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She Stole My Curse : New 🔝 42 Eps Follow our backup channel 👉 @Empire.Drama
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00:00My sister poisoned all ten of my children.
00:02Then she pushed me into a deep rift current terror.
00:04I died in the dark water below.
00:06And I woke up on the morning of the Tidebond Rite,
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 that ran on Tide Power and Blood Lake.
00:20The clan chief had lined up every unmated male in the Coral Club.
00:23We were supposed to choose.
00:24In Last Life, Sela told me to take the lionfish rope.
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 lionfish eggs hatched in large clutches.
00:42I chose Cole.
00:43I got pregnant fast.
00:45One clutch, ten hatchlings. All A-rank.
00:48In a Coral Clan that had seen maybe five A-Ranks in a hundred years,
00:51that was enough to make Cole the next clan chief
00:53and turn me into something the Coral Elders called Abyss Chosen.
00:57Sela got one B-rank from the great white shark,
01:00then another, then three more.
01:01Nothing 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.
01:13In less than a month, all five of her offspring starved.
01:16I was the one who took her back in.
01:17I gave her food.
01:18I gave her warmth.
01:19She killed my ten 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.
01:31Clan 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.
02:20Brow creased.
02:22Expression difficult to read.
02:23I started toward him.
02:24The crowd shifted.
02:25I thought about my ten hatchlings.
02:27Quiet.
02:28Good.
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.
02:36A 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 filament that she said she'd found in her mate's reef den.
02:49Her tide shifted form was a white jellyfish.
02:53The crowd turned around.
02:55One voice at the back, then three more.
02:57I looked past her shoulder and found Sela near the middle of the crowd.
03:00She'd practiced that expression.
03:02I was certain of it.
03:02Last life, she hadn't needed it.
03:04Last 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.
03:12One sentence.
03:12Every 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, clean tentacles, full circle, every angle, nothing hidden.
03:24The crowd went quiet.
03:25I shifted back.
03:27No damaged tentacles.
03:29That 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.
03:35That 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.
03:48No 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, like 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.
04:06Once 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 cold 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.
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 looked 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 stroke.
05:04Low and deliberate.
05:05Closing fast.
05:06A tide shifted without thinking.
05:08Dropped 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.
05:26I went in.
05:27Behind me, the blue shark merfolk stopped.
05:30He circled the entrance twice.
05:31His strokes slowed, then stopped entirely.
05:34He 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, breathing hard.
05:41The 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.
06:04Whatever 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.
06:15The 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.
06:24It hit me in the chest before it reached my ears.
06:26A pressure through the water.
06:28Through my ribs.
06:29And 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 it.
06:37White.
06:38Enormous.
06:39His 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.
06:46The 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, I am here.
07:05I am dangerous.
07:06Come closer and find out.
07:08This was different.
07:09This roar said, go 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.
07:20He 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 sailed 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.
07:44But he wasn't moving.
07:46He hadn't even shifted.
07:47It felt like he was just trying to scare me off.
07:50Then 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.
08:13I 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.
08:22Once 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.
08:31The 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.
08:57His 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.
09:13By 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.
09:21I 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.
09:34A man lay where the sea dragon had been.
09:36You're back.
09:38White hair.
09:39Gold eyes.
09:40You're the sea dragon?
09:43My name is Vayne.
09:45With the wounds healed, Vayne could swim.
09:47He couldn't do anything strenuous yet.
09:48But the first time we went out together, he showed me what he was made of.
09:51A deep sea giant crab.
09:53Under a minute.
09:54He seared it with a short burst of breath.
09:56And it was done.
09:57That night, I ate real food for the first time in weeks.
10:00Crabshell crackling.
10:01Fat hissing and popping from the dragon breath heat.
10:04I ate until my face was greasy, and asked Vayne whether he was A rank.
10:07Are you A rank?
10:09No.
10:10I don't have a rank.
10:11I stared at him.
10:12Every male merfolk had a rank.
10:13But the tide power I'd seen from him was beyond anything the great white shark merfolk in the coral clan
10:18could manage.
10:19But your tide power...
10:21Vayne shook his head.
10:22No rank.
10:23Never had one.
10:24That was why his own clan had driven him out.
10:26They'd called him a monster.
10:28Abandoned him as a hatchling in the dead current.
10:30The memory clearly cost him something.
10:32His eyes went distant and sad.
10:34Born without a clan.
10:35Whatever had made him this strong, he'd earned it alone.
10:37The hard way.
10:38It doesn't matter.
10:39You have me now.
10:40We're friends.
10:41Vayne went red.
10:44Another month passed.
10:45Vayne healed completely.
10:46The dry tide was coming.
10:47We started going out early and coming back late to stock up.
10:50He hunted.
10:50I gathered deep sea medicines and reef plants.
10:52We came back full every time.
10:54I thought maybe it would just stay like this.
10:55Then Vayne's heat cycle hit.
10:57I woke up one morning to find his body burning.
10:59Don't leave the rift for a few days.
11:01I have to go somewhere.
11:02I have to go somewhere.
11:04Then he took two strokes and his body gave out.
11:06When he went down, I saw everything.
11:07I understood immediately.
11:09Every merfolk had a regular heat cycle.
11:10When it hit, instinct won over reason.
11:12He'd already pushed himself past his limit.
11:14Don't be scared.
11:15I won't touch you.
11:16I'll handle it myself.
11:18He was fighting his own body.
11:19His neck was corded with strain.
11:20The sounds coming from his throat were low and desperate.
11:23I watched him.
11:23My chest ached.
11:25Vayne, do you not want me?
11:27How could you even ask that?
11:32When his hands came up to hold me, I was scared.
11:34What coal had put me through had left its marks.
11:37He was always rough.
11:38There was no pleasure in it.
11:39Only something close to endurance.
11:40Vayne was stronger than coal by a wide margin.
11:43I braced myself.
11:44But there was no pain.
11:45Vayne was gentle in a way I hadn't known was possible.
11:47Like his fin crest against still water.
11:49Light enough that I felt like I was floating.
11:51I lost track of time.
11:52When I finally noticed the world again, the dry tide currents had shifted outside the rift.
11:57That dry tide, I was warm.
11:58Vayne kept the rift heated with his body warmth.
12:00When the cold currents pressed in, he curled tighter.
12:03At night, he wrapped me in his warmth.
12:05His dragon form pulled around me like a second stick.
12:07After that first time, he became a little enthusiastic.
12:10Eye contact.
12:11Next thing I knew, I was against the rift wall.
12:13Not that I minded.
12:14He was good at it.
12:15I never once wanted to pull away.
12:17With that kind of frequency and no precautions, it wasn't long before I noticed something different
12:21about my body.
