Its curiosity was a wonderful thing. She felt its amazement: a shark’s teeth, in a woman’s mouth? But it didn’t hurt the way other people seeing her monstrous side hurt.
Because there was no disgust in its reaction to her. No knee-jerk horror, quickly papered over by tissue-thin politeness, or not so quickly and not even tissue-thin.
It was curious, and careful, and the shadows around her echoed with its shapeless thoughts. Here was the one it hadhunted for. The great star from the sky. The coolest waters silvered by the shining moon. Here, hunting it.
It had never known such a thing.
Then it found the pulse on her neck, flickering just beneath the skin.
It froze. Its touch pulled away all at once, leaving her still surrounded by darkness, but alone.
It hadn’t realized how delicate she was. How precious. No, it had always known how precious she was. But to come hunting after it, diving straight into the deep shadow-heart of its soul, when she was so small and fragile…
She laughed, soundless in the void of the kraken’s soul. No one thought of her as fragile. Small, yes. No number of teeth could get around that. But fragile?
It could break her with less effort than it took to breach the shadows beneath ships. If its attention strayed—not that its attention could ever stray from her light, her shining starlight perfection, her sharpness and brightness—but if it did…
Strangeness rolled through the depths. A new experience for a creature as old as the oceans.
It was afraid.
She reached out mentally, sending her thoughts into the shadows. *Don’t be afraid. I’ve never been afraid of you.*
The moon didn’t fear it, either; but the moon never leapt silver-bright and shining within its reach. The moon kept itself safe.
Determination rumbled through the abyss. It would not hurt her. Its avatar wouldn’t let it. The body of bones and sinew and fire, the soul like the chains holding a ship to anchor—he wouldn’t let the kraken hurt her.
Carol blinked in the darkness. *Moss. You’re talking about Moss.*
The avatar. Yes. The one who fought, and feared, and chained it more effectively than any other avatar had ever managed.
The kraken had only escaped him twice, seeking her brilliance, and each time, he had leashed it more tightly to his command.
Twice,she thought, and their minds were so close that she knew it heard her thoughts as though she were speaking them.When you saw me in the storm.
When it found her. A sliver of moonlight in the shadow of a sky-ship.
And now?But Moss hadn’t leashed it. She was here, and it wasn’t leashed. Where was he? How long had she been here? What was happening outside?
Oh god. The helicopter. Lance and the others. Were they safe?
He will not let me harm them, the kraken told her.
She blinked, the insides of her eyelids somehow less black than the endless shadows surrounding her.
The avatar would never let it loose again, after this. He had made a mistake, letting his shock create a chink in his iron will. The kraken had made a mistake, taking advantage of it.
But what a mistake, that had let her dive into the heart of it. It would hold that memory as precious as though it had held the moon itself, in the endless years of being chained in the deep that lay ahead of it.
It would remember her, beyond the great death that came for them all.
Beloved.
The shadows vanished. She gasped a breath that tasted like the ocean, like the world, and nothing like the inky void. The sun was too bright for her eyes. She reeled back, blinking as the ground slid beneath her feet, and Moss’s arms were around her.
His warmth, his scent, his sheer physicality, overwhelmed her.
How had the kraken described him? A soul like the chains that hold an anchor to its ship. Moss had hidden his strength behind bashful smiles and bad jokes.
