That exactly as he’d accused Kore of doing, he’d allowed Thalos to drive him to distraction. To be rash and unthinking.
Nyxarion went still.
Knowing the Raskoril wouldn’t feast on his own bloodkin, his eyes slid left. To the Trident. Marking the distance to that ancient weapon, where it was embedded in the sea floor.
Too far.
Always too bloody far.
Baring his teeth, Nyx said nothing.
He didn't have to.
All it took was a current.
A gust.
And the truth of what was hiding beneath Kore's navel drifted toward the elder Korrides.
Alarm showed in the flick of ancient, weathered spines. The flash of crimson beneath his jaw, where his filaments worked to filter that scent. Tasting her in the water.
And then, "Congratulations," Nyxaroth spat, and snapped the word to pieces between his fangs. "You've finally managed to keep one of your abominations alive long enough to breed it."
Nyx bared every tooth he owned. Ignoring his jab. "That'smythrone, Father."
A squall of scorn rolled through the antechamber.
Laughter, both low and cruel.
The sound of a king who had witnessed his son's disgrace and found itsatisfying.
"Yourthrone?" The words were heavy with venomous contempt. "You have no throne, exile. No title or rank. Nothing but the name I allowed you to keep out of some misguided sense of… pity." Tapping his claws against the throne, Nyxaroth sneered. “A mistake.”
Behind him, the Deep Court’s scholars exchanged glances. Their biolume flickered with undisguised contempt.
"You were stripped of everything," Nyxaroth continued, his voice silken, almost soft with mockery, "for the very same heresy currently cowering behind your fins." Ancient eyes gleamed when he glanced past Nyxarion’s fins. Head tilted, lip curled back. “A Siren,” he spat, and it was an ugly, petulant sneer. "The same grotesque abomination that cost you your birthright. Have you learnednothingfrom your first failure?"
For a moment, Nyxarion held his silence.
Unmoved.
And then he tsked, laughing. Dismissive. "Nothing,Father?" he crooned, voice laced with a mocking edge as his fingers closed around Kore's dainty little wrist. Urging her to be still. Calm.
That small body tucked tighter against his spine, and he felt her press her face against his shoulder.
Seeking comfort in the monster who adored her.
It was a soft thing that only fueled the storm whirling inside his chest.
For he was Nyxarion Korrides, First Sovereign King of the Black Sea, and he had drowned the flesh of the sun. He had been tamed by the tempest that burned in blackest water, claimed the divine flame that set the Deep ablaze.
For her alone, he would yield.
To the annihilation of all others.
His lips curled around something far more dangerous than a snarl.
"Perhaps," Nyx drawled, "the ‘nothing’you're referring to is the Black Sea?" he asked, lacing his voice with the sort of menace that vibrated well below hearing. A thing felt in the marrow. "The same current you spenteonsinsisting could not be claimed? Too poisonous," he hissed. "Too anoxic. Much,muchtoo hostile for Pelagorn blood." He let the words drift, one by one, each a precise cut. "A placeyouwere unequal to taming, Father."