12:22I pressed two fingers to my wrist and checked my pulse.
12:24Pregnant.
12:26When I told Vayne, he went still.
12:28Really?
12:30You're really carrying my hatchling?
12:32He lifted me straight off the seabed.
12:34We were both laughing.
12:35After that, he treated me like I was made of sea glass.
12:38He was at my side constantly.
12:39He insisted on doing everything himself.
12:41Lying in the warmth of his arms, I thought again about last time.
12:44Cole was a cold, current, blood-tight merfolk.
12:47In the dry tide, he gave off no heat at all.
12:49And he entered tidesleep.
12:50While other males made sure their females were fed through the season, I was out in the
12:53dead current alone, trying to find something edible.
12:56My tide healing skills kept me fed, barely.
12:58The merfolk I treated gave me scraps.
13:00But after the ten lionfish hatchlings were born, scraps weren't enough.
13:04Cole entered tidesleep.
13:05He could survive on stored energy.
13:07The hatchlings were too young.
13:08They needed real food.
13:09Constantly.
13:10I foraged alone.
13:11A white jellyfish.
13:12Small, and not built for hunting in the dry tide.
13:15Who didn't dare go far.
13:16I brought back small crustaceans.
13:17I brought back dried reef algae.
13:19The hatchlings were good.
13:20All ten of them.
13:21A-rank.
13:21And not one of them ever picked a fight or made trouble.
13:24They helped with the reef den work.
13:25Thinking about them, my throat closed.
13:27I'd failed them.
13:28I hadn't kept them safe.
13:30Lyra.
13:31What's wrong?
13:32I wiped the corner of my eye.
13:33Just homesick.
13:34He went quiet.
13:35Is being with me not enough?
13:36No, that's not it.
13:38Being with you is the best thing there is.
13:40I changed the subject.
13:41I'd assumed I'd never see my sister again.
13:43She showed up at our rift that same night.
13:46Vayne heard the sounds.
13:47He went to check.
13:48I heard a familiar shriek.
13:49Please don't kill me.
13:49Sea dragon, please.
13:50I came out to find my sister in the water outside the rift entrance.
13:53I looked at her in the dark and I almost laughed.
13:55Lyra?
13:55Why are you here?
13:56You know her?
13:57Never seen her before.
13:58Vayne's intent sharpened immediately.
14:00Lyra!
14:00My sister screamed.
14:01Don't let him kill me.
14:03I came all this way to save you.
14:05Sis!
14:06That word, sis, it stopped Vayne cold.
14:09He pulled back.
14:10Is there a misunderstanding, Lyra?
14:13I sighed.
14:14I swam over to my sister.
14:16What do you want?
14:17She put on her most conciliatory face.
14:19I talked to the clan chief.
14:20He said you can come back.
14:22I didn't move.
14:24She pushed harder.
14:25And Lyra, the Coral clan is in trouble.
14:27Two settlements are about to go to war in a current war.
14:30This whole area is going to become a battlefield.
14:32You two aren't aligned with either side.
14:34You'll get caught in the middle.
14:35Hearing my sister's warning, I remembered.
14:37There had been a current war.
14:38Last time.
14:39But last time, the war had ended because of my ten lionfish hatchlings hatching.
14:43Ten A-rank merfolk born at once.
14:46The opposing clan, the Lyra, had taken one look and surrendered on the spot.
14:50He was the one who declared me Abyss Chosen.
14:53Said I carried a rare destiny.
14:55That I had been sent to the Coral clan as a gift from the Abyss God.
14:58But I had no interest in my sister's advice.
15:00Vayne and I had built something real out here.
15:02There was no reason to go back.
15:04I told her no.
15:05No.
15:07She looked straight at my stomach.
15:10Lyra, you're pregnant, aren't you?
15:12Even if you don't care about yourself, think about the child.
15:14You two can live free out here for now.
15:17But what about later?
15:18What about your hatchling?
15:19Do you really want to raise a child with no clan behind them?
15:22That landed.
15:23This world was brutal.
15:25Vayne, as strong as he was, had nearly died alone and rift.
15:28What would happen when our child was born?
15:30And the dead current was full of things that wanted to eat them.
15:32I looked at Vayne.
15:33He seemed to read what I was thinking.
15:35He came over and took my hand.
15:37Lyra, let's go back.
15:39After I told my sister yes, she let out a long breath.
15:42Then...
15:43Is there anything to eat?
15:44She ate like she hadn't seen food in weeks.
15:46Her stomach was enormous, but her arms and fins were thin as coral sticks.
15:50She'd had it rough.
15:51Not hard to guess why.
15:53Cole had almost certainly entered tide sleep by now.
15:55My sister had never worked hard a day in her life.
15:58Nothing short of starvation would have pushed her out here.
16:00After the meal, she lay down in the outer part of the rift to rest.
16:04Vayne folded me into his arms as usual.
16:06My sister glanced over from across the rift.
16:08The look on her face was pure envy.
16:11In the middle of the night, I got up.
16:13I believe this life, and she still gets to eat like that.
16:17Bonded to some rankless creature, and she still got nerve to look pleased with herself.
16:22She rubbed her belly.
16:23Come on, little ones.
16:24Come out fast.
16:25I stood in the dark and let it wash over me.
16:27Even now, I couldn't fully understand where her hatred came from.
16:30We were twins.
16:32Before we'd ended up here, our parents died in an accident.
16:35Left the two of us to figure out the world together.
16:37I remembered what they'd always said.
16:39You're the older one.
16:40Take care of your sister.
16:42So I did.
16:42I gave way.
16:43Every time, on everything.
16:45Whatever was best, I let her have it.
16:47Somewhere along the line, she'd decided that was simply how things should be.
16:51I was supposed to give her everything good.
16:53I was supposed to be beneath her.
16:54I wasn't allowed to have things she didn't have.
16:57By the third day back in the Coral Clan, I understood exactly why she'd worked so hard
17:01to bring me home.
17:02Her due date was close.
17:03She was terrified of dying on the birthing ground.
17:05She needed me there.
17:06I had gotten her through all three.
17:07There was a second reason, too.
17:09She wanted me to watch.
17:10She wanted me standing there when she produced 20 A-rank Lionfish Merfolk and climbed to the
17:15top of the Coral Clan.
17:16She wanted to see my face.
17:19Life back in the Coral Clan wasn't easy.
17:21Even with Vayne beside me, plenty of females still looked at me with hostility.
17:24They didn't want me near their mates, so I stayed close to the reef den.
17:27I was shut out.
17:28My sister, meanwhile, used her memories from last time to play prophet.
17:32She predicted a few major clan events and a stretch of bad current accurately enough
17:35that the Coral Clan elevated her status considerably.
