by some compulsion I can't understand. Their forms grow more translucent as they move, fading back into the phosphorescent gloom until only their voices remain—whispers in a language that might be dark elvish, or might be something older and stranger still.
I'm alone again, bound to this pillar of carved stone while the necropolis breathes around me like a living thing. The kelp chains seem to sense my isolation and grow tighter, sending fresh waves of numbness up my arms. My heartbeat slows to match the rhythm of the tide, and I feel my thoughts growing sluggish as honey in winter.
But I still have my voice. They haven't taken that from me yet.
I time my breathing to the distant sound of Theron's singing, using his rhythm as a lifeline. When I'm sure the cadence is right, I take as deep a breath as the kelp chains will allow and begin to hum—not loudly enough to draw the attention of the greater shades, but just loud enough for someone who knows my voice to hear.
The melody I choose is one he taught me himself, a simple sailor's tune about finding safe harbor after a long voyage. Iremember the night he first sang it to me, how his voice rumbled through his chest as I lay with my head against his shoulder, how the vibration of it made me feel safe and cherished in a way I'd never experienced before.
"When the storm winds cease their howling,
And the waves grow smooth and still,
Guide me home through darkest water,
By your love and by your will."
The words emerge as barely more than whispered breath, but they carry across the water with surprising clarity. Almost immediately, I hear an answering echo—Theron's voice taking up the harmony, his bass notes weaving around my soprano like strong arms wrapping around a frightened heart.
The kelp chains loosen slightly, as if the music confuses them. Whatever dark magic binds them seems to falter when confronted with something pure and living and warm. I take advantage of the momentary slack to work at one of the knots with my teeth, gnawing at the slimy fronds like a mouse chewing through rope.
The taste is vile—salt and decay and something that might once have been flowers, all gone rotten in the depths. But I persist, spitting out fragments of kelp and humming between bites. Each note I sing seems to weaken the bindings a little more, as if the music itself is poison to whatever holds me here.
A crack appears in the pillar where the kelp chains anchor me, running from the base to somewhere above my head. The stone is old, older than the dark elf city itself, and the constant pressure of binding captives has finally taken its toll. I wedge the red ribbon from my hair into the crack, working it deeper with my fingernails until it catches on something inside the stone.
Find me by the red silk,I think, remembering a story Theron once told me about sailors leaving signs for rescue parties.Findme by the red ribbon, my golden bull. Follow the thread of my voice through this maze of sorrow.
The ribbon holds, its bright color a small flag of defiance in this realm of gray shadows and phosphorescent decay. If—when—Theron reaches this place, he'll see it and know I was here, know I fought to leave him a trail to follow.
The distant bell tolls again, and this time I feel its vibration in my bones. Something is moving through the necropolis, something large enough to disturb the settled silt of centuries. The shades around me grow agitated, their forms flickering like candle flames in a drafty room.
But through it all, Theron's voice continues to grow stronger, his song a constant thread of warmth in this tapestry of cold. He's navigating the labyrinth, following whatever signs I can leave, trusting in the bond between us to guide him true.
I close my eyes and let his voice wash over me, using its strength to push back against the creeping numbness in my limbs. The kelp chains may hold my body, but my spirit—my love, my hope, my determination to see him again—that remains free.
And somewhere in the drowned halls of this ancient city, I hear the sound of children laughing, their voices bright with remembered joy as they echo the melody Theron and I share.
The dead may hunger for the warmth of the living, but they've forgotten something important: love is not just warmth to be consumed. It's fire that spreads, light that kindles other lights, song that teaches silence how to sing.
I hum a little louder, and the crack in the pillar spreads a little further.
9
THERON
The current carries me through a corridor lined with murals that shimmer in my lantern light like wet paint. To my left, scenes of winter hunts unfold across the stone—dark elves on horseback pursuing creatures I recognize from the mountains near Milthar, their faces twisted with bloodlust and cruel joy. To my right, a different kind of scene: a choir of figures with their mouths open in eternal song, their carved faces bearing expressions of ecstasy and despair in equal measure.
