Chapter 17— No Way Back Up

  The water was different. It wasn't the glowing, suffocating brine of the temple, and it didn't press against Celeste’s skin with the weight of a thousand atmospheres. It felt thin and effortless.

  She was moving fast—so fast that the bioluminescent plankton in the water blurred into long, glowing streaks of light on either side of her. There was no ache in her bones. No dragging her body across the silt. With a single, rhythmic kick of a powerful tail, she shot forward, banking around a forest of towering, amber-colored kelp.

  She was laughing. The sound was a clear, vibrating ring that she felt in her chest. Around her, other shapes darted through the shadows—slim, muscular silhouettes that mirrored her movements. One of them pulled alongside her, a flash of silver skin and a wide, knowing grin. She reached out, her fingers brushing against a webbed hand, and for a moment, the world felt perfectly balanced. There was only the speed and the open sea.

  Then, a cold, wet pressure pressed against her lips. It was thick, oily, and smelled of heavy iron.

  The amber light died.

  Celeste’s eyes snapped open and the weight of the trench slammed back into her lungs, and the pale blue glow of the Heart burned her retinas. She wasn't swimming; she was pinned to the stone floor, her body feeling like leaden weights.

  The metallic smell was overwhelming now. It wasn't just in the water; it was right under her nose.

  She blinked, her vision clearing to find a hand hovering inches from her face. It was a stark, unnerving moon-white, the skin stretched tight over thick knuckles that were shredded and raw. The fingernails were thick, pale, and sharpened into points. Between those claw-like fingers was a ragged strip of grey, oily meat, dripping with blood so dark it looked like ink.

  She followed the arm up.

  Rowan was looming directly over her. He was kneeling in the silt, his new, corded muscles casting long shadows across her. His skin was translucent enough to see the dark veins underneath, and his eyes were tracking her every movement. He looked like something birthed by the trench, not the man she had saved.

  "Eat," his voice vibrated in her mind.

  She didn't hesitate, she lunged for it. Her teeth snapped shut on the strip of tuna Rowan was holding. She tore it from his fingers with a violent jerk of her head, swallowing the hunk of muscle almost whole.

  Before the first piece was even down her throat, she was moving. She scrambled over the floor, her movements twitchy and desperate. She threw her body toward the massive, armored carcass of the tuna lying on the floor.

  She buried her face in the open wound Rowan had ripped in the fish's side. She didn't use her hands to peel it back; she used her teeth to tear through the remaining connective tissue, her head shaking back and forth like a shark’s to saw through the dense muscle. The dark, ink-like blood billowed out in a thick cloud, masking her face as she ate.

  Every swallow felt like fire hitting her stomach. The energy from the meal was being pulled out of her almost as fast as she could consume it, siphoned off by the Heart to stabilize the bond, but it was enough to stop the shaking.

  Rowan sat back on his heels, and watched her. He could have been disgusted; a part of him probably should have been. But Celeste couldn't bring herself to care. The shame was a distant noise, drowned out by the absolute necessity of filling the void in her stomach. She focused entirely on the feeling of fire dying in her stomach, trying hard not to think about the reality of what she was consuming, pushing every thought aside until there was nothing left but the rhythm of the feed.

  She didn't stop until the massive frame of the tuna was picked clean. Only the heavy, bone-like armor plates and the thick spine remained, white and jagged against the temple floor.

  Celeste stayed hunched over the remains for a long time, her breathing finally slowing. She stared at the skeleton, her mind beginning to clear. This thing was a monster of the deep. Fast, and powerful. The Rowan she knew, the human who had been gasping for air and clinging to life so fearfully, could never have caught this, let alone dragged it through kilometers of lightless, crushing water. Yet, he had. He had gone into the true black, changed himself into something unrecognizable, and fought a predator just so she wouldn't die.

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  Tears brimmed in her vision. Her life had been destroyed, cursed and trapped miles beneath the surface. But looking at the man beside her, she realized she wasn't alone. He had risked everything to keep her heart beating.

  She looked up at him, wiping the dark ink of the fish staining her face. “How did you make it, Rowan?” she asked, her voice trembling through the bond. It wasn't just a question about the hunt; it was about the impossible fact that he was standing there at all. She reached out a shaking, scaled hand toward him. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  Rowan didn't move as she spoke. He looked down at the skeleton of the fish he caught, then back at her. The gratitude in her voice seemed to catch him off guard. He looked at his own white, blood-stained hands as if he were seeing them for the first time.

