A splinter of the nebulous thing festering between the Shallows and the Deep. Whatever reality was evolving between Nyx and Thalos. Not the whole truth, but a shard was all Nyxaroth would get.
Some truths were not meant for enemy waters.
For a moment, the words were left to shimmer in the current between them. Hanging heavy and strange.
And then, "You dare," his father said, spines flaring with the stink of suspicion, "after all you've done, to offer Threnakar's knowledge to a creature not born of the Deep?"
"I expected," Nyxarion replied, "that an old coward might grasp at the solution to his annihilation with more courage than the hatred he bears for his own blood. But then… you’ve always known just how to disappoint, father.”
Silence coiled through the antechamber.
And Nyx let it linger.
Enjoying the scent of heavy water before he ended it. "The Hollow Court’s vermin have already offered support," he said, head tilted to watch as comprehension dawned across that ancient face. "Thalos Asterion himself sanctioned her survival.”
The Deep Court’s scholars went rigid where they flanked their king’s shadow. Lurking. Eyes rimmed in white. Shocked.
And for a moment, there was nothing but the weight of it.
An implication that must have felt… fundamental.
“Lies,” the old king hissed. Spines lurching in an echo of the distress pulsing through his scales.
“Perhaps,” Nyxarion drawled, but his grin was all teeth. “But there you sit, on a throne built in a sea that rejected you, cracking sun clams Thalos himself brought to please my bride.”
Lips curled back from his teeth, Nyxarion indulged in it. Savoring the flavor of what he'd become in this ancient trench with a Siren at his side.
And then, simply, "The tides are changing, Father," he murmured. Quiet. Giving the elder Korrides a chance to hear him. Just one. "Vorynthar alone is proof enough of that," he said, flicking his claws around the throne room. "That it exists at all?Here?In the Black Sea?" Spines lifting in a slow fan of an arrogance earned, Nyx grinned. "I will not leave the Abyssari suffer your legacy, Father. To die in the muck, clinging to a fool’s obedience," he said, voice ringing with the weight of declaration. "So flee. Return to your wallowing in Threnakar's crumbling halls. Dining with ghosts and feasting on detritus Caelith Mare deigns to send you, while I restore our people to their glory."
Palm settling over the curve of Kore's belly, claws dimpling her skin in a possessive display of ownership, he pulled her tighter against his side. Claiming what grew inside her with the same hunger he'd used to put it there.
"Sheis the future," he said at length, letting the words thicken with the density of an obsession growing more fevered with every passing tide. "Every child she bears will carry Korrides venom," he murmured, and left the rest unsaid. "Myline,” he added, thumb drawing slow circles around the miracle growing inside her.
Shifting, Kore tilted her head up. Dainty fingers slid over his hip, offering silent strength. Support.
All that she was and all she might become.
Tilting his head back, addressing an inferior, Nyxarion spoke with the weight of ancients ringing in his chest. "And so the Black Sea, Vorynthar, is to be the new Abyssari seat of power."
Nyxaroth's sneer cracked.
And for one crystalline moment, silence filled the antechamber to bursting.
Then Nyxarothlaughed. Shaking with it. Gills flaring wide enough to flash the crimson pulsing with each bark of hollow amusement.
Behind him, the two scholars bristled with a blend of alarm and outrage.
"Threnakar will never allow such… such heresy," the ancient king said. "This will be war, you fool. Among the Abyssari."
Nyxarion did not blink. “So be it.”
CHAPTER 13
Something ancient ignited behind her ribs.
Thrashing against that cage of bone.
A thing she was rapidly coming to recognize ashers.
