Page 1 of Song of the Abyss

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Daios

The leviathan called to him.

The kraken knew his name.

The depths of the sea were part of him and Daios was part of it. But at some point, recently, he’d lost that connection. He’d felt it snap and sever in a wild moment of freedom where he had thought he was saving others. Now, the sea had left him alone.

And Daios had never been alone like this before.

He floundered. Tossed and rejected by the currents that had once always pushed him through the sea with unnatural speed. He had been the favored son, the largest of his hatchling group, and the one who was supposed to honor them all. Though he would never be a leader—his rage had always run too hot for that—he would be the wave that stood between them and all danger.

That was his purpose. Yet, he had failed them. He had led his people to certain death, and he could not forget that.

“Your mind is with us, brother?” Maketes called out, the yellow flash of his fin spearing through the water to his right. “You know we need you all here for this.”

Maketes had been the only brother to stay close to him in the aftermath of... all of it. Even though he probably shouldn’t have. Maketes had been the one who still saw something worthwhile in the bleeding, broken form that Daios had been left with. Even when he’d been enraged. Even when he’d promised to destroy the only thing his blood brother had found dear.

These memories threatened to overwhelm him. He’d suffered through them swelling in his mind multiple times before, and now he knew the warning signs before it was going to happen.

His hearts shifted in his body, one moving to his throat and the other dropping beneath his stomach. They both beat so hard that it was difficult to think beyond the thudding that never seemed to end. It was all he could focus on. All he could think about.

And then the memories came.

“We’re here to find the girl, remember?” Maketes’s voice filtered through the palpitations and ragged breaths. “We’re here to find the General’s daughter. She told us what the girl looks like, and where in the city she usually is.”

He remembered.

How could he forget? It was the only task they had trusted him with since he had... since everything had happened.

Again, his hearts thundered, pushing through his mind and forcing him to think of the achromos again. The humans, as Mira called them. They were creatures that had no place in this ocean and the monsters he had fought against since he was nothing more than a boy. They’d taken apart this ocean, poisoned it, spread and multiplied in their numbers until he wasn’t even sure they could be beaten.

They came at his people with weapons so powerful, even the fathoms below couldn’t fight against them. He should know. He’d seen them firsthand.

His head started to spin. His vision skewed to the side and he couldn’t quite see where he was anymore. There was... something ahead of him. Something that he probably needed to brace himself for. They were close to the city, weren’t they?

Alpha, Mira had called it. And his brother’s human mate would know. The golden city of light where only the most important of her kind lived. This was the city that he needed to infiltrate, and he was the only one mad enough to do it.

The only one they could spare.

He reached for a stone in front of him, intending to brace himself against it just for a few moments. The currents were suddenly wild around his body, tossing him around, and all he wanted was a moment of peace for just this one second.

He reached and missed. Because there wasn’t an arm there anymore. It had been taken from him just like all the lives of the people he had led.

Everything warped around him. The stone shifted, wobbling as though it wasn’t solid anymore. He could hardly feel the cool touch of the ocean on his skin. It was all wrong. And then he heard it. The loud booming noise of shots being fired at him. He tried to twist out of the way, but that only turned his attention to the nightmares that followed him.

He could see pieces of his own people floating in the distance. A limp body, the torso sinking faster than the tail, so graceful it was almost as beautiful as it was heartbreaking.

Then a flash of light, and there were more of them. Blood soaking the water, filling his gills with that metallic taste. And he was ashamed to admit he almost enjoyed the taste. He always had. Daios was a warrior. He had battled his entire life and the taste of blood in the water always made him fight harder, yet this was the blood of his people.

His fault.

All those bodies, floating there, never to swim or breathe again. They were his fault. He had done this.

And suddenly he could feel the pain in his arm again. The sting of saltwater burning through the useless stump that marked him as other for the rest of his life. He was unworthy of being their shield.

He was unworthy of being anything at all.

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