Page 38 of Call of the Fathoms

Taking a deep breath, she opened and closed her fists. “It feels better to say that, though. I’ve thought it for years, but who am I to say anything about an Original? They created all of this.”

“Did they?” Fortis asked, rolling upright once more. “Or did other people create it for them after they paid them with more useless achromo trash?”

Fuck. He was right. The Originals weren’t gods. They were barely even people these days. They were just spoiled children with so much money and notoriety that no one knew how to tell them no.

Blowing out a breath, she shook her head. “Thoughts like that are dangerous.”

He hummed low under his breath, starting to float backward. “Yes, they are. But you aren’t in Tau anymore, and if you want to think like that, you can.”

Fortis left with those parting words and it was so hard for her to argue. Yes, they were thoughts she could have now. Thoughts that were her own and no one else had put them in her head but herself.

So why was it so hard to believe them?

Sixteen

Fortis

There is honor in her, and Fortis hated that he saw it. The more he spoke with her, the more certain he was that this was a dangerous current to swim. She was an unusual specimen of an achromo. He hesitated to even call her one.

Though she shared the same looks and the same body that many of their kind had, she was so different that it didn’t seem right to lump her in with all those monstrous creatures. Alexia’s experiences made her singularly different. She struggled with the choices she made, just as he did, and that was something he could appreciate.

Because she had done terrible things. Just the few glimpses he’d gotten and the few things that she’d told him, her life had been filled with brutality. They were memories that would haunt her for the rest of her life, as they should.

But he had the same kind of memories. A city that fell because of his intervention, so many deaths that he had prophesized and there was nothing he could do to stop them. Countless memories that had made him question if he was agood person or not. He understood the struggle she was going through and it angered him that he could identify with someone of her species.

Fortis floated through the sea, sinking deeper and deeper into the depths where he could find some peace.

The sulfur fields were mainly used by his people. Not the rest of the People of Water, but specifically the depthstriders who could glide through the noxious waters without passing out. Of course, there were some who lingered deep within the yellow fields in the hopes that they could disappear from the world for a while. He’d even encouraged Daios to be here for a while as he struggled with his own choices.

Anger could not exist while a person was floating through the sickly smell. Nothing could exist. It was a place where the sea spoke directly to the soul, and no other thought could survive.

He needed that.

Desperately.

Because he was softening toward an achromo that he could not leave alone. He hated their species. Always had.

So why, when he closed his eyes, did he feel the curves of her hips in his palms? Why could he see the perfect image of her when she’d taken her clothing off and he had stared at her? He had no permission to do so. And why...whydid he care that she had promised to try to trust him?

This was wrong. He needed to get his mind back on the mission. He didn’t need to think about the way she’d been curled up in that chair, strangely small when he’d always thought of her as a towering pillar of strength. But she’d been so little outlined by blue light, even with her muscular arms wrapped around her legs. That moment of weakness had nearly destroyed him.

He hated to see her like that. Hated to acknowledge that he had anything to do with it.

So he sought out his goddess. He had to know that he was doing the right thing, and that he wasn’t making the same mistake so many of his friends had already.

The first hint of sulfur tickled his nose, and he knew he had found a hidden vent. There were more frequented fields on the sea floor, many of them were extremely large. They were easy to find with the lava flowing underneath them. This one appeared to have not been disturbed for many years. It was only him and the sea.

The yellow coils spread up into the water, sending sparkling motes that floated all around him like chips of gold. He breathed in deeply through his gills, allowing the particles to slide into his bloodstream and calm his mind.

He sank deeper, close enough to the lava vents that he could feel the heat against his body, and then hovered there. Frozen in the sea, with all of his gills spread as wide as he could, his fins holding him in place, and his tail limp in relaxation.

Here he was home. Here, he was held in the warm grasp of the sea and he could release all his tension and worries.

“Show me,” he whispered. “Show me what you wish for me to see.”

It wasn’t usually that easy. The sea was a fickle mother and impossible to control. She did not like to tell anyone anything. Not when she could teach them a lesson instead of speaking it.

He blinked his eyes open, staring through the sparkling gold as it appeared a fin flickered in the water. At first, he almost yelled at the new depthstrider to leave him in peace. He’d found this place in the hopes that he could commune with the sea goddess without being interrupted by another of his kind, but he also realized that no depthstrider owned any of the sulfur fields.

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