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00:00My sister poisoned all 10 of my children.
00:02Then she pushed me into a deep rift current tear.
00:04I died in the dark water below.
00:06And I woke up on the morning of the tide bond ray,
00:08staring at the same sky, breathing the same cold water.
00:11I lay still for a moment, let it settle.
00:13We'd arrived on the abyssal realm together,
00:15my sister Sela and I.
00:16Two women dropped into a world
00:18that ran on tide power and blood lake.
00:20The clan chief had lined up every unmated male
00:22in the core world.
00:23We were supposed to choose.
00:24In last life, Sela told me to take the lionfish.
00:27Lionfish lay soft eggs, easier than giving birth.
00:31She smiled like she was doing me a favor.
00:33She took the great white shark, the only A rank male.
00:36What she didn't tell me was that she already knew
00:38lionfish eggs hatched in large clutches.
00:41I chose Cole.
00:43I got pregnant fast.
00:45One clutch, 10 hatchlings, all A rank.
00:47In a coral clan that had seen maybe five A ranks
00:50in 100 years, that was enough to make Cole
00:52the next clan chief and turn me into something
00:54the coral elders called Abyss Chosen.
00:57Sela got one B rank from the great white shark,
00:59then another, then three more, nothing better.
01:02She couldn't accept it.
01:03She crept into Cole's reef den.
01:06He threw her out in front of the whole coral clan.
01:08The great white shark ended their bond
01:10and drove her and her children into the dead current.
01:12In less than a month, all five of her offspring starved.
01:15I was the one who took her back in.
01:17I gave her food.
01:18I gave her warmth.
01:19She killed my 10 hatchlings one by one
01:21and then she pushed me into a deep rift current tear.
01:23I still remember weightlessness.
01:26So this time, I was not choosing Cole.
01:29The tide bond right was already moving.
01:31The clan chief stood at the front, arms folded,
01:33watching the males line up.
01:35Sela was beside me, her shoulder just barely touching mine.
01:38I felt the exact moment she decided to move.
01:40A small shift in her weight, a breath she didn't finish.
01:43She crossed the water toward Cole like she'd rehearsed it,
01:46pressed herself against his arm,
01:47tipped her face up to the clan chief.
01:49She looked back at me.
01:50Clan chief.
01:51That smile.
01:52I choose Cole.
01:54I looked at Cole.
01:55Cold current blood.
01:56No warmth in the dry tide.
01:58Three months of tide sleep every year,
02:00leaving whatever female he'd chosen to manage the reef den alone in the collapsing food chain.
02:05No hunting skills.
02:06Without the coral clan around him, he couldn't even feed himself.
02:08She thought she'd taken the prize.
02:10She didn't know what she would pay.
02:12I turned and looked at what was left.
02:13A B rank whale merfolk.
02:15Two C rank sea turtle merfolk.
02:17Near the back, a manta ray merfolk who had been watching me since I swam in.
02:21Brow creased, expression difficult to read.
02:23I started toward him.
02:24The crowd shifted.
02:25I thought about my ten hatchlings.
02:27Quiet and good.
02:28Never any trouble.
02:29A rank every one of them.
02:30And felt something cold and settled move through the grief.
02:33Not this time.
02:34I was about to open my mouth.
02:35A palm hit my face so hard I bit my cheek.
02:40It's you!
02:41The female in front of me was bonded to the coral clan's tiger shark merfolk.
02:44She was shaking.
02:45In her hand was a white jellyfish tentacle for me.
02:48She said she'd found in her mate's reef den.
02:49Her tide ship didn't form as a white jellyfish.
02:52The crowd turned away.
02:54One voice at the back.
02:56Then three more.
02:57I looked past her shoulder and found Sela near the middle of the crowd.
03:00She'd practiced that expression.
03:01I was certain of it.
03:02Last life, she hadn't needed it.
03:03Last life, I hadn't stood in her way.
03:06Oh Lyra.
03:07I didn't want to say anything, but I did see you swimming with Leo that night.
03:11One sentence.
03:13Every door in the room closed at once.
03:15The manta ray merfolk stepped back.
03:16The clan chief's eyes were already on me.
03:18I tide shifted on the spot.
03:19White jellyfish.
03:20Clean tentacles.
03:21Full circle.
03:22Every angle.
03:23Nothing hit me.
03:24The crowd went quiet.
03:25I shifted back.
03:27No damaged tentacles.
03:28That filament isn't mine.
03:30A damaged tentacle root scar on my inner thigh.
03:32Small.
