And the prize.
Kore.
Gills flaring wide, Nyxarion's blood surged hot in his veins.
Possessive.
She hadn't arrived yet, but the memory of her was enough to fill his veins with the vicious need for bloodshed. Retribution for what Thalos had touched.
Chest thrumming with the deep hum of his Resonance, a subsonic growl made the water shiver in a halo around them. Sending young Pelagorn scattering into the current.
Serakh slipped closer. A silent reprimand. And then, "His pelvic fins," she said, voice pitched low. Intimate. "They'll be bound. His penalty for breeding the Siren out of turn. He won't be able to maneuver as fast, but?—"
Teeth flashing, Nyxarion's fluke flexed in the current. "It doesn't matter," he said, claws flexed where they were braced against his forearms. "I'm going to peel his fins from his body."
Irritation trembled in the flare of Serakh's gills. The flex of her coil. "Overconfidence is a luxury you cannot afford," she murmured, her voice laced with a sharp reprimand. "Even bound, even handicapped, Thalos will fight with deadly precision. He isnotto be underestimated."
Scales lifting with scarcely contained violence, Nyx rumbled. "He will pay for what he touched," he hissed, low and poisonous.
And then, going still, Nyxarion's eyes flicked up.
Because the Shallow King had arrived. Descending into the mid-ground, his scales shone with the kiss of moonlight. Silver gleaming against the void of the abyss.
And there, bound in a tight, restrictive sash, his pelvic fins—those that lent Thalassari their legendary agility—had been immobilized.
It should have been humiliating.
But Thalos' lips twitched around a coy grin. "Korrides," he murmured, voice thick with droll amusement. As if the handicap meant little.
Returning the smirk, watching with unblinking eyes, Nyx's biolume thrummed. A slow, eager pulse of light. "Asterion."
Thalos' smile thinned.
But before either male might come to blows before the Crucible had even begun, the current shifted once more.
Nyxarion felt her approach.
That delicious pull. The scent of ozone and citrus—his precious living flame burning with the heat of a setting sun. Captured, remade in his image.
He turned.
And she was there.
Kore.
Flanked by Abyssari guards, slender, human arms cradled in Nerissa's claws, they moved at the Tide Mother's pace. Slow. Achingly so, for Nerissa was a tattered, spectral shape drifting at Kore's side.
The Tide Mother was…haggard.
Gills gaping when they fluttered. Scales growing a fuzzy coat of mossy film.
The gathered Pelagorn stilled as one. Thalassari and Abyssari. Each and every one recognized the sacrifice for what it was. At a glance.
Nerissa was doomed.
Already half taken by the tide.
But Kore…