17:38She told everyone she was the Abyss Chosen, sent by the Abyss God, carrying 20 A-rank Merfolk.
17:43The Coral Clan believed her completely.
17:45Then the current war began.
17:46Vayne was sent to the front.
17:47Within days, every fighter in the Coral Clan had noticed that his dragon tide power exceeded
17:52that of the A-rank Great White Shark Merfolk by a significant margin.
17:56His raw strength was in a different category altogether.
17:59This world ran on tide power.
18:00Strength was everything.
18:02And yet, because Vayne came out unranked, the Great White Shark Merfolk grew jealous.
18:06He gathered the other males and turned on Vayne.
18:08They sent him alone into a aura and rush.
18:10When the others had what they needed from the distraction, they swam.
18:13Left him there.
18:14I didn't find out until Vayne came back with serious wounds.
18:18I went straight.
18:19It's fine, Lyra.
18:20Vayne caught my arm.
18:21Even with all of that, they still couldn't touch me.
18:23I came back in one piece, didn't I?
18:24I looked at the cuts across his body.
18:26Vayne, I'm sorry.
18:28I shouldn't have brought you back here.
18:30This place isn't right for you.
18:32Let's go home.
18:33Back to the Rift.
18:34No.
18:35He was suddenly urgent.
18:36If we go back, you'll be homesick again.
18:38We stay here.
18:40As long as you and the hatchling are safe, I don't care what they do to me.
18:43Something cracked open in my chest.
18:45I remembered what I'd said in the Rift.
18:47That I was homesick.
18:48He'd been carrying that the entire time.
18:50You are my home.
18:51He thought I meant the Coral Clan.
18:53Let's go.
18:54Just the two of us.
18:55I'd almost convinced him.
18:57Lyra, get to your sister's reef den.
19:00She's going into labor.
19:02I heard the screaming before I reached the entrance.
19:04I swam inside.
19:05Blood in the water.
19:06The same scene as the first time.
19:07Last life.
19:08When she'd had her first bad labor.
19:09Back then, it was the great white shark Murfolk's fault.
19:11His build was large.
19:12The offspring inherited the size.
19:14The head got stuck.
19:15But lionfish eggs were soft and small.
19:17They should have come out easily.
19:18I got my answer fast.
19:19I helped her deliver ten eggs.
19:20Then I felt more inside.
19:21I was reaching for the next one when my sister's body seized.
19:27She's combossing!
19:28Nobody here knew that word.
19:29I shouted instructions.
19:30They found a smooth piece of coral and pressed it between her teeth so she couldn't bite through
19:33her tongue.
19:34I used the moment to pull the rest of the eggs out.
19:36I counted.
19:36Twenty in total.
19:37She passed out when it was done.
19:38I mixed a tonic and got it down her throat.
19:40If she makes it through tonight, she'll live.
19:42If she doesn't, there's nothing more I can do.
19:44I turned to leave.
19:45Cole grabbed my wrist.
19:47She's your sister.
19:48You should stay and take care of her.
19:50Even now, even with his female unconscious in the water from a dangerous labor, he didn't
19:54want to sit with her through one night.
19:57She's your mate, not mine.
19:59I'm not responsible for her.
20:02I've already done far more than she deserves.
20:06I swam out of the reef den into open water and felt the exhaustion hit me all at once.
20:11Thane was waiting outside.
20:12My heart twisted.
20:13What are you doing here?
20:14With wounds that bad, you should be resting in the...
20:18He pulled me into his arms before I could finish.
20:21His voice was rough.
20:23Lyra, we're not leaving.
20:25I started to ask why.
20:26Then I felt it.
20:27Something warm and wet soaking into my shoulder.
20:29I brought him back to our reef den.
20:31Pushed him until he talked.
20:32He cried harder.
20:33Bane had been waiting outside my sister's reef den the entire time.
20:36He'd heard everything.
20:38He hadn't known that was what birth looked like.
20:40He hadn't known it could be like that.
20:41He was terrified.
20:42If I went into labor out in the dead current and something went wrong, there would be no one
20:46to help me.
20:47I felt tears on my own face before I realized.
20:49Bane, not everyone has a labor like hers.
20:52Maybe mine will be easy.
20:54Then we're still not leaving.
20:55His voice didn't waver.
20:56Even if the chance is one in a hundred, I won't let you suffer.
21:02That experience left a mark on him.
21:04He became quieter in the Coral Clan, more careful.
21:07He started sharing his hunt with others.
21:08When someone treated him badly, he let it go with a smile.
21:11Bane, who had always been free, doing all of that for me.
21:13I was moved and I was sad, and I didn't know what I'd done to deserve him.
21:16My sister woke the next day.
21:18Lionfish eggs take time to hatch.
21:19She watched over them every day and brought half the Coral Clan in to look.
21:23She told them all 20 were going to be A-ring.
21:25People thought she was eccentric, but her earlier predictions had earned her enough credit that
21:29they believed her anyway.
21:30Her status in the Coral Clan climbed higher.
21:32The current war wrapped up faster than anyone expected because of how hard Bane pushed on the
21:36front.
21:37The Ura sent representatives to negotiate.
21:38The Ura Clan chief and their tide reader came in person.
21:41The meeting had barely started when someone burst in.
21:43Clan chief, get over to Cole's Reef Den.
21:46The 20 eggs are hatching.
21:47That was the end of any conversation about territory.
21:49Even the Ura delegation had heard the story, an abyss chosen in the opposing clan.
21:5320 A-rank lionfish were all in one clutch.
21:56Everyone moved at once.
21:57The Reef Den could barely hold the crowd.
21:58The clan chief had to push his way in.
22:00He arrived just as the first egg cracked open.
22:02A small, dark lionfish hatchling.
22:04My sister picked it up with both hands and held it toward the clan chief.
22:06Her voice was shaking with excitement.
22:08Clan chief, tell me, A-rank, right?
22:14Not A-rank.
22:16C-rank.
22:18The smile froze on my sister's face.
22:20That's impossible.
22:21Clan chief, you must have looked wrong.
22:23Please, look again.
22:25The clan chief had been sensing bioelectric tide patterns for 60 years.
22:28He could read rank by sensing alone.
22:29He looked again, as a courtesy.
22:32C-rank.
22:33That's final.
22:34My sister went blank.
22:35The crowd started murmuring.
22:37Wait, weren't they all supposed to be A-rank?
22:3920 is a lot to ask for.
22:41The coral clangs had maybe one A-rank per generation.
22:43Honestly, having a C in the mix is normal.
22:45Maybe the rest are still coming.
22:46My sister took the lifeline.
22:48Exactly.