03:33Deliberate.
03:33Someone in the crowd saw it.
03:34That was enough.
03:35I had spent this entire second life thinking I understood what Sela was capable of.
03:39I had underestimated her.
03:41Out.
03:42I looked at Sela one last time.
03:44She was holding back a smile.
03:45I turned and swam.
03:46No argument.
03:47No appeal.
03:47No tears.
03:48I swam through it with my back straight and I didn't stop until I was outside.
03:53Sela came to see me off.
03:54Like a female who had already won.
03:56Don't worry Lyra.
03:57There are powerful males out there.
03:59Maybe you'll find the right one.
04:01Thanks for the encouragement.
04:02Cole has a lot of stamina.
04:04Lionfish nature is what it is.
04:05Once or twice a day is just recreation for him.
04:08I watched the warmth leave her face.
04:09You should build up your strength.
04:11Wouldn't want to disappoint him.
04:12I turned and swam.
04:13Didn't look back.
04:14The Coral Clan's current line was a boundary of cold and warm corkets meeting in the water.
04:19I crossed it without slowing.
04:20The dead current ahead was dark and unmapped and the water was cold.
04:23She thought she'd won.
04:24She hadn't thought about the dry tide.
04:26Cole would enter tide sleep.
04:27Three months.
04:28Maybe more.
04:29She'd be alone in the reef den.
04:30No warmth.
04:31No provider.
04:32No idea how to feed herself when the food chain collapsed.
04:34She'd spent her whole life letting other people manage the hard parts.
04:37She had no idea what she'd actually chosen.
04:39I had swum this path before.
04:40Last life I swam it in grief.
04:42With nothing to my name except a tide healer's knowledge I'd spent years building.
04:46This life I knew where it ended.
04:47At the far end of it there was a rift.
04:49Something inside that the Coral Clan had never seen and wouldn't know how to measure.
04:53Something that had been alone so long it had forgotten what trust went like.
04:56He'd been close to dead when I found him.
04:58I was the one who pulled him back.
05:00I didn't make it far before I heard it behind me.
05:03Heavy strokes.
05:03Low and deliberate closing fast.
05:06I tide shifted without thinking.
05:07Dropped into jellyfish form and fled.
05:09The water rushed past and the dead current blurred at the edges of my vision.
05:13Behind me the blue shark merfolk wasn't bothering to be quiet.
05:16He knew what a lone female outside clan borders meant.
05:19He knew how it ended.
05:20I fled until I saw the rock face.
05:22A narrow opening in the coral.
05:23Dark inside.
05:24Barely wide enough to turn sideways and fit through.
05:27I went in.
05:27Behind me the blue shark merfolk stopped.
05:30He circled the entrance twice.
05:31His strokes slowed then stopped entirely.
05:33He cursed once.
05:35Low and ugly.
05:36And I heard him leave.
05:37I didn't understand why.
05:38I shifted back and stood still.
05:40Breathing hard.
05:40The rift went deeper than I'd expected.
05:42The water inside was stale and cold.
05:45And underneath that, something else.
05:47Rot and infection.
05:48And the dense animal scent of something very large.
05:51I took one more step into the dark.
05:53Something in the black moved.
05:54I stopped.
05:55My heart was loud in my ears.
05:57The smell hit me harder now.
05:58Animal.
05:59Enormous.
06:00Close.
06:01Whatever was in here, the blue shark merfolk had known.
06:03Whatever was in here had made a predator who hunted lone females turn around without a sound and swim away.
06:09I stood in the dark and didn't move.
06:11I already knew what was in there.
06:12Last life, it was the same rift.
06:14The same darkness.
06:16The same smell.
06:17I took one more step forward.
06:19The sound that came out of the dark was not a roar.
06:22It was bigger than that.
06:23It hit me in the chest before it reached my ears.
06:26A pressure through the water.
06:27Through my ribs.
06:28And for one full second, my body simply stopped.
06:31Every instinct told me to turn around.
06:33My feet didn't move.
06:35The dark shifted.
06:36And then I saw him.
06:37White.
06:38Enormous.
06:38His fin crest caught the faint bioluminescent light from the rift entrance and held it.
06:43His mouth was open wide enough to swallow my head whole.
06:45The sound still rolling out of him bounced off every wall and came back from all directions at once.
06:51He hadn't moved.
06:53I stood where I was and looked at him.
06:55The roar faded.
06:56The rift went silent.
06:57He still hadn't moved.
06:58I had heard roars before.
07:00The great white shark merfolk in the coral clan.
