Page 34 of Echoes of the Tide

Frustrated, he flicked his tail and swam even faster. But then he was just circling the damn building, and he wasn’t actually looking at the inside. His frustration had a way of getting the better of him, which meant he unfortunately was lost now. If he could get ahold of that temper, he could figure out where he had first met with her, and then backtrack from there.

Obviously, the achromos inside of the building were now all on high alert. They watched him through almost every window he could see. Which was likely good for her, because she could sneak right past them. But he didn’t see her anywhere.

She’d made it sound like the office she had to go into would have a window. That he didn’t have to worry about losing her in that window because he should be able to see her.

He was so angry he was starting to glow. The lights all up and down his tail flickered on and off, which was even worse. Now the humans could really see him. And if he didn’t get control of himself, he’d end up lighting up the entire ocean.

The neon lights behind him cast his shadow on the building as he passed. In his gaze, it made him look ten times larger. A massive beast whose shadow enveloped the entire tower. His tail moved slowly, like the shark they had seen, his claws were visible on that shadow. It swallowed up the entire city, surrounded by a halo of red.

Another dark shadow joined his, this one significantly larger. He knew who it was long before he looked, but how could he not? He could smell the scent of sulfuric depthstrider from miles away.

“Couldn’t stay away from me?” he muttered, casting his gaze along the building and hoping to catch a glimpse of a curvy figure with a scowl on her face.

“You looked like you needed some help. I am here to offer my assistance.”

“I don’t need help from the likes of you.” Ace’s words burned in his mind, and he turned to glower at the other undine. “You’re too big. The humans are already looking at you. You draw too much attention.”

Fortis just stared at him. The massive depthstrider didn’t have to do much to look intimidating. Unlike many of his people, he was such a pale lavender at his chest that he glowed in the darkness. It was almost hard to look at him without squinting his eyes. Those yellow bulbs at the end of his tentacles sparked with emotion and then disappeared again. But it was his gaze that made Maketes uneasy. Those dark orbs were already swirling with colors, barely dark at all. Instead, they were a rainbow of the future that Maketes didn’t have time to deal with.

All that bulk was eye catching, though, so perhaps Ace had a point. But then Fortis’s expression registered. Not one of disapproval, as Maketes was very used to. This expression was one of... pity?

“Achromos,” Fortis said.

“What about them?”

“You called them humans.”

Had he? Maketes barely even remembered his rant. He’d just been angry, and he wanted Fortis to shut up for a few seconds and he’d wanted Fortis to feel like the bad guy. Not him. He wasn’t too large so that he wasn’t useful anymore. That was the other undine. That was all the others who had... had...

Shit. He had called them humans. He wasn’t even using his own people’s language anymore.

He growled low, the sound escaping through his gills even as his tail lit up with all the tiny specks of yellow that he had learned to hate so much. “What of it, Fortis?”

“You’ve been spending too much time with their species.”

“I understand that, friend. What would you have me do? Ignore them? Mira and Anya would be so disappointed, considering I’m the only one of our kind who knows how to act less like a monster and more like a man.”

He’d always prided himself on that detail. He was the one the women could go to when they needed to talk. No one else. They went to him, because they knew he would listen to them. That he wouldn’t try to talk over them or try to solve their problems. Maketes was the one who always listened, even if he made jokes and took nothing seriously.

Fortis flicked his side fins, keeping him still in the water where he hovered like some monolithic beast from the deep. He shouldn’t even be here. The depthstriders were supposed to stay where they were happiest. In the deepest parts of the ocean where no one would ever have to look at them again. Namely, Maketes.

“Part of who you are is the one who sees,” Fortis replied, his voice low and raspy. “You are meant to know them as they are, not as we see them. You are destined to call them into the darkness with us.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Maketes wanted to slap him with his tail so bad. “I don’t want more soothsaying or future telling. Can you please, for the love of all things in the sea, stop talking to me like I’m begging for the future and instead, try to be a real person for once?”

Fortis blinked. All the shimmering lights in his eyes disappeared as well. And suddenly, Maketes was looking at the real man behind the power.

Had he ever seen this side of Fortis before? He wasn’t all that certain.

Fortis took a deep breath, his gills shuddering at his sides before they stilled, as though it took a great deal of concentration to not be the terrifying asshole who told people their future when they didn’t want to know it.

“If you wish to deal with the man, then so be it.” And that was it. That was all he said. He just floated there, looking like one of the People of Water for once, and not the depthstrider who looked into people’s minds without permission.

Maketes didn’t know what to say. This man had tormented him most of his life, trying to tell him bits and pieces of his future when Maketes just wanted to live it. And now here he was. No longer a creature. Just a man.

Clearing his throat, he tried to find words. “Well. That’s good.”

“You will be the one to determine if it is or not.”

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