22:48This is only the first one.
22:50I'm telling you, at least 10 of these 20 are A-rank.
22:52Just wait.
22:54As soon as she said it, three more eggs cracked.
22:56Everyone leaned in.
22:57All C-rank.
22:58She didn't flinch.
22:59The best ones always hatch last.
23:01Then five more.
23:01One B-rank came out.
23:02That gave her a burst of confidence.
23:04See?
23:05It's getting better the further we go.
23:08But the crowd had stopped believing her.
23:09The mood had shifted from anticipation to something else.
23:12Everyone was watching the way you watch someone about to fall.
23:14The last egg split open.
23:16No A-rank.
23:17Not a single one.
23:18One B, 10 C, and several with no rank at all.
23:21The clan chief glanced at those last few and said quietly that-
23:24That they wouldn't last long.
23:27My sister broke.
23:30This isn't right.
23:32This can't be right.
23:34Someone tankered with my eggs.
23:36Someone swipped them.
23:38This is sabotage.
23:40How exactly do you tamper with eggs?
23:41Cole is a B-rank lionfish merwish.
23:43What were you expecting?
23:45You predicted two days of bad current and now you think you're the actual abyss chosen?
23:51My sister had been insufferable since the Coral Clan elevated her.
23:54People had been following it for weeks.
23:56One voice was enough.
23:58Others followed.
23:59Laughter and mockery rippled through the reef den.
24:01She'd been treating lionfish eggs like prizes at a festival.
24:04The Coral Clan had let her perform.
24:06Now they wanted the ending.
24:07Then my sister turned and found me in the crowd.
24:09She crossed the reef den in four strokes and grabbed my arm.
24:11You did this.
24:12You switched my eggs.
24:14You can't stand to see me win.
24:15So you came in here and switched them.
24:17Give them back.
24:17I pulled free.
24:19Stop.
24:19You accused me of swimming around last time.
24:21Now you're accusing me of stealing your children.
24:23I was not the only one in this reef den when you delivered.
24:25Half the Coral Clan was here.
24:27They all saw me.
24:27Ask any one of them.
24:28My sister's behavior over the past weeks had burned through whatever patience people had left.
24:33She's right.
24:34We were all watching.
24:35Lyra didn't do anything.
24:36And why would she steal your eggs?
24:37She's pregnant herself.
24:39Why were demons doing that?
24:40One voice, then another.
24:41My sister's composure snapped completely.
24:43Why does everyone take her side?
24:45Why does she always win?
24:47Just die already, Lyra!
24:54Vane tide shifted.
24:55The sea dragon hit the seabed and pinned her in under a second.
24:58He opened his mouth wide.
24:59He didn't get the chance to follow through.
25:01Someone behind me shouted.
25:03Vane!
25:04Get your female to the reef den right now!
25:06She's in labor!
25:07The next moment I was off the seabed and in his arms, Vane swam.
25:10Through the whole labor he held my hand.
25:12His brow was locked tight.
25:13He kept telling me not to be scared, not to be scared.
25:15His hand was shaking harder than mine.
25:17But everything went smoothly.
25:18Under two hours.
25:19Two small white dragon hatchlings.
25:21Pure white.
25:22Fin crests not yet unfurled.
25:23Emitting a low frequency resonance that shook the reef.
25:26Look at them.
25:27Strong little things could be A-grade.
25:30Should we have the clan chief check?
25:31No.
25:32I said it before I thought about it.
25:33Vane and I had already talked about this.
25:35Rank didn't matter.
25:36As long as the hatchlings were healthy, we didn't care.
25:38Vane had been cast out of his birth clan because of this exact thing.
25:42I didn't want to put that weight back on him.
25:44But I wasn't fast enough.
25:45The clan chief had already come in.
25:47The uratide reader was with him.
25:49The clan chief took one of the hatchlings and looked it over.
25:51He frowned.
25:52This hatchling is strong, but there's no rank showing.
25:55I looked at Vane.
25:56His expression was controlled, but I saw the old fear underneath it.
25:59It doesn't matter.
26:01Are you blind?
26:02This is an S-rank shifter.
26:05S-rank?
26:06An actual S-rank?
26:08I knew something was different about these hatchlings the moment I saw them.
26:10And I helped deliver them.
26:12Coral Clang has S-rank Murph in now.
26:14Two of them.
26:17The reef den erupted.
26:19Vane and I stared at each other.
26:21Neither of us had words for it.
26:22The news spread through the Coral Clang.
26:24My sister shoved her way through the crowd.
26:26She saw the two small white dragon hatchlings.
26:29She saw the word S-rank moving from mouth to mouth.
26:31Something in her cracked entirely.
27:03This is a lie!
27:03The fear to surrender wasn't just exhaustion.
27:05It was because they'd watched Vane in the ambush.
27:08Dragon scale markings.
27:10Tide power wave.
27:12Hatchling resonance cry.
27:14Three confirmations from ancient records.
27:16No clan with a fighter like that could be beaten.
27:19That was the moment people understood.
27:21They'd never seen a sea dragon before.
27:22The clan chief had never seen one.
27:24The dragon tide power frequency channel didn't exist in merfolk biology at all.
27:2860 years of reading ranks and the channel simply wasn't there.
27:31He had no way to sense what wasn't in his range.
27:33Vane had spent years thinking something was wrong with him.
27:35It turned out the people who judged him simply hadn't known what they were looking for.
27:39The tide reader turned to me next.
27:40He studied my face for a long moment.
27:43This female carries an uncommon fate.
27:45If I'm reading this correctly, she is the Abyss Chosen reborn.
27:50That landed harder than the announcement about Vane.
27:53A beat of silence.
27:54Then the whole reefed up dropped to their knees.
27:56The Abyss Chosen.
27:57He's real.
27:58The same scene as last time.
28:00But last time, people had been uncertain, only half convinced.
28:03Now, with three S rank in the same space, there wasn't a single person who doubted.
28:07My sister could not process what was happening in front of her.
28:10She started screaming at the crowd.
28:11Have you all forgotten what she is?
28:13She cheated on her mate!
28:15She has no virtue!
28:18What kind of Abyss Chosen behaves like that?
28:20A reminder landed.
28:21People shifted uncomfortably.
28:23They remembered how I'd been driven out.
28:24In turn, I looked out into the crowd until I found the tiger shark merfolk.
28:28Leo, are you still going to stay quiet?
28:31He made his choice.
28:32He admitted it.
28:33My sister had approached him.
28:34She had taken one of my shed jellyfish tentacle filaments, cut while I slept,
28:37and offered him something in return for planting it in his reef den and backing her story in front of
28:41the coral clan.
28:42What she'd offered was herself.
