Page 80 of Song of the Abyss

Licking his lips, he nodded. “My brother’s name, Arges, means brilliant and shining. I grew up with a clutch mate who shared the same name meaning as how we would describe a bolt of lightning, or the shimmering of a fish’s scales. He was always born to be the better of the two of us.”

Daios knew he was baiting her. He wanted her to ask what he did not want to tell her. It was a foolish thing to do, an endeavor that would only end in pain for him.

And then she asked, “What does Daios mean?”

He cupped her cheek in his hand, watching as she tilted her face into his palm. Her lips pressed against his skin. Not a single part of her flinched away from him, and perhaps that was why he let the words slip from his tongue.

“Enemy,” he whispered, the words suddenly pouring out of him. “It is a word we use to describe hostile or destructive beings. Creatures who consume all that stand in their way. So it means enemy in the way you call evil beings demons.”

The skin around her eyes pinched. “They named you the enemy of your people from the day you were born?”

“No, my kalon.” Cupping the back of her neck, he drew her down until he could press their foreheads together. Here he could breathe her in. Here he could hope that this would not ruin all that they had built. “They named me the enemy of yours.”

He felt the shudder run through her body as though it ran through his own. And he knew what it meant.

For the first time since meeting him, perhaps she understood that she should fear him. He was created to be a weapon, and he had been aimed at her people for his entire life. Daios had killed more achromos than any other undine. And he killed them with pleasure.

Even now, he did not think he would hesitate to kill one of her kind. The pleasure and enjoyment he drew out of their suffering was the same as it had always been. He longed to taste their metallic blood in the currents. He still enjoyed seeing the horror in their eyes as their life fled from them while his claws ripped and tore into their beings.

But this one? This was not one he wished to kill. He only wanted to see her safe and so far from his violence that she would never be touched by it.

He heard her swallow, the clicking of her throat a warning. “You have called me kalon more times than I can count. If all your names have meaning, what does that one mean?”

Telling her that would bare his soul. It would say so much more than he was willing to say in this moment, because he knew that word was special. He’d seen the faces of the other undines when they’d heard him say it. They knew what that word meant.

He almost didn’t tell her. He almost kept the secret to himself for a little while longer, because to everyone and now to her, he was a beast. A weapon. The brute who attacked and killed whomever and whatever he was told to kill. He was a murderer and a monster through and through.

But when she pulled back and looked down at him, her hand holding his palm to her cheek, all of that faded away. All the screams. All the creatures he’d killed a hundred times over, and all the lives that had been lost because he’d made the wrong choice. All of it was gone.

Only she remained.

He stroked her jaw with his thumb, tracing the outline of her bottom lip with the pad of it. His black claw arched over her mouth and she didn’t look afraid of him.

Perhaps that was why he could murmur, “It is a special word. We save it only for a rare pearl that we find only once in our life. It means a beauty that is more than skin deep. It refers to a soul that radiates inside a person, so much so that you can see it on the outside as well.”

“Daios,” she whispered, her eyes wide.

“I hate your kind.” He needed her to know that. “I will kill them again. I will fight until there is no breath left in this body and I have lost every limb I can stand to lose. That will never change.”

“I know.”

“I find your people disgusting. From your ugly toes to the horrid white color that surrounds your eyes. Every bit of your people is revolting, and your bodies are a nightmare to look upon.”

Her lips twisted with a soft smile. “So you have said.”

He slid his hand into her hair, dragging her close to him again. “But I do not find you ugly.”

“Do you not?”

“How could I? When your hair is the color of the sun on a cloudless day? When your smile warms the entire ocean around me? When I touch you, your soul is so familiar to me. It is like I have known you in a hundred lifetimes before this, and some part of me that I’ve forgotten wishes to bury itself inside you. It tells me to cling to the curve of your waist, to clutch at the feeling in my chest that lingers when you are near. My soul wishes to keep you and never let you go.”

Somehow, they had drawn closer to each other. He could feel the warmth of her lips through the thin veil of water that separated them. Her words were tiny currents that rippled over his face.

“What are you so afraid of?” she asked. “You have been holding yourself back, and I want to know why.”

He swallowed. “I am made of rage and pain. I do not want to give you any of that, my kalon.”

“I want you, Daios. I don’t know why or how, but I do. Every bit of you. Your anger, your rage, your pain. I want that just as much as I want your attention and your adoration.” Her hand pressed flat against his chest, her palm so warm against his skin. “I am not afraid of you.”

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