Of what she might become.
And that…
… That was something she could use.
"The second trial," she called, trying to summon one of her guards to drift closer.
But in an instant, his biolume flared bright. Panicked.
And he fled.
One heft of his fluke more than enough to send him spiralling back into Vorynthar's heart.
Lips parting on a blink, Kore gasped.
Turned.
Tried again, speaking to another. "The Chain of Breath," she said, voice a low, musical hum. "What?—"
Gone.
Vanished with a flick of fins and a pulse of electric blue.
Snarling, she hissed. Fins flared wide. "Cowards," she spat, fists clenched where they were anchored in coral. Dragging water into her lungs, too fast. Shallow and hot.
And then she felt it.
The kiss of something violent.
A bubble of wrath where it stewed behind the bars of her sternum.
Eyes wide, her gaze dropped to her hands.
Where the tiny threads of violet light crackled beneath her skin.
Glowing. A pulse that thrummed in tune with her heart. Brighter with every ragged breath that spilled through her gills.
And then she knew. Understood the lightning she harboured wasn’t tied to her command… it was born of fury.
Wrath.
The helpless, frustrated rage born in a woman's heart.
A tiny smile kissed the corner of her lips, then. As she remembered. The way Thalos had reached. The moment her helpless, delicate terror had hardened. Bleeding into something… else. A violent, incandescentno. A refusal. To be claimed.
Fingers curling into claws, she watched as her rage grew more violent. Focused into a deadly point. Sharp and cutting where it sliced through her veins.
The storm wasn't hers to command.
Becauseshe was the storm.
Nerissa's breath rattled.
Wet, even at the bottom of the Black Sea. Labored enough that Kore's eyes lifted from her revelation. Torn away from the violet pulse sewn beneath her skin.
The Tide Mother's eyes were open. Fixed on Kore. Watching in that ageless way as she flexed the fledgling power lurking inside her.
"Are you…" Kore swallowed, a tight flex of her throat. Reaching for the ancientVirelii. "Are you okay?"