  "I didn't have a choice," he said, his voice echoing flatly in her mind. "I just knew I had to do it if I didn't want to watch you die."

  He reached out, his movements stiff, and wiped a smudge of dark blood from her cheek with his thumb. Celeste leaned into the touch, a wave of relief washing over her. She had been terrified that once she lost her composure—once she became the monster the ocean demanded her to be—he would look at her with the same horror he’d shown when they first sank. But he didn't pull away. He didn't look disgusted. He stayed right there in the silt with her.

  His skin felt cold against hers, a dense, solid chill that felt like the stone of the temple itself.

  “See? You’re already getting warmer,” Rowan said, a ghost of a smile touching his mouth. “You were colder than the water only a few moments ago.”

  Celeste closed her eyes, focusing on the heat spreading through her chest. The frantic, hollow ache in her marrow had been replaced by a heavy, satisfied thrum. As the energy from the meal surged through her, the phantom sensations from her dream—the effortless speed, the belonging—seemed to bleed into reality. She didn't feel like a human girl drowning in a monster's skin anymore. She felt right. She felt like she had been born a siren, and this deep, crushing pressure was exactly where she was meant to be.

  Rowan’s hand stayed on her cheek, his thumb tracing a slow line over her skin. He didn't seem to notice the change in her expression, or perhaps he was too tired to care.

  "You're not shaking anymore," he noted, his voice softer now, almost a hum in the back of her mind.

  "I feel... strong,” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “But you don’t really look good. Maybe rest a bit. I can’t even imagine how you managed to hunt down something almost as big as you."

  “Well, I can’t either," he said. He looked over at the picked-clean skeleton of the tuna. "But then again, It wasn’t that bad. I felt its heartbeat in the water before I even saw it. My body just knew what to do. I didn't feel the pressure, and I didn't feel the cold. I just felt the kill."

  “Wow, we’re the same now aren’t we? Creatures of the sea.” Celeste said.

  She meant it as a joke, but the words felt wrong as soon as they left her. She remembered how he had reacted to his change earlier, and she didn't want to mess with his head while he was already on edge. She watched him for a reaction, but Rowan didn't say anything. He just looked down at his arms.

  “I guess,” Rowan finally said. He looked up at the jagged hole in the temple ceiling, squinting at the dark water above. “There’s no way we can make it back up there, is there?”

  The question wasn't for her; it was for the ocean. Celeste looked up too. Even if they had the strength to swim for hours, they weren't the same people who had a life up there. He was a moon-white predator, and she was a creature of violet scales and sharp teeth. They couldn't exactly walk onto a beach and ask for a towel.

  “Maybe,” she said, though her voice lacked conviction.

  She looked down at her own hands, then at the powerful curve of her tail. The truth was, the thought of the surface—the sun, the dry air, the noise—felt exhausting. Down here, the pressure felt like a firm grip, and the blood she’d just tasted had sparked a vitality in her that she’d never felt as a human. She was trapped, but why did she feel like she belonged to the weight of the water?

  Rowan shifted, his shoulder muscles rippling under that translucent skin. He looked at the massive tuna skeleton, then back at the pulsing heart.

  “I’m not doing this every day,” he muttered. His voice was flat, but there was a hard edge to it. “I’m not going out there to butcher things just to keep a rock glowing. We’re not staying its slaves. And I’m not sure if I go for another hunt, I’ll come back in one piece. Maybe after this, we should try reaching the surface.”

  He reached out and touched the stone floor, his clawed fingers tracing the deep, geometric grooves in the silt. Like he was looking for a way to take control.

  Celeste watched him, her mind split. Part of her wanted to find a way back to the light, but the larger part—the part that was currently warm and full of predator’s blood—just wanted to stay here, in the quiet blue dark.

  Celeste looked at the massive tuna skeleton. It was picked clean, just a cage of white bones in the silt. She realized that even though she felt better, the cycle was just going to start all over again tomorrow.

  “You’re right. I can’t just sit here while you fight hard to feed me.”