Neither saw anything more than territory to conquer. A womb to seed, a battle to be won.
Touching that unnatural heat simmering beneath taut skin, cradling and possessive, her fingers spread. Webbing stretched thin. Her blood flushed hot with an icy resolve, for it was only a matter of time, really. Before something took root inside her.
But as Nerissa had made the ultimate sacrifice, so too would Kore. Whatever she birthed? It would inherit her fury.
"Never again," she whispered, scales humming with the truth being written across her very flesh. "I have served all my life," she said, teeth flashing in the brightness of Nyxarion's fledgling kingdom. "Men who wanted a hollow shell, blood spilled across an altar for gods who never answered. No," she hissed, and her fins flared. "Not again."
At her back, the reef shuddered.
Blue light pulsing, bright and ravenous. Aroused by the scent of a tempest raging in the dark. Rising in a wave of heat from her skin. Every polyp turned toward Kore in a haunting, eerie synchrony.
Drawn to the heat spreading behind her ribs.
Enticed by the whisper of power brewing in her marrow.
The Tide Mother smiled. A covenant, something soft and brittle. Grief and joy stretched across her ancient cheeks. "Take that fury. Use it. Let it build."
It was power.
Wrath.
Hers.
Gasping, Kore's breath caught. Her scales lifting from her skin. A strange flex of brilliant, white-hot primal instinct that vented the heat of raw, untamed power singing in her veins.
The glow pulsed.
Polyps flexing, the coral reached. Tiny fingers of primitive want that tried to touch what was being born in the Deep.
Because Kore had always been meant to drown...
But she would inherit the sea.
CHAPTER 20
The Crucible of Bone was to be held between the Deep and the Shallows. The mid-ground between both suitor and challenger. Lacking the true challenges of both.
Just an expanse of frigid, empty water stretching in every direction.
Neutral territory where neither sovereign held dominion.
Motionless, Nyxarion floated, watching the courts gather. Sera was a silent force of tactical brilliance hovering at his side.
From below, the Abyssari ascended in steady waves. Taking their time to adjust to the change in pressure. Biolume flickering in silent communication as they joined the swirl of Pelagorn whirling around the edges of the mid-ground.
And from above, Thalassari descended in a school of radiant, synchronized harmony. Dancing in an elegant fall. Stars drifting into the gloom.
All of them witness to this, the final trial.
The Crucible of Bone.
Combat.
No weapons.
No law to be broken, nor ancient, primal edict to be satisfied.
There was only this. Survival. A rival to be crushed.