07:02The whale males during mating season.
07:04Those roars said,
07:05I am here.
07:05I am dangerous.
07:06Come closer and find out.
07:08This was different.
07:08This roar said,
07:09Go away.
07:10I looked at his tail fin.
07:12Even in the dark I could see it.
07:13The flesh was wrong.
07:14Swollen and dark.
07:15Pale patches crawling through the wounds.
07:17The torn fin crest was infected at its root.
07:19He had been lying here a long time.
07:21Too long to hunt.
07:22Too long to do much of anything except wait.
07:24He opened his mouth and he smelled at me again.
07:27I took one step toward him.
07:29The roaring stopped.
07:30Gold eyes in the dark.
07:31Very still.
07:32Watching me cross the distance between us one step at a time.
07:35I didn't stop swimming.
07:37I turned and fled again.
07:39I made it two strokes before I noticed something strange.
07:42The sea dragon was roaring.
07:43But he wasn't moving.
07:45He hadn't even shifted.
07:47It felt like he was just trying to scare me off.
07:49Then I smelled it.
07:51Rot and infection.
07:53I looked closer and saw the flesh of his tail fin.
07:56The wounds were deep and crawling with white.
07:58The fin crest was torn at the root.
08:00I stopped.
08:01I turned around.
08:02Hey, you're hurt.
08:04I know deep sea medicine.
08:05Will you let me stay?
08:07The sea dragon looked at me for a moment.
08:09Then he slowly unfolded his injured tail fin toward me.
08:12The wounds were bad.
08:14I gagged and got to work anyway.
08:16Opened my pack and found the wound powder.
08:18Before I'd arrived here, I'd studied tide healing and coral toxins.
08:21Once I was in the coral clan, that knowledge had made me the settlement's tide healer.
08:25I'd treated half the coral clan at one point or another.
08:28Not one of them had spoken up for me today.
08:30The bitterness sat heavy in my chest as I worked.
08:33When I finished, the sea dragon's aggression faded.
08:35He nudged his head against my sleeve.
08:37A thank you.
08:38Then his stomach growled.
08:39Twice.
08:39He'd been injured too long to hunt.
08:41He was starving.
08:42I'll go find food.
08:44Wait here.
08:45I turned to go.
08:48His tail curled around my ankle and pulled me back.
08:51Then he exhaled a low temperature deep current that enveloped me entirely.
08:55The dragon current mark.
08:56His power on my skin would keep most predators back instinctively.
09:00I thought of the blue shark merfolk from earlier.
09:02This sea dragon's rank had to be extraordinary.
09:04That was the only explanation for that kind of deterrent effect.
09:07I didn't go far.
09:08I stayed close to the rift and gathered what I could find.
09:10Small crustaceans.
09:11Some edible reef plants.
09:12By the time I got back, the bioluminescence had dimmed to night cycle.
09:16No fire needed.
09:17The sea dragon's body put out a constant, gentle warmth that filled the rift.
09:20I stayed.
09:21During the day, I changed his bandages.
09:23Foraged for water and food.
09:25At night, he curled around me in dragon form.
09:27His body warmth wrapping me like a second skin.
09:29And we slept together.
09:30Half a month passed.
09:31Then one day, I came back to the rift and stopped dead.
09:33A man lay where the sea dragon had been.
09:36White hair.
09:36Gold eyes.
09:38You're back.
09:40You're the sea dragon.
09:42My name is Vayne.
09:46I'm Lyra.
09:49With the wounds healed, Vayne could swim.
09:51He couldn't do anything strenuous yet.
09:52But the first time we went out together, he showed me what he was made of.
09:55A deep sea giant crab.
09:57Under a minute.
09:58He seared it with a short burst of breath.
10:00And it was done.
10:00That night, I ate real food for the first time in weeks.
10:04Crab shell crackling.
10:05Fat hissing and popping from the dragon breath heat.
10:08I ate until my face was greasy.
10:09And asked Vayne whether he was A rank.
10:11Are you A rank?
10:13No.
10:14I don't have a rank.
10:15I stared at him.
10:16Every male merfolk had a rank.
10:17But the tide power I'd seen from him was beyond anything the great white shark merfolk
10:21in the coral clan could manage.
10:23But your tide power…
10:25Vayne shook his head.
10:26No rank.
10:27Never had one.
10:28That was why his own clan had driven him out.
10:30They'd called him a monster.
10:32Abandoned him as a hatchling in the dead current.
10:34The memory clearly cost him something.
10:36His eyes went distant and sad.
