It was a guttural hum, at first. Something beyond hearing, for it drummed in his chest. Using the dwindling oxygen reserved in his lungs, he made the water shimmer and the silt dance.
The Resonance.
A sub-audible purr.
In a rolling wave, his scales lifted. Venting heat from his coiled bulk.
And then he pulsed.
An intoxicating blue radiated from beneath his skin—the only shade of color the eyes of the deep could perceive in the anoxic dark.
Bioluminescence.
Symbiotic bacteria that nested in the grooves between his armored scales, bred in the dark, cultivated and fed on his heat. Agitated at his command.
It was the first of many specialized adaptations that set theAbyssariapart. Where his kind suffered in the open waters theThalassariruled, made vulnerable to disease in the warmth of rich shallows, the trench-born bloomed in the dark.
For a moment, the shadows retreated, recoiling from the new king twisting in the gloom, but that was all.
It was exactly as devoid of life as his father had always insisted.
A hollow court, waiting to be filled.
Pleased, he flicked his tail and shot through the ceiling of poison, and burst into a slightly less toxic layer. Pulling a few heaving breaths of burning brine over his gills, he floated in the seething dark.
Alone.
An abomination.
Exile.
The faces of his people flashed through his mind as he recovered his breath. Their disgust at his attempt to save them from extinction by crafting a siren from human flesh. And for his crimes—for mixing blood with a human—he’d been banished.
The verdict still echoed in his ears, as if they had not once done the same. As if, long before his birth, theAbyssarikingshadn’t bred Sirens from mortal flesh. It was a truth recorded in their bloodlines, sung into the marrow of every human consort who’d once kept the seas docile for sailors in exchange for safe passage.
Fools.
Without the Sirens, thePelagornreign would have suffered and died out long ago.
But now they shrieked of blasphemy and corruption. They’d wrapped his failure around his gills and dragged him to the edge of his father’s dwindling kingdom and cast him out.
Because he’d been careless.
Failed.
He’d chosen a human bride. Moved her toward a glorious conclusion that might’ve seen them escape the crushing authority of theThalassarirule, and save his people from the brink.
But she’d died.
Drowned before he could set his knot, for he’d been too eager. Impatient. Overcome with the primal urge to breed, she’d been called to the sea before her rebirth had been complete.
It was a stain he’d carry in his marrow until redemption or death.
Lip curling, he flashed his teeth to the gloom.
He should let them choke, and the shallow king with them.
Filling his lungs with the burn, he returned to the void.
