The kraken stilled. And then, to Moss’s surprise, it agreed.
The Soul-Eater’s prison was still distant, but they weren’t that far away from the chasm where the kraken dwelled. Not when it could pull the ocean around it like a shroud, almost teleporting from place to place.
They traveled deeper than before. His octopus watched, fascinated, as gills reappeared on Carol’s neck as they swam, then seemed astonished to find the same on Moss’s own neck.
*How will you manage with the pressure?*he asked Carol, not sure how far her new control over her partial shifting went.
*I’m not sure,*she replied. *In my dreams, I was in human form. But that was dreams, right?*She gently touched her gills. *My shark can cope with deeper water. But I don’t know how finely I can tune my human body to keep up. I’d better…*
She shifted, a single smooth movement that would have seemed easy if not for the fact they were still in each other’s heads. He felt how much determination it took her to shift so quickly. The love and compassion she had for her shark, the new understanding between them so bright and happy. But also the memory of the first time she’d shifted. The fear and confusion as her friends turned on her and her own body transformed into something new.
*I’m here,*he reassured her.
*I know.*There was a brief pause, and he sensed, but did not overhear, her talking with her shark. When she focused on him again, her mind was brighter. Happier. *Do you want to lead on?*
He took her down into the dark, where he’d once been afraid the kraken wanted to steal her away. As the pressure grew, he shifted into kraken form, and they swam deeper, the kraken’s tentacles a guard of honor for the great white.
There were the huge rock faces from Carol’s dream, tumbled like broken buildings. The darkness so deep, even the kraken couldn’t see through it. But it knew its way by touch. Remembered every crag of rock, every narrow crevice.
And it hated it. Hated it, and was afraid of it, but it kept going, because his mate had asked it to.
How many years did it spend down here?Moss thought, overwhelmed by the despair roiling through the kraken’s mighty soul.It volunteered to save the world, and it ended up… here.
Had the shadow dragons known it would be here so long?
Memories surfaced. The kraken showed them to him reluctantly. It had been the monster everyone feared; a great weapon in the fight against the Soul-Eater. A killer.
The years down here had changed that.
Too many years,he thought to it.
Enough years to find you and your mate,it replied.To become something I never could have been, before.
At last they were there. He knew the taste of the water and the chill in his blood the moment they arrived. A narrow crack in the world, and beyond it, a dark, empty cavern.
Carol’s shark nosed it. *I’m almost blind down here. Can’t map the shape of things from living creatures, because there’s… nothing… living down here.*She paused. *How could you even fit in there? The kraken’s too big.*
Human form,the kraken told him, and he repeated its explanation to Carol as he listened. *A human can swim through. And—the kraken can keep them alive. For a few minutes. Protecting them from the cold, and the pressure.*
But not completely. That experience would leave the human and the kraken both exhausted. And once inside the prison, it would shift back, lurking in the darkness until it was needed again. Locked away not by prison walls or chains, but by thekraken’s human host being sworn to their duty, and knowing the danger that faced their world if they tried to escape.
His heart broke for it.
I was too dangerous to be let out,the kraken argued—but its voice was exhausted. It remembered too well the other humans it had held in its soul, tethering them to this place and tethered by them in turn.
Moss’s great uncle. And his great uncle’s ancestors before him, a line stretching back to a world he couldn’t imagine. A world split by war against an enemy who had torn shifters’ souls apart with a touch.
They would have given anything to keep those they loved safe.
*But it didn’t work, did it?*
Moss didn’t realize until she spoke that Carol could hear the kraken, too. *The Soul-Eater never escaped,*he said.
*No. I’m not talking about that. I mean—the kraken was so weakened after it—you—rescued me. And that wasone storm. Not a—a battle. And everything else it’s done since then has left it exhausted. Staying down here, alone, so far from the world… it wasn’t in any condition to wage war on anyone, even if the Soul-Eater did escape. The only reason you had the energy to come after me on the ship was because the mate bond gave you that energy.*
Silence filled Moss’s soul as the kraken absorbed her words, shocked.
*I’m going in,*she said.