28:44Cole's face went white.
28:46Selah, you betrayed me.
28:49No!
28:50Cole, please!
28:51Don't listen to them!
28:52I would never...
28:53He caught her in this lion's chair and dragged her into a deep current vortex.
28:57A few days later, someone found what was left of my sister washed back to the clan's current line.
29:01Her face was mostly gone.
29:02Only the clothes made her identifiable.
29:04The coral clan heard that Cole had killed his own mate.
29:07The clan chief had no choice.
29:08Cole was edged by him.
29:09As for the hatchlings, even after everything their parents had done, no one could turn away from children.
29:14The females raised them collectively.
29:15The males, led by Vayne, began pushing the coral clan's territory outward, season by season, year by year.
29:21In a new current season, the coral clan voted Vayne in as clan chief.
29:24I was at his side.
29:25Our two white dragon hatchlings grew stronger every day.
29:29The morning of the clan chief ceremony, Vayne sat at the head of the reef den and accepted vows from
29:33every male in the clan.
29:35Coral and Ura both, one after another.
29:37I watched from the back.
29:39On the surface, every head bowed, but I knew what to look for.
29:42The older coral fighters wouldn't meet his eyes.
29:44The Ura males watched the old coral fighters watching him.
29:47A few of the coral elders pressed their palms to the seabed too slowly.
29:50They were not bowing to Vayne.
29:51They were bowing to his S-rank tide power.
29:54The first dispute came before midday.
29:55An Ura family had been assigned a stretch of warm coral on the eastern current line.
29:59An older coral family said he could come to their hatchlings.
30:02By the time I arrived, both males were tide shifted.
30:05Stand down.
30:07Vayne's voice cut through the water.
30:09They stood down.
30:10Not because they wanted to.
30:11His tide power pressed the current.
30:13Later, in our reef den, he was still angry.
30:15If I have to do that every day for a year, I will.
30:18You can't.
30:19I sat across from him.
30:21Vayne.
30:22Listen.
30:23If a clan chief only rules through strength, the day you blink, they will turn on you.
30:26You are not the great white shark.
30:28You don't have to lead like him.
30:30He was quiet a long time.
30:32I went back to the central reef den before I had to.
30:35Zila's twenty lionfish hatchlings were grouped at the far end.
30:38I counted, because I always counted.
30:39I counted again.
30:41Nineteen.
30:42Worried about the missing hatchlings spread by sundown.
30:44He was a rankless one anyway.
30:46That kind doesn't last long.
30:47Better the cold takes him now than later.
30:49I made myself not react.
30:51I asked Vayne to organize a search.
30:53He hesitated.
30:54Lyra, even if we find him, what then?
30:56He's rankless.
30:57He won't make it through the dry tide.
30:58I looked at him until he understood what he had said.
31:00I'm sorry.
31:01That was wrong.
31:01He led the search for something.
31:03We found the smallest one before the night of the action.
31:05He was caught in a narrow rift in the cold front.
31:08The water around him was cold enough to slow a healthy adult.
31:10He was alive.
31:11Vayne pulled him out with blood.
31:12He curled his dragon warmth around him.
31:16I checked the child over in our reef den.
31:18No bite marks.
31:19No predator teeth.
31:19Someone had carried him there.
31:21Left him.
31:22Vayne saw it on my face.
31:23Not an accident.
31:24No.
31:25Then who?
31:26I didn't answer.
31:27I didn't want to say it yet.
31:28The child slept for almost a full day.
31:30When his eyes opened, he looked at me first.
31:32Then at Vayne.
31:33Then at the seabed.
31:34He was so small.
31:35I said,
31:35Are you hungry?
31:36He shook his head.
31:37I waited.
31:38Father told me to wait there.
31:40He said it like he was repeating a phrase he had been told to remember.
31:44Cold.
31:44Vayne went silent.
31:45Then his fin crest unfolded.
31:47I pulled him against my side before Vayne had moved.
31:49Not in front of him.
31:51Vayne swam out of the wind.
31:52I heard him roar past the outer current.
31:55The water roared twice.
31:56I held the lionfish hatchling and stroked the back of his head until his breathing slowed.
32:00By the next morning we knew the rest.
32:02Cold with the law.
32:03He had survived in the dead spaces at the edge of the dead current.
32:06He still had what was left of his B-ranked lionfish power.
32:08He was making poison.
32:09He had been creeping back along the current line at night,
32:12whispering through cracks in the reef into the central reef den.
32:14He told the lionfish hatchlings that I had killed Selah.
32:17That Vayne had stolen the clan chief position that should have been his.
32:20That their mother had died because of me.
32:21Some of them had listened.
32:22The coral elders wanted them removed at once.
32:25The Ura Tide Reader said the same thing, more gently.
32:27I moved all twenty into the reef dens closest to ours.
32:30I watched them myself.
32:32The clan thought I was too soft.
32:33Vayne didn't argue, but his face was tight.
32:35They tried to lure one out so Cole could plant a message.
32:38What do you think they'll try next?
32:39I didn't know.
32:40That night I lay awake listening to the current.
32:42A small sound near the entrance.
32:44The smallest one was crossing the floor
32:46toward where my two white dragon hatchlings slept, curled together.
32:49His hand was closed around a lionfish spine.
32:51Vayne moved before I could draw breath.
32:53The dragon hit the cement and the lionfish hatchling was pinned under one massive claw
32:57before the spine left his hand.
32:58The spine clattered against the coral.
33:00Vayne's mouth opened.
33:01The hatchling didn't scream.
33:02He didn't even close his eyes.
33:03My voice was sharp.
33:05Vayne!
33:06Stop!
33:06He didn't move.
33:07His head turned.
33:09Vayne!
33:09I held his gaze.
33:10Look at me.
33:11He stayed still for a long second.
33:14Then he stepped back.
33:15The hatchling collapsed against the seabed and started to shake.
33:18I picked up the spine without touching the tip.
33:19Why?
33:20I picked up the child with the other hand.
33:22He couldn't get the sentence out.
33:23He tried three times.
33:24Father said if they died you would feel what mother felt and he would come back for us.
33:28Lyra.
33:28Sela can't keep them.
33:30Anyone could be next.
33:31No.
33:32Sela killed my ten hatchlings.
33:33Cole watched it happen.
33:34That is what they did.
33:35It is not what this child did.
33:36She brought a poisoned spine to our hatchlings.
33:38He is barely half a year old.
33:40Cole told him a story and he believed it.
33:41If we throw them out, we tell our own children weak children can be thrown out.
33:44I won't teach them that.
33:45One chance.
33:45They stay under your watch.
33:46If anyone tries again, I will not stop.
33:49Agreed.
