His eyes drift closed—just for a second—and I see how much effort it takes for him to force them open again. “You would warn me? Even though I’m keeping you captive?”
“You also saved my life.” The words come out quieter than I intend. “Twice now. First from drowning, then from—” I gesture vaguely at myself. “From breaking apart in those tunnels. You didn’t have to do either of those things.”
He’s quiet for so long I think he might have actually fallen asleep. Then: “You came in peace. Using diplomatic signals. That means something.”
“Does it?” I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. “Your people still shot me down.”
“Caspian’s people.” The correction is sharp. “Not all of us agree with his methods.”
There’s something in his tone—frustration, maybe, or resignation. I file it away. Discord among the Deep Runners. That’s information I can use, if we survive long enough for it to matter.
But right now, watching him fight exhaustion, I don’t feel like a diplomat gathering intelligence. I feel like a person watching another person push himself past his limits.
“Sleep,” I say again. “I’ll wake you if anything changes.”
This time, he doesn’t argue. His eyes drift closed, and within minutes, his breathing deepens into the rhythm of sleep. Just like that, the fierce Sentinel becomes something softer. Younger, almost. Vulnerable.
I watch him in the moss-light and feel something shift in my chest.
He looksdifferent when he sleeps.
The permanent wariness smooths away from his face. His scales catch the bioluminescence in patterns that shift with each breath—iridescent blues and greens rippling across his skin like light through water. His webbed fingers twitch slightly, and I wonder what he’s dreaming about. The river? His sister? The war Caspian wants to start?
I could escape. The thought surfaces unbidden.
My lightning—even dampened by the enchanted rope—might be enough to burn through the kelp-fiber bindings if I pushed hard enough. Concentrated heat, applied at a single point. It would hurt. Might scar. But it’s possible.
And then what?
I can’t fly with this shoulder. Can’t navigate the tunnels alone without succumbing to panic. Don’t know which way leads to the surface and which leads deeper into the earth. Even if I made it out, I’d be lost in hostile territory, injured, easy prey for Caspian’s patrols.
Tactically, escape is suicide.
But there’s another reason I don’t move. One I’m less comfortable examining.
I don’t want to leave him.
The bond pulses in my chest, satisfied with this realization. As if it’s been waiting for me to admit it. And maybe it has. Maybe that’s what this whole impossible connection is—a truth my body recognized before my mind was ready to accept it.
He’s not a villain. He’s a soldier who lost someone he loved and is fighting for what he believes will protect his people. How many of my so-called enemies were just people like him? Doing what they thought was right, carrying their own grief, trying to survive in a world that keeps taking things from them?
I’ve negotiated with dozens of factions over the years. Smoothed tensions between clans who hated each other for generations. Found common ground where none seemed to exist. I thought I understood the complexities of conflict.
But I’ve never felt an enemy’s grief echo through my own chest. Never sensed their exhaustion like it was my own fatigue. Never watched them sleep and wanted—what? To protect them? To understand them? To bridge the impossible distance between what we are and what we might become?
The bond isn’t making me feel this. I know that now. It’s just stripping away the comfortable distance I’ve always maintained. Forcing me to see him not as Deep Runner or Sentinel or enemy, but as Torin. A man who loves his people, mourns his sister, and is caught between duty and something that looks dangerously like doubt.
A man who, despite every reason not to, saved my life.
I close my eyes and reach out with my magic, feeling the air currents that flow through the distant tunnels. No vibrations. No displaced air that might signal approaching danger. Just the steady whisper of underground wind and the distant roar of falling water.
We’re safe. For now.
I let myself keep watching him, storing away details I have no business noticing. The way his hair lies flat and sleek against his skull, still damp from the last pool we crossed. The faint line of his gills when he breathes, barely visible but there if you know where to look. The surprising length of his eyelashes, dark against his skin.
He’s beautiful. In the way storms are beautiful. In the way deep water is beautiful. Dangerous and compelling and impossible to look away from.
And I’m in so much trouble.