10:37Born without a clan.
10:38Whatever had made him this strong, he'd earned it alone.
10:41The hard way.
10:42It doesn't matter.
10:43You have me now.
10:44We're friends.
10:45Vayne went red.
10:48Another month passed.
10:49Vayne healed completely.
10:50The dry tide was coming.
10:51We started going out early and coming back late to stock up.
10:53He hunted.
10:54I gathered deep sea medicines and reef plants.
10:56We came back full every time.
10:58I thought maybe it would just stay like this.
10:59Then Vayne's heat cycle hit.
11:01I woke up one morning to find his body burning.
11:03Don't leave the rift for a few days.
11:04I have to go somewhere.
11:06I have to go somewhere.
11:07Then he took two strokes and his body gave out.
11:09When he went down, I saw everything.
11:11I understood immediately.
11:12Every merfolk had a regular heat cycle.
11:14When it hit, instinct won over reason.
11:16He'd already pushed himself past his limit.
11:18Don't be scared.
11:19I won't touch you.
11:20I'll handle it myself.
11:21He was fighting his own body.
11:23His neck was corded with strain.
11:24The sounds coming from his throat were low and desperate.
11:27I watched him.
11:27My chest ached.
11:29Vayne, do you not want me?
11:31How could you even ask that?
11:36When his hands came up to hold me, I was scared.
11:38What coal had put me through had left its marks.
11:40He was always rough.
11:41There was no pleasure in it.
11:43Only something close to endurance.
11:44Vayne was stronger than coal by a wide margin.
11:46I braced myself.
11:47But there was no pain.
11:49Vayne was gentle in a way I hadn't known was possible.
11:51Like his fin crest against a still water.
11:53Light enough that I felt like I was floating.
11:55I lost track of time.
11:56When I finally noticed the world again, the dry tide currents had shifted outside the rift.
12:01That dry tide.
12:01I was warm.
12:02Vayne kept the rift heated with his body warmth.
12:04When the cold currents pressed in, he curled tighter.
12:07At night, he wrapped me in his warmth.
12:09His dragon form pulled around me like a second skin.
12:11After that first time, he became a little enthusiastic.
12:14Eye contact.
12:15Next thing I knew, I was against the rift wall.
12:17Not that I minded.
12:18He was good at it.
12:19I never once wanted to pull away.
12:20With that kind of frequency and no precautions, it wasn't long before I noticed something
12:24different about my body.
12:26I pressed two fingers to my wrist and checked my pulse.
12:28Pregnant.
12:29When I told Vayne, he went still.
12:32Really?
12:34You're really carrying my hatchling?
12:36He lifted me straight off the seabed.
12:38We were both laughing.
12:39After that, he treated me like I was made of sea glass.
12:42He was at my side constantly.
12:43He insisted on doing everything himself.
12:45Lying in the warmth of his arms.
12:47I thought again about last time.
12:48Cole was a cold current blood type merfolk.
12:51In the dry tide, he gave off no heat at all.
12:53And he entered tide sleep.
12:54While other males made sure their females were fed through the season, I was out in the dead
12:58current alone, trying to find something edible.
13:00My tide healing skills kept me fed.
13:02Barely.
13:02The merfolk I treated gave me scraps.
13:04But after the ten lionfish hatchlings were born, scraps weren't enough.
13:08Cole entered tide sleep.
13:09He could survive on stored energy.
13:11The hatchlings were too young.
13:12They needed real food.
13:13Constantly.
13:14I foraged alone.
13:15A white jellyfish.
13:16Small and not built for hunting in the dry tide.
13:19Who didn't dare go far.
13:20I brought back small crustaceans.
13:21I brought back dried reef algae.
13:23The hatchlings were good.
13:24All ten of them.
13:25A rank.
13:25And not one of them ever picked a fight or made trouble.
13:28They helped with the reef den work.
13:29Thinking about them, my throat closed.
13:31I'd failed them.
13:32I hadn't kept them safe.
13:35Lyra, what's wrong?
13:36I wiped the corner of my eye.
13:37Just homesick.
13:38He went quiet.
13:39Is being with me not enough?
13:40No, that's not it.
13:42Being with you is the best thing there is.
13:44I changed the subject.
13:45I'd assumed I'd never see my sister again.
13:47She showed up at our rift that same night.
13:50Vayne heard the sounds.
13:51He went to check.
13:52I heard a familiar shriek.
13:52Wait, don't kill me!
13:53Sea dragon, please!
13:54I came out to find my sister in the water outside the rift entrance.