33:49The uratide reader arrived.
33:51I gave him the spine.
33:52He smelled it.
33:52This is not ordinary lionfish poison.
33:55This came from the deep part of the dead current.
33:57I went still.
34:00There is only part of the currents this could come from.
34:03A current tear.
34:04Deep enough that the water itself has gone wrong.
34:06A tear that old leaks poison into anything that grows near it.
34:10I sat down on the seabed.
34:11The deep current tear.
34:12The one Sela had pushed me into.
34:14The one I had died in.
34:15The tide reader watched my face.
34:16I think he saw something there.
34:18He didn't ask.
34:18Vayne saw it too.
34:20Lyra.
34:22Cole found one.
34:23Yes.
34:24That is where he is hiding.
34:26Yes.
34:27Tears like that are not stable.
34:29They can be widened.
34:30If something pushes against the inner current the wrong way, the tear opens further.
34:34In open water, it pulls anything close into the deep.
34:38Cole was not just hiding.
34:39He was sitting beside a weapon.
34:40I told Vayne what I knew.
34:41The dry tide was three or four days away.
34:43When the warm currents thinned, the tear would already be hungrier.
34:45If Cole pushed on it during dry tide, he could pull half the new clan into the dead current before
34:49anyone reached him.
34:51Lyra.
34:51Then I take him before the dry tide arrives.
34:53Not alone.
34:54Vayne.
34:55He left a poisoned spine in a child's hand.
34:57Lyra.
34:57He arranged a child in a cold rift like a marker.
34:59He is choosing where you find him.
35:01If you go alone, he pulls you to the tear.
35:03Vayne was quiet.
35:05Take fighters.
35:06Take the Ura Tide Reader.
35:08I started to say something else.
35:10The warm current around the central reef den died.
35:13Vayne was already moving toward the outer current line.
35:15I'll stabilize the outer waters.
35:17You hold the reef den.
35:18Go.
35:21I turned to the females inside.
35:23Coral and Ura both.
35:24Their faces were white.
35:28Listen to me.
35:29Every hatchling.
35:29Every one.
35:30We are not separating them by clan.
35:32We are not separating them by rank.
35:34Move them all to the center.
35:35Now.
35:35They moved.
35:36I worked fast.
35:37I knew this water.
35:38I had treated half the coral clan as their tide healer.
35:40I knew which reef plants held warmth in their stems.
35:43And which coral toxins drove cold current back when burned.
35:46I pulled the warm reef plants from my medicine stores.
35:48And crushed them into the seabed in a wide ring around the center.
35:51I burned a thin line of coral toxin at the outer edge.
35:55Bring them in.
35:56All of them.
35:58All of them.
35:59The lionfish hatchlings too.
36:01Inside.
36:04The Ura females moved faster.
36:06They had surrendered to Bane.
36:07They were watching me now to see what kind of female he had chosen.
36:09My two white dragon hatchlings curled near my feet at the center of the ring.
36:13Outside the ring, a voice carried through the cold water.
36:16Children.
36:16It's father.
36:17Come out.
36:19Children.
36:20Come out.
36:21Your mother is gone because of the female in there.
36:24The dragon will kill you in the end.
36:26Come to me.
36:30You can go.
36:32If you want to go to him, go.
36:34I won't stop you.
36:35I won't hold you.
36:37But before you go, I want to tell you something.
36:41Your mother killed my ten hatchlings in my last life.
36:44One at a time.
36:46I held each of them when they died.
36:51Your father watched her almost die in labor and asked me to stay so he wouldn't have to.
36:55He has never carried any of you.
36:56He is not coming to take care of you.
36:58He is coming to use you.
37:00I can hate your mother and father.
37:02I do hate them.
37:03That is not the same as hating you.
37:06His eyes were huge.
37:07The three older ones sat back down on the seabed slowly.
37:09The smallest one reached into his tunic.
37:11He pulled out a second lionfish spine.
37:13Father gave me two.
37:15He said if the first one didn't work...
37:18I took it carefully.
37:19I set it down behind me.
37:20Outside the ring, Cole stopped calling.
37:22The warm voice was gone.
37:23The water shook.
37:24He was hitting the outer edge.
37:25My two white dragon hatchlings raised their heads at the same moment.
37:28Their small mouths were...
37:29The resonance came out of them together.
37:31Low.
37:32Pure.
37:32The whole reef den began to shake.
37:35The twin resonance traveled.
37:36I felt it leave the ring and roll outward through the cold water in a wave I could not see.
37:40It moved past the current line.
37:41It moved out toward where Vayne was holding the outer waters.
37:43I felt his answer before I heard it.
37:45Far out.
37:46A roar.
37:46Not the kind he used in the coral clan to keep order.
37:48The kind I had heard the first time in the rift.
37:50The roar that said, go away.
37:51He was coming back.
37:52The resonance kept going.
37:53It hit something deeper.
37:54The water beneath the seabed pulled and then the floor of the reef den tilted half a degree.
37:58The deep current tear.
37:59The resonance was widening it.
38:00Cole's attack on the ring stopped.
38:01I heard him scream once, sharp, from somewhere outside.
38:04I pulled the smallest lionfish hatchling against me and pressed my hand over my white dragon hatchling's
38:08mouths gently.
38:09The resonance stopped.
38:10The seabed kept shaking.
38:11The vein tore through the cold current and was inside the ring before I could call to
38:14him.
38:15Liar.
38:17The tear is opening.
38:18The resonance reached it.
38:19He turned at once.
38:20The hole was out beyond the ring.
38:21The water there was already moving wrong.
38:23The hole was on its edge.
38:24His B-ranked lionfish fins were flaring.
38:26The vein bared his teeth.
38:27I will end him.
38:29The vein.
38:29He looked at me.
38:30Seal the tear first.
38:32His jaw locked.
38:33Then he nodded once.
38:34He moved out into the spiral and braced.
38:36If it opens, it pulls the whole clan in.
38:39The coal won't matter.
38:41His S-ray of time power flared and pressed against the inner current of the tear.
38:45The spiral slowed.
38:46I closed my eyes.
38:47I felt for the center.
38:48Something in the dark called my name.
38:49It was Sela.
38:51I knew it wasn't her.
38:52I knew before I opened my eyes.
38:54The tear was old enough to pull memory out of anyone who came close.
38:56It was reaching into me for what hurt most.
38:58It found everything.
38:59I saw my ten hatchlings in the reef den.
39:01One at a time.
39:02Their small faces.
39:03Sela's hand on the ball.
39:04I saw myself reach for the youngest one, too late.
39:06I saw Sela's hand on my back at the edge of the tear.
39:08The push.
39:09I felt the weightlessness again.
