And with every breath Nerissa dragged through her gills, Kore watched as they flared wider. Gaping. Working too hard to pull breath from the poisonous waters of the Deep.
"Nerissa," Kore whispered, horrified. "Your… your scales?—"
The Tide Mother hushed her. "Don't. Don't speak. Preserve your strength, child."
She was dying.
It was written in her every desperate breath. In the cottony, viscous film coating the joints of her fins, grown fuzzy across her majestic scales.
"You have to go back," Kore said, forgetting her own pain in the face of Nerissa's obvious slow demise. "Leave the Deep, Nerissa, you… youcan'tstay. The pressure?—"
"No," she replied, and her voice was all cool tones and soft, pleasurable grief, if there was such a thing. And her hands, when they cupped Kore's cheeks, were trembling but strong. "No, child. This water burns in my veins. It crushes my bones and smothers my lungs. But it is an agony Ichoose."
Shaking her head, eyes luminous and filled with the edges of grief, Kore whispered, simply, "Why?"
Nerissa's smile was glorious. Soft and timeless. "Because I wish to shape what the sea needs," she hummed. Musical. Those wide, alien pupils blown wide. Pools of bottomless black that caught the glimmer of Kore's biolume when it flickered and pulsed. "Before the war. Before the poison of arrogance cut them out, it was Sirens who crafted the seas." Trembling, her thumb traced Kore's cheek. "To shepherd you? Guide a fledgling Sirenthrough the transformation? That, child. That is my tide. My choice."
It was a declaration.
A gauntlet. One that drifted through the current with a weight far heavier than even the abyss, for even as she spoke… Kore watched a scale flake away. Carried off into the fluttering dark.
It was sacrifice.
Purpose.
A tribute.
Kore turned liquid eyes back to the Tide Mother. And she knew. It was already too late.
But Nerissa's smile was serene. "Even the creatures of the deepest dark need a beacon, Kore."
Her breath hitched. High at the back of her throat.
Palm spreading over the swollen curve of Kore's belly once more, Nerissa hummed. Unspoken answer to the fledgling knowledge bubbling in Kore's chest. And then, "You are that beacon, Kore. Even Thalos, keeper of the law, the Hollow Court's perfect creation…" Her laugh rippled through the current. Soft. Revenant. "He broke what he was sworn to uphold, just to stake a claim. On you." Eyes blazing, Nerissa's next words were quiet. Fierce. "Even now, life might grow here. Life that belongs to the Hollow Courtandthe Deep. A bond between both."
For a moment, there was nothing.
And then…
A tempest.
A storm of wrath.
It was rage. Female fury that ignited in her chest. Melted the burning frost Thalos had pumped inside her. Shining in the bioluminescent pulse Nyxarion had written into her very flesh. Her scales flashed a brilliant violet so hot it shone white.Painting the ancientVireliiin a cutting relief, forcing the shadows to recoil in the face of the storm.
"Any life," Kore hissed, voice splintering between her teeth, "grown in my womb, belongs tome."
The silence echoed on the heels of her declaration.
And Nerissa tipped her head back, as if scenting what Kore had spilled into the tide.
And then the ancient, doomedVireliismiled.
Flashing rows of teeth. A predator's grin. It was a transformation. Something primal woken from a long sleep. Reminded that it was meant to hunt.
"Thank you," she whispered, claws prickling Kore's skin where her fingers were splayed across bulging flesh. "I wanted to see the heart of the ocean beat, just once more before I die."
She coughed.
