He carried them up the beach, away from the hungry tide, and fell to his knees in the shelter of a rocky outcropping. Rain still lashed at them, but the worst of the wind was blocked here. It would have to be enough.
“Lilani.”
His voice cracked on his daughter’s name. He laid her on the sand, her small body so still, so wrong. Her wild curly hair was matted with salt water, her skin cold to the touch, her chest utterly motionless.
“Papa…”
The word was so faint he almost missed it—a thread of sound escaping Lilani’s blue-tinged lips. Her eyes fluttered but didn’t open.
“She’s got water in her lungs.” Ariella was beside him, her hands pressing against Lilani’s chest. “I can hear it—there’s so much?—”
“Then get it out!”
The snarl was pure beast, pure terror. He knew it wasn’t fair—she had already done the impossible, had already brought his daughter back from the depths—but the sight of Lilani’s still face was destroying him, shredding every rational thought into ribbons of pure animal fear.
She didn’t flinch.
“I need you to hold her still.” Her voice was calm now, steady in a way that cut through his panic. “What I’m about to do is going to feel strange, but you have to trust me.”
Trust.
The word echoed in the space between them.
He had spent six years learning not to trust—not humans, not strangers, not anyone outside the small circle of his daughter’s arms. He had built walls around his heart so high that even sunlight couldn’t reach the places where his soul had shriveled and died.
But Ariella had never asked for his trust before. She had simply earned it.
“Do it.”
He gathered Lilani’s shoulders, anchoring her small body in his arms. Ariella positioned herself at the girl’s side, her hands hovering over Lilani’s chest, her skin shifting from indigo to a deep, resonant blue.
And then she began to Sing.
It wasn’t music, not in any way he understood. There were no words, no melody, nothing that resembled the songs he’d heard humans perform at festivals or in the city’s clubs. This was something older, a vibration that seemed to bypass his ears entirely and settle directly into his bones.
The air itself began to hum.
He could feel it against his skin, a pressure that wasn’t quite physical. Beside him, the sand trembled, tiny particles dancing in patterns that matched the rhythm of Ariella’s Song. Even the rain seemed to hesitate, individual drops hanging suspended for a fraction of a second before continuing their fall.
She pressed her hands against Lilani’s chest, and the Song focused.
He watched in amazement as his daughter’s torso began to vibrate—not violently, but with a gentle, insistent frequency. The sound shifted, finding resonances that he could feel in his teeth, in his claws, in the deepest chambers of his heart.
She’s vibrating the water loose.
The realization struck him like a thunderbolt. She was using the same bio-acoustic sonar that let her navigate the dark depths, but turned inwards, transformed into an instrument of healing rather than navigation.
Lilani’s body spasmed.
Water erupted from her mouth and nose—not a trickle, but a torrent, as if the sea itself was being expelled from her small frame. She coughed, gagged, coughed again, each spasm bringing more liquid up from her flooded lungs.
And then?—
“Papa!”
The scream was hoarse and terrified and absolutely, perfectly alive.
Lilani’s eyes flew open, wide with fear and confusion, and she reached for him with desperate hands. He gathered her up, crushing her against his chest, his whole body shaking with the force of his relief.
