Page 50 of Whispers of the Deep

“We stop,” Arges said, then shouted it again. “We stop this now before we lose even more!”

A small murmur started up through the crowd of his people. Some were dragging the injured back, but he saw the truth in their eyes. They were afraid. They understood why he had made them wait for such a long time, and he was sorry they had to discover his reasoning like this.

He saw movement at the edge of the cliff and watched as his dark brother backed away from them all. “No,” Daios muttered. “No, this isn’t over yet.”

“How is it not over? You’re missing an arm, Daios. You need help.”

“There is another who can give us answers. You have never done your job right, Arges. Never completely.” And something black flashed through Daios, something down right evil. “I will get us answers if you cannot.”

And then his brother took off into the depths. Toward the one thing that made Arges’s hearts stop beating before he raced after death itself.

Not death for him.

But for her.

Nineteen

Mira

Not for the first time, Mira was a little overwhelmed.

And by a little, she really meant a lot. Getting stranded in the middle of the ocean with only her prototype rebreather to keep her alive was a little more than she expected to handle right off the bat. She might have hyperventilated the first night, certain that she was going to die. But at least the bell had more air in it than she had expected. It hadn’t run out of oxygen through all her crying and panicked heaving, which was a reassuring start.

The plant did eventually run out of air, though. And then she moved onto the next one. By the time the water had turned into that crystalline blue again, which she assumed was daylight, she had gotten a hold of herself a little better.

Her stomach eventually grumbled for food, and she’d convinced herself that she could do this. Even if the undine didn’t come back for her, she was capable of taking care of herself.

Her father had always said she was a force to be reckoned with, and now was her time to prove that.

So she had settled her rebreather back on her face, made sure that her goggles were clear with spit and wouldn’t fog up, and then she dove to investigate her new... home.

The kelp forest was surprisingly diverse with creatures. She’d known it would have some kinds of sea creatures in it, obviously, but she hadn’t expected there to be quite so many of them. All the fish she’d seen, even the ones that Arges had told her to catch, came in every color she could imagine. They swam around her in tiny schools. Swirling like she’d used to do with her mother’s scarves, trailing them around herself as she spun in circles.

And then there were the octopi that called this place their home. She’d counted three of them, very different in color, although they were constantly changing. She’d tried to poke at one, only to have it ink at her in frustration before it moved on.

Snippy little things.

She’d spent what must have been an hour sitting on a rock at the bottom of the ocean floor, holding another rock in her lap to pin her in place, and just… watched. Two turtles swam by, eyeing her with curiosity before they kept going. All the fish eventually ignored her and drifted off. She even got to watch a crab catch a meal and then slowly eat it.

This place was... otherworldly. She didn’t even feel like herself sitting here. She was warm enough, and she’d learned to tuck her toes into the backs of her knees, sitting cross-legged so she didn’t get too cold. Otherwise, she’d pull herself into the strangely warm bells and anchored her feet to the sticky walls.

But when she sat on this rock, she didn’t feel like Mira. She felt like some sea goddess who watched her entire kingdom move in slow motion. After a time, she’d even foolishly taken off the hood of her wetsuit just to feel her hair billowing about in the water.

It was a fantasy, and one she would likely pay for if her hair never dried. But something deep in her soul wanted to experience this like the undines. She wanted, for just a few moments, to be something other than what she was.

She couldn’t get her hood back over her head. So she left it down, instead, focusing on getting herself something to eat. Unlike Arges, she still refused to eat mystery fish raw, even if they were easier to catch. Once she’d cupped one in her hands, watching the tiny thing swim around in circles like it had no other care in the world, she just couldn’t kill it.

But she’d had raw oysters before. And she knew what they looked like.

It took a bit for her to find the right kind of rocky outcropping. Mira was hesitant to leave the bell plant area for very long, or even to go very far. It would be too easy to get turned around in this kelp forest that looked the same from every angle. However, she found the oysters not too far from where she was.

Surprisingly, there was enough to satisfy her for a while.

The only problem was that she didn’t have a knife. Not even something sharp to open them with. So she returned with an armful of oysters to the bell shaped plant with a plan. Some of those bags that held fresh water could be emptied. So she did that quickly, then filled them with air from inside one of the nearby bells. Bringing those into the bell, she used them as a simple flotation device and then plopped Byte onto them.

Still not in the water, and therefore it could open up its metallic plates without injuring the delicate wires inside of it. Precarious? Absolutely. But did it work?

It sure did.

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