Grief.
The wretched, aching pain of loss.
Nerissa was dead.
The Tide Mother who had spoken to her in the low, conspiratorial murmur of women who understood what it meant to carry life inside a body that belonged to the Deep.
Sacrificed to the war Kore's existence had ignited.
And before Nerissa, the priestesses.
Sun-browned girls with bruised knees and hymns caught between their teeth. Her sisters in linen, who’d held Kore’s hands and laughed in quiet, smoky temples.
All of them, women she’d loved without knowing what it was called. Until the sea swallowed them all.
No one had sung to her since.
Not like this. In a female's voice. Delicate and quiet.
Kore let Serakh's song wash through her chest and settle.
Absorbing the warmth pooling behind her sternum as the lightning dimmed, and her wrath cooled. Appeased.
And then the plinking returned.
Wet crackling, it came from the floor beside the throne.
Kore turned.
Her eyes grew wide.
The Raskoril had consumed nearly everything.
Pale filaments of coral growth laced across what remained of the Abyssari scholar.
Her…victim.
The reef was feeding on him. Stripping sinew from bone with compelled efficiency. Each tiny pop was a morsel sucked down.The mouths of the polyps cinching and gulping. Devouring her crime with a thousand parched throats.
Until the skeleton gleamed white. Bleached of any hint of life.
Nauseous, Kore twisted away and so missed the hint of sameness. The mirror of the cradle she lounged inside. Eyes landing on Sera, she pressed her lips together, then said, “Where is Nyx?"
Lips quirked, something that might have been a smile replaced Sera’s song.
The general fell silent.
Letting the quiet breathe, fathomless eyes lingered when they landed on Kore’s body. “I don’t know,” she admitted with a shrug, but she was flush with the sort of hesitant warmth that belonged to one who rationed it.
Hesitant as if leery of upsetting her, Sera drifted closer.
Settling around the thone, she snaked through the strange structure. Fins and spines finding anchors, she nestled into Vorynthar’s seat of power. Near enough to touch. Taking no liberties.
And then, “He said only that he had business with Thalos,” she said, turning her gaze upon the Raskoril’s progress. “He left shortly after the Threnakar delegation, but didn’t want you to wake alone.”
Exhaling, hands moving to her belly, Kore nodded. Slow. “Business with Thalos,” she repeated, gills fluttering. Fins flicking in irritation. "Two barbarians circling each other in the dark, deciding which one gets to?—"
She stopped, cheeks flushing a pretty shade of sunset pink.
