For a moment, Nerissa merely watched. Lips parting around nothing.
And then, "There are histories. Things lost to our bloodlines for generations," she murmured. Her voice a pebble in the ocean. Tiny. Almost lost. "Things a Siren might recover, if given time to embrace what she was meant to be.”
Eyes widening as she listened, Kore's fingers curled into fists. And the violet light pulsed brighter as if in answer.
Nerissa didn't miss it.
The Tide Mother smiled, showing teeth. "The sea remembers," she breathed. "I look forward to seeing what you'll become."
Pulse hammering, shining in the glow of her biolume, Kore licked her lips. A human habit she didn't know she possessed. "The second trial," she said, threading her fingers through those that were gnarled with age. "The guards—they won't answer."
Gills spreading on a ragged breath, Nerissa hesitated. Pain flitting across her brow, etched in deep wrinkles. And then, "The Chain of Breath. It tests endurance. Both challenger and suitor will be lifted above the surface. And you, between them."
At this, Kore dared to smile. "Nyxarion came to me on the surface. Over and over again. He will win.”
But Nerissa shook her head. "Perhaps," she allowed. "The Korrides line does display significant resilience to surface air. But Thalos was born to it, child. He is the king of open water. The sovereign of the shallows. Ruler of the blend between land and sea. The Chain of Breath tests endurance no Abyssari can hope to fight. I'm sorry," she whispered, and patted Kore's cheek. "But Thalos will not lose the Chain of Breath."
Something akin to panic flared in Kore's colors, then. And she touched the well of power bubbling behind her ribs. "I won'tlet him win," she replied in the way of something young and foolish.
Nerissa's smile was sad.
A little soft.
"The Queen's Lightning is a marvel," she whispered, and didn't blink. "But you haven't been above the surface since you drowned, child.Youare the one who will bear the weight of this challenge. Not them. The Queen's Lightning cannot burn without breath."
CHAPTER 15
It was fitting that Thalos had chosen this place. A broken, jagged spit of rock where the Black Sea rose up, in defiance of the sky.
That lonely spit of land where Nyxarion had pulled a drowning woman from the sea and left her marooned. Where he'd split her open and drank what spilled out, fucked her into the stone until she'd begged to be ruined. Until her lungs had given up their love of air and her body had been remade.
As his.
His precious, living flame.
Nyxarion watched from below.
Seething as Nerissa guided Kore to the surface. Preparing her for the onset of the Chain of Breath.
Muscles coiled tight, predatory instincts alight with the need to drag her back under the surface. To keep her by his side, where she belonged.
Where he could explain.
Make it right.
Instead, Serakh drifted in Kore's place at his side. Silent. Watching her sovereign through slitted eyes that saw too much.
Waiting.
"She isn't ready," he snapped, fins flicking. "Her lungs—she hasn't surfaced since?—"
Sera's chin tilted back, and she looked to the surface. "No," she said at length. "She isn't." And then, in a voice laced with caution, "She may never be able to tolerate the surface again."
Ascending at a moderate pace, Nyx's gaze clung to his bride. Watching the shape of her. The bend in her spine as she kicked at Nerissa's side. The delicate curve of her belly, where she hadn't quite expelled his seed.
Out of reach.
Unable to take her pain, soothe the panic that would bloom in her chest the instant she returned to the element she'd been born into and found only rejection. Agony. Lungs remade for water would labour in the air. Blister.
