Page 10 of Whispers of the Deep

And in the distance was the largest coral that stretched its tendrils throughout the entire city in which they lived. A root system that could never be broken, even this deep in the depths.

The People of Water swam throughout all these clinging, thick roots. Tiny ones crawled through them, getting stuck in certain places and lashing their tails until their laughing mothers pulled them free. He remembered getting stuck in the same root systems. He’d scraped the scales off his back so badly that his mother had been concerned he wouldn’t ever grow them back.

Daios shifted his grip to the back of Arges’s neck, forcing him to stare down at everyone who looked up at them. Until finally they reached the center of all that coral. Where it spiraled in one central area, flattened out, and became a swirling pattern upon which all of their greatest decisions were made.

Daios slammed him down so hard in the center even the coral complained. Plumes of sand burst up around him, scattering small schools of fish in their wake.

Groaning, Arges spat out sand and dust. His tail stretched out behind him as he leveraged himself only up onto his hands. The elders were already here. They’d swum from their homes, now hauling themselves over the lip of the central coral. Their ancient fingers curled, the webs almost gone with age. But it was only one of them that his eyes locked upon and stayed.

“Mitéra,” he said quietly, watching as she swam above all the others.

The Matriarch of their people was stunning and otherworldly. Long ago, she’d given herself to the coral. She’d died in the roots, and then allowed the sea itself to fill her. Her hair had turned into a bell of shimmering color, like a jellyfish lived atop her head. Her skin was entirely transparent, flickering with electric lights that rolled across her entire body. Her tail was covered in scales pale as a pearl that changed color when she was angry or happy or sad. But it was her eyes, those iridescent, terrifying eyes that had always seen right through him.

“What is the meaning of this?” she asked, her melodic voice floating through the currents.

His brother was so agitated that his hair floated in front of his face. With an angry shove, Daios pointed at Arges and said, “He left the pod to fend for itself and Ekhetes is dead.”

A murmur broke through the crowd that watched. Big, black eyes watched him with a hundred colors of tails and textures of skin and faces. These were the people he fought for, had always fought for.

Would they really believe this?

Mitéra paused, her eyes looking over both of them before she inclined her head at Daios. “I have heard you, little brother. Now I will hear your blood speak.”

She turned her attention to him and Arges nearly forgot how to speak. Those eyes saw right through to his soul, as they always did.

“I fought the achromos,” he croaked. “Their air supply is destroyed. But when I went to see what my attack had wrought, I was trapped by one of their kind.”

Daios snorted. “Is that why you reek of one?”

Cutting a glare toward his brother, he let out a little growl before returning his attention to the more important person. His hands curled in the sand, and the icy touch of an unknown current carried his words. “I was trapped, as I said. I was inside their city when one of the achromos was trapped with me. She devised a plan to get us out of their home in return for my assistance in bringing her to one of their clear boxes. She saved my life and, as such, I had to repay her in kind.”

The current played across his shoulders and drew the scent out from underneath his locked scales. He couldn’t stop it from taking her scent and drawing it right to Mitéra.

She sucked it into her gills, her frail ribs spreading with the effort before she frowned at him. “There is no fear in this scent.”

He’d noticed it, too. The female hadn’t been afraid of him, not really. Just a spark of it here and there, enough to be enticing to say the least.

He shook his head. “No, she was not afraid.”

“Why?”

“I do not know.”

Mitéra hissed, and the bell of her hair spread around her body. “Have you seen her before?”

“Only once. I scouted out the seventh air tube that we abandoned. She was fixing a glass dome that I needed to remain broken, so I destroyed it.”

“Did you speak with her?” Those flickering lights were not a good sign. Red, like his brother. Yellow, a color that spoke of fear.

“No. I nearly killed her both times.”

Mitéra’s colors rippled again, this time turning a soft blue that eased the tension in his shoulders. “You are not lying.”

“No, Mitéra.”

A low hum rumbled from her throat. She twisted closer to him, spiraling through the water until her hair billowed around them both. She cupped her hand behind his neck and drew him forward. The thin tendrils of his hair coiled together with hers. “She is not afraid of you, my son. This is a blessing and a curse.”

No, he didn’t want another curse. He didn’t want a blessing, either. He’d said goodbye to the little achromo, and that was enough. Even though it makes his gills ache and his tail ripple with color.

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