39:10The coal.
39:10I could not move.
39:11A claw closed around my arm.
39:13Coal dropped the spiral on the surface side.
39:15You first.
39:16Then him.
39:18Then the children.
39:19The poison on his hand.
39:20The cheeks on his skin.
39:21He pulled.
39:22The edge of the tear was close.
39:23The veins on.
39:23He tried to come back through the spiral.
39:25The pressure pinned him in place.
39:26His roar cracked the water and he could not move.
39:29I looked at coal.
39:29I was not in the reef den watching my hatchlings die.
39:32I was here.
39:32In this life.
39:33With my children behind me and the man who loved me holding back the dark.
39:36I caught his arm and turned him toward the tear.
39:37He staggered.
39:38He was lighter than I expected.
39:40Hunger had taken him.
39:42Say it.
39:43Say what you did.
39:44He spat at me.
39:45I pushed him another step.
39:46Say it.
39:47His face broke.
39:48I gave them the poison.
39:49His voice was high.
39:49I told them what to do.
39:51I opened the tear.
39:52I never wanted them.
39:54I wanted my place back.
39:55I wanted to stop being beneath that rankless monster.
40:00A roar split.
40:01They broke me in a spiral.
40:03His dragon form filled the space between me and the dark.
40:05His claw caught the back of my arm and pulled.
40:07Coal's grip held for one stroke.
40:08Two.
40:09His fingers slipped.
40:10He fell.
40:10The deep current tear took him without a sound.
40:13Then it was just the tear.
40:14Still pulling.
40:15Still wide.
40:15Bane set me down on the seabed and turned back to the spiral.
40:18His tide power flared again.
40:19It was not enough alone.
40:20The tear was hungry now.
40:21I stood up.
40:22Coral.
40:23Ura.
40:23All of you.
40:24Into the ring.
40:25The older Coral elders.
40:27The Ura males.
40:28The females from the reef den.
40:29The lionfish hatchlings.
40:30Even the smallest one.
40:31Match him.
40:32Push your tide power into the inner current together.
40:34I pointed at Bane.
40:35All of you.
40:36Now.
40:37Coral tide power and Ura tide power met in the same water for the first time.
40:41The spiral slowed.
40:42Then it folded inward.
40:43And it closed.
40:44The seabed was quiet.
40:45The Ura tide reader was on his knees.
40:46Breathing hard.
40:47He looked up at me.
40:48This is what Abyss Chosen means.
40:52Not the 10A level hatchlings.
40:54Not the title.
40:55This.
40:56You gather what was thrown away and you make it a clan.
40:59The Coral elders bowed.
41:00This time it was different.
41:02Clanmother.
41:03I lifted him by the elbow before he could press his forehead down.
41:06No.
41:06Don't kneel to me.
41:08Live.
41:09Don't become your mother and father.
41:11That is all I want.
41:12The dry tide arrived three days later.
41:14It did not break us.
41:15Bane guarded the outer waters.
41:17He came back warm every night.
41:18I guarded the clan.
41:19The warm current ring held.
41:20The hatchlings, all of them, Coral and Ura and Lionfish, stayed fed.
41:23My two white dragon hatchlings opened their thin crests for the first time in the center of the warm current.
41:28Bane sat beside me on the seabed and watched them.
41:30His hand found mine.
41:31The new Coral clan truly began.
41:33It had been 30 days since Bane became clan chief.
41:36Council ran smooth that morning.
41:38Coral and Ura both.
41:39Nobody dragged their feet.
41:40That night, Bane went out on the perimeter sweep.
41:42He came back with something in his hand.
41:44He dropped it on the seabed in front of me.
41:45A scale.
41:46Pale gold at the edges.
41:47The kind of Lionfish merfolk shed when it was growing.
41:49Where did you find this?
41:51Outer current line.
41:53It's fresh.
41:54No more than half a month's old.
41:55The edge was still soft.
41:57Cole was dead.
41:57He'd gone into the deep current tear and never come out.
42:00We'd held a burial without a body.
42:02It might be someone else.
42:04It's his.
42:05I'd know it anywhere.
42:11I'm going back out.
42:13Now.
42:14What?
42:17He was already at the entrance.
42:19I followed him.
42:19The outer current line was quiet.
42:21Bane stopped where he'd found the scale and pointed past it.
42:23Something was standing in the dark water.
42:25A man.
42:26Lionfish fins.
42:27Familiar shoulders.
42:28Cole.
42:28He looked at us.
42:29He didn't speak.
42:30Bane took one stroke forward.
42:32Cole stepped back.
42:33One stroke.
42:33Then he was gone.
42:34Folded into the dark.
42:38He's not dead.
42:40I looked at the scale in my hand.
42:41Still soft.
42:43Then how?
42:45I don't know.
42:49He's not dead.
42:51Council convened before sunrise.
42:53Vane laid it out.
42:54The scale.
42:55The figure on the outer current line.
42:56Coral elders muttered.
42:57The Ur-A-Tide reader said nothing.
42:59Then a runner came in fast.
43:00Clan chief.
43:01The hatchling reef den.
43:02Someone got past the line.
43:03He swam.
43:03The reef den housing Sela's 20 lionfish hatchlings was wide open.
43:07The young guard was on the seabed.
43:08Breathing.
43:09But out cold.
43:09I counted.
43:1019.
43:11One of the older lionfish hatchlings.
43:12A small female.
43:14Was gone.
43:14Eastern flank.
43:15He's heading for the deep current tear.
43:17He's carrying her.
43:18Vane was already moving.
43:19I went with him.
43:20He didn't try to stop me.
43:21We caught up at a stretch of cold reef near the tear.
43:23The hatchling was lying on the seabed.
43:25Alive.
43:25Crying.
43:26No cold.
43:26I picked her up and checked her over.
43:28No bites.
43:29No bruises.
43:29Her fins were dry.
43:30Then I saw it.
43:31A fin mark across the back of her neck.
43:33Hairline.
43:34Like something had touched her there and left an outline.
43:36The Ura Tide Reader arrived behind us.
43:38What is it?
43:41It's a tear mark.
43:42Cole isn't just hiding down there.
43:44He's been marking them.
43:45He's running a channel through her.
43:46Through her to where?
43:48Anywhere her blood reaches.
43:50Her siblings.
43:51You.
43:53Can you take it off?
43:54I can dampen it.
43:56I can't remove it.
43:57The hatchling was still crying.
43:58I held her against my shoulder.
43:59Bring the others in.
44:00All 20.
44:01Right now.
44:03The Tide Reader lined the 20 hatchlings up in the central reef den.
44:06He went down the row.
44:07One hand hovering at the back of each small egg.
44:10The number came back fast.
