Page 42 of Song of the Abyss

The back corner of the room had a table where all the prototypes were laid out. They were... marvelous. Beautiful. They made her want to touch things, even though her father had said not to.

For a while, she curled her hands into fists and promised herself that she would be good. This time, she’d be good.

Maybe she could ask her father’s guard, who usually followed her, to bring her back. She could ask questions about the prototypes, what they were, what they were meant to do.

Her father left the room with the handsome young boy. He walked right out, leaving her standing there with her hands twisting in her pale green skirts.

No, they’d been blue. She’d been wearing her favorite blue dress with the white collar and shoes that made her feel taller. Not quite heels, because her father said she’d break her ankle, but they were black and had thin straps that made her feel so pretty.

Her father and the young man had walked out of the room and she had reached for one of the prototypes. They were usually weapons to fight against the undines and any other creature that might attack their city. But this one didn’t look like a weapon at all. It was a small silver ball, with colors glowing in between the plates.

She’d thought it looked rather pretty and held it up in front of her face. There was a button on the side, she discovered. So small she might have missed it.

In her dream, she screamed at herself not to touch it. Put it down. Don’t be the daughter that your father always believed you were.

But of course, she pressed the button.

An ocean of pain seared through her body. The sound that came out of that ball was so explosively loud that she felt her entire body just... stop working. In one second, she could hear the shrieking rage of her father’s newest toy, and the next, nothing at all.

Just a pounding in her skull that was unlike any headache she had ever had, and a vibration in her ribs that she thought might be from the ball itself. She thought maybe she passed out, because she blinked and suddenly she was on the floor. The ball had rolled away from her grip and the first thought she had was that she had to pretend she hadn’t touched anything. Her father was going to find out. He was going to kill her if she didn’t pretend that none of this had happened.

Scrambling across the floor, she’d reached for it. But it was still flashing that awful red color that she’d seen right before it had made the horrible noise. So she pressed the button again, and the rattling in her ribs stopped when it went blue.

She’d thought everything was fine until she noticed movement to her left and realized that her father’s mouth was moving. But she couldn’t hear a word he said.

Shaking, she’d lifted her hands to her ears and when she brought them back down, her fingers were coated with blood.

God, she hated this memory. Not because she was ashamed of losing her hearing, but that it was her fault. She’d been the one to hurt herself, and she couldn’t blame anyone else. Sure, her father probably shouldn’t have left her in a room full of dangerous weapons. She had been a child, and leaving a kid in a room like that was bound to be terrible.

And yet, it was still her fault. She would carry that on her shoulders for the rest of her life.

Slowly, she realized there were fingers running through her hair. Not in the dream, not in that place of pain and memories that made her heart ache. No. There were fingers brushing the snarls out of her hair in the waking world.

For a second, time melded together. She must be back in Alpha, where there was a kinder maid who wanted to wake her out of a nightmare. But these fingers were broader, thicker, and there were delicate claws gently raking along her scalp.

Fingers that couldn’t belong to anything other than the monstrous creature who she should be terrified of. And yet, she had never been able to bring herself to be scared of him.

Opening her eyes, she slowly rolled over to see that he had dragged himself out of the water and down the hall. His massive tail was still halfway in the hall, the fluke flat against the floor, with water dripping from the red tinged scales. He’d hooked the stump of his missing arm between the bedframe and the mattress and was gently, ever so gently, brushing her hair with his claws.

Her breath caught in her lungs. She had no idea why he was touching her, only that it made everything in her stop. All the anxiety. All the fear. All the self hatred melted out with the tension in her body as she sank into his touch.

His expression was almost serene as she turned, his gaze on the long locks of her blonde hair. She’d never seen that expression on his face, and it disappeared the moment he met her gaze with those black eyes and realized she was looking back at him.

He said something, sliding back down onto the floor and starting to push himself back with that one arm. It looked awkward and laborious and not at all what she wanted him to do.

“Wait,” she said, scrambling to reach for Bitsy and before sliding the lens over her eye. “Wait, you don’t have to go.”

He was still moving, though, and she didn’t want him to leave. Not yet. Something inside her screamed that she wanted to feel him brushing her hair again, and it wasn’t fair that he’d stopped.

That touch had brought her out of a nightmare. She didn’t feel like a failure when she’d woken. All she’d felt was his fingers and the glorious sensation of being touched.

“Daios, please.”

He froze where he was, lying flat on the floor even as she joined him. Anya slipped out of her warm bed and sat down on the cold floor, just staring at him. She didn’t know what to say. All she knew was that he had to stay, or all those feelings would come back.

“I didn’t know you could be out of the water,” she tried, her throat aching with the words.

His deep grunt flashed in front of her eyes, before he said, “That’s what you have to say?”

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