Page 6 of Song of the Abyss

Of course she minded. She wasn’t a doll for them all to pass around. The rumors could fly about what happened ten years ago, but she’d like to leave it in her past. Especially when she had stuff to do, like go and talk to the Harpswells. Already her father was glaring at her. The Harpswells were looking at her surprised as though they couldn’t guess why she wasn’t right next to them. And this woman sidestepped with her again to ask more questions.

She couldn’t really hear the woman. It was all just blended together, and Bitsy was making snide comments on top of what the woman was saying, which made it hard to guess what was actually being said. Most of the time Anya could match the lips to the words, but she was so overwhelmed and everyone was looking at her like they were expecting something to happen.

Suddenly, she felt like a songbird her father kept in a cage and only let out for his friends to ogle.

“Fuck this,” she muttered.

“Pardon me?” the woman said. Or at least, Anya thought that was what she said. The woman had turned at the last second, making it hard for her to read her lips.

“You’re pardoned,” Anya replied, and then brushed past her.

She wasn’t going to stand here and be the performing monkey for them all to look at. Her father could be angry at her, put her under house arrest, whatever he wanted to do. She needed to breathe and she couldn’t breathe here.

Stepping into the house, she made her way to the very back of the building where no one would be. Anya ignored everyone milling around and socializing, pretending she didn’t notice when someone lifted their hand that they wanted to speak with her. And then finally, blissfully, silence. No noises, no words or tones that garbled together, just nothing.

Pressing her back against the pool room’s door, she blew out a long breath. This was a pretty room, at least. The pool was large enough to do laps in, and deeper than she was tall. And Anya wasn’t a small woman. There were benches all around, and small areas that dipped into the stone floor that were filled with pillows. Maybe a spa area, if she squinted her eyes hard enough at it.

“That didn’t go well,” Bitsy remarked, the words flashing over the pool.

“I know,” she replied. “Trust me, I know.”

“She’s going to talk.”

“I know,” Anya expelled a breath. “I know she’s going to talk. They’re always talking about me. No one in this city knows what privacy means.”

Stomping over near the pool, she settled down on a bench and touched her finger to Bitsy’s screen. “Make a connection with Ace, please.”

“Here?” The glass glitched out a bit, showing a patchwork of squares before her droid settled again. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure Bitsy.” Sighing, she frowned at a few ripples in the pool and looked around to make sure no one else was in the room with her. But she was alone, she was sure of it. “Connect with Ace.”

3

Daios

For once after his injury, he was glad he only had the one arm. The pipes were tight, and slithering through them was grueling work at some points. For the most part, he was able to move through them fairly easily, though. There was enough space for his tail to flick him forward. With one arm raised to guide him through the darkness, and the other shoulder bent down, he could slide into their world far too easily.

These achromos. They were always so certain that they were protected and safe in their little bubbles, but they were not foolproof.

He had spent too much of his life learning how to fight them to not know their weaknesses. And hubris was the greatest weakness they had.

Finally, he saw a small light at the end of the piping. He’d traveled through this section for a while, mapping it out in his mind as he took only rights to ensure that he knew how to get his way out. The last thing this mission needed was for him to get stuck in the piping system with no idea how to get out.

He kept the fears at bay. But the voices constantly whispered in his mind. At least there was no one else for him to kill here. At least he couldn’t harm anyone else if he was the only one who ended up dead.

Maybe he deserved to end up dead, just like all the other People of Water who had suffered the consequences of his folly.

Breathing slow and shallow through his gills, he conserved his energy in case something else happened. But strangely, these pipes led straight toward a light that flickered at the end of the tunnel. That golden light called out to him, even if he was quite certain it could be his end.

These achromos didn’t see the world the way they should. All they saw was something to plunder, and he could only imagine their homes were dismal and disgusting. He liked to think they lived in caverns like eels, staring out from their dark homes with beady little eyes that watched for the slightest glimpse of a weakness in anything approaching them.

But as he stuck his head out of the piping that led into a massively deep structure, he was speechless as he realized everything above him was beautiful. The ceiling held the image of clouds, so detailed and streaked with pinks and reds that it was almost as though he looked up at the actual sky. He’d only seen the surface a few times in this life, but it had looked like this.

And the strange pool he was now in was decorated as well. There were chips of glimmering gemstones all around the bottom. Those gemstones caught in the golden light and flickered against the wall in a thousand rainbows that danced everywhere his eyes looked. Even the walls of the pool were smooth to the touch when they shouldn’t be. They couldn’t be.

Rock wasn’t smooth. Not like this.

He reached out with a clawed, webbed hand and gently patted the edge. It really was lovely. It made him hate them all the more. They hoarded this wealth to themselves when his people might have used this to make more comfortable homes for themselves.

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