44:1211 of the 20 had the same hair.
44:1411?
44:14Old enough that some had begun to fade into the skin.
44:17Cole had been at this for weeks.
44:18The coral elders moved before I did.
44:20They're a channel into our clan.
44:22They have to go.
44:23Go where?
44:24Out of the line.
44:25Past the cold current.
44:27Tonight.
44:28The hatchlings were the size of my hand.
44:30Half of them didn't understand what was being said.
44:32I stood up.
44:34My sister killed my ten in the last life.
44:36One at a time.
44:37I held every one of them when they went.
44:40I'm not handing 11 more to the cold for something they didn't do.
44:43Clan mother.
44:44This isn't about blame.
44:46I don't care what it's about.
44:47Vane hadn't said a word.
44:48The scales were rough along his forearms.
44:50He was holding himself still.
44:52He looked at the oldest elder.
44:53Anyone moves on the hatchlings, they go through me first.
44:56The elder shut his mouth.
44:57We didn't settle anything.
44:58Council broke.
45:00That night I sat with the 11 in the central reef den.
45:03The smallest lionfish hatchling.
45:05The one we'd pulled from the cold rift months back.
45:07The one with no mark.
45:08Sat against my side.
45:09He was running a fever.
45:10He gripped my wrist with both hands.
45:12Mama.
45:13Calling.
45:13I can't hear it.
45:14But I know.
45:16I put my hand over his.
45:18I know too.
45:19He pressed his forehead into my arm and started to cry.
45:21Outside, the cold current was already pushing at the line.
45:27I made the lock mark by morning.
45:29I used the resonance frequency of our two small white dragon hatchlings as the anchor.
45:33And bound it to each of the 11 marked necks.
45:36Three days later, the fevers were gone.
45:38No sleepwalking.
45:39No reaching toward the cold line.
45:41The fourth day, council reopened.
45:42Tide Reader.
45:43How does a lionfish Marion come back out of the deep current tear?
45:47Tell us straight.
45:49The Tide Reader looked at me.
45:51I nodded.
45:51He turned to the room.
45:52The tear runs both ways.
45:53Cole isn't the first to come back through it.
45:55Our clan mother came back through it too.
45:57She died in it.
45:59In the last life.
46:00The room broke.
46:01Voices over voices.
46:03Vayne sat next to me without moving.
46:04He'd known.
46:05I'd told him weeks ago.
46:06He just hadn't expected it.
46:07Set in front of everyone.
46:08The oldest elder looked at me.
46:10Clan mother.
46:10Not unkind.
46:11Cole came back wrong.
46:12How do we know you came back right?
46:14Just direct.
46:15I stood up.
46:16You don't.
46:17You watch what I do and you decide.
46:20He took it.
46:20He sat down.
46:21The Tide Reader started to speak again.
46:22He didn't get the chance.
46:23A young runner crashed through the entrance.
46:26The medicine store.
46:28It's on fire.
46:29We were already moving.
46:30The store was a small reef chamber on the western side of the den complex.
46:33By the time we got there, the inside was a column of heat and smoke through the water.
46:36Every dried plant gone.
46:38Vayne reached into the wreckage.
46:39He came out with half a burnt lionfish scale.
46:41He's inside the lion.
46:45Two seasons of medicine.
46:46Coral resin.
46:47Reef plants from the dead current that took me months to gather.
46:50Dragon warmed binding gel.
46:52All of it gone.
46:54Vayne sent the fighters out to sweep the outer line crack by crack.
46:57They found the opening.
46:58A narrow split in the western reef.
46:59Half a body wide.
47:00Where the cold current ran in and out.
47:02Coal had been crawling in and out for who knew how long.
47:05Vayne ordered every crack sealed.
47:07While the fighters packed it with reef stone.
47:09He stood at the western split himself.
47:11I went back to the burnt store alone.
47:13I needed to know what was left.
47:15There wasn't much.
47:16I knelt in the ash and started sorting through it anyway.
47:19Habit.
47:20My hand brushed the back of my neck.
47:21I stopped.
47:22I felt again.
47:23A line.
47:23Hairline.
47:24Right under the hairline of my actual hair.
47:27Same as the eleven hatchlings.
47:29He'd been close enough to touch me.
47:31While I was watching the fire.
47:33I sat back on the seabed and looked at the ash.
47:36I didn't tell Vayne.
47:37I told myself I'd tell him after the line was sealed and the fighters had stood down.
47:41I told myself I'd tell him in the morning.
47:43That night he came in late and tired and pulled me against him without looking.
47:47His hand slid up the back of my neck the way it always did.
47:50He went still.
47:50His fingers stopped right on the line.
47:52Lila.
47:52I didn't answer.
47:54When?
47:55During the fire.
47:56He sat up.
47:57The water around him went cold.
47:59You weren't going to tell me.
48:00I could feel it on my skin.
48:02I was going to tell you tomorrow.
48:03He didn't speak again for a long time.
48:07By morning Vayne was at the door with two fighters and a medpack.
48:10Where?
48:10I stood up.
48:11The tear.
48:12Vayne.
48:13He won't stop until I make him.
48:14You're not Abyss Chosen.
48:16You can't go in.
48:17I'm not going in.
48:17I'm going to the edge.
48:19Take more fighters.
48:21No.
48:21He'll run.
48:22I caught his wrist.
48:23He stopped.
48:24Come back.
48:25I said.
48:26He nodded once and went.
48:27I waited at the central reef den with the 20 hatchlings and the twins.
48:31The smallest lionfish hatchling sat against my leg and watched the entrance.
48:35Past midday, a runner came in fast.
48:37He's hurt.
48:38They're bringing him.
48:39They carried Vayne in across the sea.
48:41His chest was open from collarbone to hips.
48:43Blood was a heavy cloud around him.
48:45I worked on him for two hours.
48:47He didn't lose consciousness.
48:48He kept his eyes on me the entire time.
48:50When I'd closed the worst of it, I sat back.
48:53What happened?
48:54He swallowed.
48:55He waited for me outside the tear.
48:57He let me hit him.
48:58Every wound I gave him closed up.
48:59The water was doing it.
49:01So you stopped?
49:03No.
49:03I kept going.
49:04I'd have killed him eventually.
49:06The water can only do so much.
49:07Then what?
49:08He spoke.
49:08To me.
49:09He said a word.
49:10In a language I don't know.
49:11I waited.
49:12It was my name.
49:12My real one.
49:13I've never heard it.
49:14I didn't know I had one.
49:15He looked at me.
49:16I lost my grip.
49:17He cut me open.
49:18He went back into the tear.
49:19I pressed my hand to his face.
49:22He knew what I'm called and I don't.
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