13:57I looked at her in the dark and I almost laughed.
13:59Lyra?
13:59Why are you here?
14:00You know her?
14:01Never seen her before.
14:02Vayne's intent sharpened immediately.
14:04Lyra!
14:04My sister screamed.
14:05Don't let him kill me!
14:07I came all this way to save you!
14:09Sis!
14:09That word, sis, it stopped Vayne cold.
14:13He pulled back.
14:15Is there a misunderstanding, Lyra?
14:17I sighed.
14:18I swam over to my sister.
14:20What do you want?
14:21She put on her most conciliatory face.
14:23I talked to the clan chief.
14:25He said you can come back.
14:26I didn't move.
14:28She pushed harder.
14:29And Lyra, the Coral clan is in trouble.
14:31Two settlements are about to go to war in a current war.
14:34This whole area is going to become a battlefield.
14:36You two aren't aligned with either side.
14:38You'll get caught in the middle.
14:39Hearing my sister's warning, I remembered.
14:41There had been a current war.
14:42Last time.
14:43But last time, the war had ended because of my ten lionfish hatchlings hatching.
14:48Ten A rank merfolk born at once.
14:50The opposing clan, the Ura, had taken one look and surrendered on the spot.
14:54He was the one who declared me abyss chosen.
14:57Said I carried a rare destiny.
14:59That I had been sent to the Coral clan as a gift from the abyss god.
15:02But I had no interest in my sister's advice.
15:04Vayne and I had built something real out here.
15:06There was no reason to go back.
15:08I told her no.
15:09No.
15:11She looked straight at my stomach.
15:13Lyra, you're pregnant, aren't you?
15:16Even if you don't care about yourself, think about the child.
15:19You two can live free out here for now.
15:21But what about later?
15:22What about your hatchling?
15:23Do you really want to raise a child with no clan behind them?
15:26That landed.
15:27This world was brutal.
15:29Vayne, as strong as he was, had nearly died alone and raped.
15:32What would happen when our child was born?
15:34And the dead current was full of things that wanted to eat them.
15:36I looked at Vayne.
15:37He seemed to read what I was thinking.
15:39He came over and took my hand.
15:42Lyra, let's go back.
15:43After I told my sister yes, she let out a long breath.
15:46Then, is there anything to eat?
15:48She ate like she hadn't seen food in weeks.
15:50Her stomach was enormous.
15:51But her arms and fins were thin as coral sticks.
15:54She'd had it rough.
15:56Not hard to guess why.
15:57Coal had almost certainly entered tide sleep by now.
16:00My sister had never worked hard a day in her life.
16:02Nothing short of starvation would have pushed her out here.
16:05After the meal, she lay down in the outer part of the rift to rest.
16:08Vayne folded me into his arms as usual.
16:10My sister glanced over from across the rift.
16:12The look on her face was pure envy.
16:15In the middle of the night, I got up.
16:17I believe this life and she still gets to eat like that.
16:22Bonded to some rankless creature and she still got nerve to look pleased with herself.
16:26She rubbed her belly.
16:27Come on, little ones.
16:28Come out fast.
16:29I stood in the dark and let it wash over me.
16:31Even now, I couldn't fully understand where her hatred came from.
16:34We were twins.
16:36Before we'd ended up here, our parents died in an accident.
16:39Left the two of us to figure out the world together.
16:42I remembered what they'd always said.
16:43You're the older one.
16:45Take care of your sister.
16:46So I did.
16:47I gave way.
16:48Every time, on everything.
16:49Whatever was best, I let her have it.
16:52Somewhere along the line, she'd decided that was simply how things should be.
16:55I was supposed to give her everything good.
16:57I was supposed to be beneath her.
16:59I wasn't allowed to have things she didn't have.
17:01By the third day back in the coral clan,
17:03I understood exactly why she'd worked so hard to bring me home.
17:06Her due date was close.
17:07She was terrified of dying on the birthing ground.
17:09She needed me there.
17:10I had gotten her through all three.
17:12There was a second reason, too.
17:13She wanted me to watch.
17:14She wanted me standing there when she produced 20 A-rank lionfish merfolk
17:18and climbed to the top of the coral clan.
17:21She wanted to see my face.
17:23Life back in the coral clan wasn't easy.
17:26Even with Vayne beside me, plenty of females still looked at me with hostility.
17:29They didn't want me near their mates.
17:30So I stayed close to the reef den.
17:32I was shut out.
17:32My sister, meanwhile, used her memories from last time to play prophet.
