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The closer I swam, the more detail was revealed. It certainly was a pyramid, its stone edges a home to more than barnacles. A reef of life, all manner of creatures and strange corals were existing upon it.

Fascinating, if rather unspectacular for a deity’s forge. I suppose when you were gone, your existence buried in lies by Aidan, this would be a consequence.

I swam out a bit to get more of a view. The structure appeared to be around two-hundred feet high, perched on the edge of an escarpment before thicker darkness took over below.

I checked on Paris again. Still peaceful, still not attacking me.

It didn’t take me long to find a door, almost hidden within the rest of stone. Pushing it open, which took some effort, I swam through it into a flooded corridor, disturbed sediment floating past. I let it settle for a moment before swimming on.

The corridor led directly into a large, pointed chamber, the ground littered with mortal bones. Empty eye sockets stared up at me. Tiny fish and other creatures had made their home here, along with some curiously pink crabs.

What did this mer deity inflict on mortals down here?

A circular crystal anvil sat in the middle of the room atop a dais, glittering in the light of the headtorch. Around it were discarded shards of crystal, a white hammer mostly covered in barnacles lying amongst them.

The crystal dagger appeared in a burst of slivery smoke. Paris attacked me, barely missing my shoulder. His eyes flickered with hate, his teeth bared.

I had been hoping to wake him gently.

I spun him around, pinning his other arm behind his back.

“Get the fuck off me!” he howled inside the bubble. He jutted the knife behind him, almost getting me in the eye. “And… And… We’re here?”

“Yes.” I swam him toward the crystal anvil. It lit up with a pearlescent glow, the clinking of glass ringing in the chamber. Unreadable blue text appeared on the shining surface.

“No!” Paris screamed. “It’s my knife! It’s my knife! It’s my fucking knife!”

My next moves would have to be based on assumptions, which I loathed. I shoved him forward, bending him over the anvil so the dagger touched it.

Assumption: The dagger making contact with the anvil would be enough.

The Knife of Fractured Rapture cracked down the middle.

Assumption good.

“No!” Paris roared. “It’s mine! It’s mine to cut and end⁠—”

An explosion of blue light drenched the chamber, the howls of a woman assaulting my ears. She spat curses I didn’t understand, the water bubbling aggressively, Paris wailing.

Melusine’s howls, maybe? Her rage reaching out from the ether?

The light receded, showing Paris floating away from the anvil. Still conscious, his eyes wide, his chest rising.

For a split second, I’d thought the worst.

I swam to him, taking him by the shoulders and turning him to face me. “Are you alright?”

He smiled. I checked his hand. No dagger, the remnants of it scattered across the surface of the anvil.

“Did you hear that?” he asked.

“The woman?”

“Yeah. Think we somehow managed to piss off Melusine.”

I smiled back at him. “Good.”

His hands found my waist. “It’s over?”