"Thank you," she whispered instead, and twisted her fingers in that ancient shape she'd used to summon a leviathan from the Deep.
From above, a crystalline note chimed through the deep.
Nyxarion.
He'd won.
The Abyssari filled the current with the deep hum of their glee. Guttural voices meant to haunt the currents and lift the tides. Meant to drive sailors to distraction and summon the very darkest things from the Deep.
It was a sound of victory.
Celebration.
Rebirth.
But in Kore?
It brought the flames of something timeless.
Rage.
Incandescent, liquid fury crackles beneath her flesh. Burning too hot in her bones, too bright. Instinctive, her scales lifted to vent the sudden, violent plume of heat.
No.
Why should she submit? Why should she obey yet another master? One who saw a chalice. Legacy and revival.
Who saw a divine living flame, but didn't see her.
She was Kore.
A woman.
Siren.
And she hadteeth.
Trying to summon the violet lightning, Kore's scales flickered with a cascade of color. Once, twice more. And then a peculiar sort of frost spread across her skin.
The lightning was a blaze of glory. An explosion of heat both violent and vicious.
But this?
This was an all-consuming spread. A slow, unstoppable bleed of frigid edges. Heat dissolving at her edges, the frost crept in. And she watched, eyes wide and rimmed in white, as her body…vanished.
Until there was only the faint shimmer of the current moving around her. Solid but gone. A distortion moving through the tide.
With a roar of disbelief that mirrored her own, Nyxarion surged toward her.
But Kore was already sinking.
Crimson ribbons of sluggish gore trailing behind him, Nyxarion's functional arm swept through the space where she'd been. Reaching. His fingers careful yet desperate as his touch plunged through empty water.
A trophy refusing to be claimed, Kore let a slow smile touch her lips as she sank. Fins pressed flat to her skin. Letting the abyss take her.
Invisible.
Eyes fixed not to the massive bulk of the leviathan who meant to use her to breed an empire, but to Nerissa. Watching as the Tide Mother reached for Thalos. As a breathtaking song spilled over her lips. A melody both haunting and joyful as she spun it around Thalos' ravaged body.