17:36She predicted a few major clan events and a stretch of bad current
17:39accurately enough that the coral clan elevated her status considerably.
17:42She told everyone she was the abyss chosen, sent by the abyss god,
17:45carrying 20 A-rank merfolk.
17:47The coral clan believed her completely.
17:49Then the current war began.
17:51Vayne was sent to the front.
17:52Within days, every fighter in the coral clan had noticed that his dragon tide power
17:56exceeded that of the A-rank great white shark merfolk by a significant margin.
18:00His raw strength was in a different category altogether.
18:03This world ran on tide power.
18:05Strength was everything.
18:06And yet, because Vayne came out unranked, the great white shark merfolk grew jealous.
18:10He gathered the other males and turned on Vayne.
18:12They sent him alone into a aura in the sea.
18:15When the others had what they needed from the distraction, they swam, left him there.
18:18I didn't find out until Vayne came back with serious wounds.
18:22I went straight.
18:23It's fine, Lyra.
18:24Vayne caught my arm.
18:25Even with all of that, they still couldn't touch me.
18:27I came back in one piece, didn't I?
18:29I looked at the cuts across his body.
18:31Vayne, I'm sorry.
18:32I shouldn't have brought you back here.
18:34This place isn't right for you.
18:36Let's go home.
18:38Back to the rift.
18:39No.
18:39He was suddenly urgent.
18:40If we go back, you'll be homesick again.
18:43We stay here.
18:44As long as you and the hatchling are safe, I don't care what they do to me.
18:47Something cracked open in my chest.
18:49I remembered what I'd said in the rift.
18:51That I was homesick.
18:52He'd been carrying that the entire time.
18:54You are my home.
18:55He thought I meant the coral clan.
18:57Let's go.
18:58Just the two of us.
18:59I'd almost convinced him.
19:02Lyra, get to your sister's reef den.
19:04She's going into labor.
19:06I heard the screaming before I reached the entrance.
19:08I swam inside.
19:09Blood in the water.
19:10The same scene as the first time.
19:11Last life.
19:12When she'd had her first bad labor.
19:14Back then, it was the great white shark in Murfolk's fault.
19:16His build was large.
19:17The offspring inherited the size.
19:18The head got stuck.
19:19But lionfish eggs were soft and small.
19:21They should have come out easily.
19:22I got my answer fast.
19:23I helped her deliver 10 eggs.
19:25Then I felt more inside.
19:26I was reaching for the next one when my sister's body seized.
19:31She's convassing.
19:32Nobody here knew that word.
19:33I shouted instructions.
19:34They found a smooth piece of coral and pressed it between her teeth.
19:37So she couldn't bite through her tongue.
19:38I used the moment to pull the rest of the eggs out.
19:40I counted 20 in total.
19:42She passed out when it was done.
19:43I mixed a tonic and got it down her throat.
19:45If she makes it through tonight, she'll live.
19:47If she doesn't, there's nothing more I can do.
19:49I turned to leave.
19:50Cole grabbed my wrist.
19:51She's your sister.
19:53You should stay and take care of her.
19:54Even now, even with his female unconscious in the water from a dangerous labor,
19:58he didn't want to sit with her through one night.
20:01She's your mate, not mine.
20:03I'm not responsible for her.
20:07I've already done far more than she deserves.
20:10I swam out of the reef den into open water and felt the exhaustion hit me all at once.
20:15Vane was waiting outside.
20:16My heart twisted.
20:17What are you doing here?
20:19With wounds that bad, you should be resting in the-
20:23He pulled me into his arms before I could finish.
20:25His voice was rough.
20:27Lyra, we're not leaving.
20:29I started to ask why.
20:30Then I felt it.
20:31Something warm and wet soaking into my shoulder.
20:34I brought him back to our reef den.
20:35Pushed him until he talked.
20:36He cried harder.
20:38Vane had been waiting outside my sister's reef den the entire time.
20:41He'd heard everything.
20:42He hadn't known that was what birth looked like.
20:44He hadn't known it could be like that.
20:46He was terrified.
20:47If I went into labor out in the dead current and something went wrong,
20:50there would be no one to help me.
20:51I felt tears on my own face before I realized.
20:54Vane, not everyone has a labor like hers.
20:57Maybe mine will be easy.
20:58Then we're still not leaving.
21:00His voice didn't waver.
21:01Even if the chance is one in a hundred, I won't let you suffer.
21:07He rescued me.
21:07Then he defeated me.
21:07That's what she had to do with him.
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