Page 70 of Song of the Abyss

He didn’t want anyone to help him. He wanted to wallow for a bit and then figure this out on his own. But Maketes was right, he was a better conversationalist...

Sighing, he rolled his eyes above Maketes’s head and tried to shove down his pride. “I do not know how to tell her that I prefer her company.”

“Over?”

“Everyone else.” Why was this so hard to say? All he had to do was let the words fall from his tongue. That was it. But instead, they pressed against the back of his throat like a warning that telling anyone how he really felt would only end in disaster.

“Oh, well, that’s easy enough. You could just tell her that you miss her.”

Daios looked at Maketes. His brother’s expression had softened, his brows coming down to create wrinkles in between his eyes. It almost was an expression of pity, which he refused to look too much into.

“I do not...” He couldn’t even finish the sentence.

Of course he missed her. The sensation had grown every day since he had last spoken with her, even though he could see her from afar. His gills felt like they couldn’t suck in enough air, and no matter how much he did, he wasn’t tired at night. His body was exhausted, but his mind wondered what she had done during the day. If she was comfortable here. If Mira and Arges were filling her head with stories about how dangerous he was when all he wanted was to talk to her.

He just wanted to hear her voice. And that was terrifying on its own.

Maketes tilted his head to the side. “You do miss her. Quite a bit, it seems.”

The dust settled around them. Daios didn’t even dare to breathe because suddenly it was all laid out right in front of him. He missed her, and he didn’t know how to tell her that.

It was stupid to be so shocked by it all, and yet he was. He didn’t know how to do... this.

Maketes flicked his waist fins, coming just slightly closer. “Missing her doesn’t make you weak, brother. But you should tell her. Maybe she’s missing you just as much as you’re missing her.”

“There’s no way either of us can know that.”

“I suppose I could ask her for you, but that seems rather childish, don’t you think? You should just talk to her, Daios.”

“I can’t do that.” It was too risky. What if she didn’t miss him at all? He’d handed her back to someone who at least looked like her. It was warm in Mira’s pod, and it was safe there as well.

Plenty of his people here were more fitting for her, regardless. They could provide for her easier than the one armed warrior who didn’t know how to tell her how he felt, or even that there were words he wished he could say to her. She was better off without him, just as he was better off without her.

This was his place. He was meant to take the risky jobs and run from his home. It was how it had always been.

And how it should always be.

Shaking his head, he expelled dust from his gills hard and turned away from Maketes. “She’s fine where she is.”

Maketes groaned. “Oh, you stubborn finhead! Maybe she would be better off if she were with you!”

He couldn’t believe that, not even for a moment. Because if he did, then he would rush back to that glass dome. He would take her away again, burying her so far under the sea that no one would ever find her again but him.

Daios knew those thoughts were wrong. Deviant. Horrible things to do to someone he cared about, and so he had to keep himself away from her. He couldn’t do it to her.

“Keep searching,” he grumbled. “I’m going deeper.”

“You can’t go deeper, and you know it. We’re on the very edge of our territory as it is. We don’t need the depthstriders to be involved in any of this.” Maketes arched his brow. “Unless you’re heading their way again?”

He hadn’t thought about the depthstriders in a while, but... Well, maybe it wasn’t a terrible idea.

“Perhaps I should seek out their treatments,” he muttered. “It might clear my head.”

“Daios...”

He knew his brother was worried. The last time he’d gotten this confused, he’d headed down into the darkness to find the depthstriders. They were the few who guarded the gaseous vents at the bottom of the sea floor. They claimed inhaling the fumes provided them with visions of the future and sights that no one else could see.

Daios hadn’t found it to do that at all. Instead, it had let him float. In his mind, in his scales, all of it disappeared, so he didn’t have to exist.

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