Violet motes drifted upward like bruised snow as Horizon Team surged away from Glyphbay Nine. Each filament twisted and twined through the current, refusing the laws that had governed our waters since the first coral breathed. Siren glyphs strobed crimson over the archways, painting every fin and visor a lurid shade of warning. A vibration lived inside the light, a silent staccato that matched my pulse.
Rejah kept pace at my flank, counting heartbeats under her breath as if numbers alone could steady the sea. Veshra labored behind us, her harness cradling a resin crate packed with fresh crystals, the box humming so softly it sounded more like memory than music. Echo-Hand, masked in barnacle thread, closed the file, silent and impossibly calm, a shadow stitched to our wake.
The higher we climbed through the outer corridor, the more I sensed the pearl's protest. It had shifted from the high-pitched ringing that haunted me in the nursery district to a brutal corkscrew, a sickness that spiraled up the back of my skull and stripped color from the edges of my vision. Reds bled away first, oranges dulled, leaving the reef painted in desperate greens and blues. If pain had a palette, this was it.
We skated through a final checkpoint, gates sliding open on Yera's clearance seal. Beyond, Glyphbay Nine glowed like a hearth set inside storm-dark walls. Yera met us just inside the bulkhead. Her armor was scuffed, helm pulled tight enough to leave pale lines beside her eyes. Three artisan chiefs hovered close, clutching spools of mirrored filament as if they were children clinging to comfort blankets.
"Inside, now," she said, voice clipped. Her gaze lingered on Echo-Hand, measuring trust and finding it uncomfortable, yet she waved him forward. "Artisans, rig the crate."
The chiefs cracked the lid. Crystals inside shimmered pale blue, their hum the low murmur of a shell held to an ear. One chief flinched. "That chord, commander, it does not sound like anything reefborn."
"Unfamiliar does not equal enemy," Yera answered, then pointed to Veshra. "Tonal reading?"
Veshra slid a gauge fork over the primary crystal. Rings of light rippled beneath the prongs. "Four point two kilolines," she reported. "If we lace Kaelen's currents through a mirror scatter the frequency climbs to six, enough to drag thin motes out of midwater."
Yera nodded, though her shoulders never relaxed. "No scatter tonight, we draw. Upward motes must be caught before they reach hatchling domes." She turned to Echo-Hand, gesturing at the crate. "You tuned these underground, guide. Show us their cadence."
Echo-Hand stepped forward without hesitation, tapped each crystal in a looping rhythm, index and middle finger alternating taps like heartbeats. Light pulsed along the facets, shifting to a deeper blue. Loose motes drifting in the bay trembled and leaned, caught by the new song.
"Grid," Yera commanded.
Frames slid into place, artisans sealing joints with kelp resin. Rejah wove mirrored filament through cardinal anchor points while I shaped a rolling lens of water beneath. Every gentle swirl felt like pushing a boulder in syrup. The nausea deepened. I tasted brine sharp with iron, realized a trickle of blood had slipped from one ear ridge.
"Hold steady, Kaelen," Yera said softly, bracing my elbow. "Ashekan's call will come. We need you upright."
I gritted my teeth and pushed. Water curved through the lattice, finding paths like veins. The crystals answered, humming louder until even the bulkhead panels vibrated. Motes darting along ceiling vents dipped as though yanked on invisible strings, then stuck to the web, sizzling quiet sparks.
Cheers rippled from artisans, a fragile thrill that died when pressure gauges on the far wall sagged. Pipes groaned. One chief's face drained of color. "Grid is drinking current, commander."
"How fast?" Yera asked.
"Bloom throughput drops three percent every sixty breaths," he replied.
Yera's lips compressed. "Calculate threshold, we cannot recalibrate, Vanguard needs us."
As if summoned by name, the echo conch at her belt crackled, Ashekan's voice breaking through in a wash of static.
"Vanguard, west trench, mech deployed resonance rod, half the reef face is sliding into a vortex, Darun is anchored but the line will go, if you have shaped water to spare, this is the hour."
The channel hissed, fell silent. Yera turned to me. In her eyes I saw command tempered with fear for her squad. "Collapse grid to forty percent, send flow with Kaelen."
Veshra started to argue, but Rejah was already cutting filaments, dimming the lattice. The hum softened, motes shivered but stayed trapped. Water surged free, licking my fins with regained strength. Yera pressed a pulse-seal of raw mana over the web of my hand, the disc soaking into my scales like warm fire.
"Your lens just doubled," she said. "You, Rejah, Echo-Hand, get to Ashekan. Veshra, refine drain ratios with the chiefs or we starve bloom troughs."
Veshra's fingers tightened on the crate straps. "Return alive. I still need those harmonic logs."
"Count on it," I said, though the reef tilted when I pushed off.
We sprinted through mid-depth passages. Alarm pigments flashed under every overhang, showing paths already closed to civilians, lanes rerouted, caretakers herding hatchlings beneath shield awnings that smoked where filaments brushed them. An artisan apprentice stood on a bloom ledge, mirror shard in hand, shielding two juveniles while sparks snapped at his sleeves. I split a water veil around him. The filaments parted, giving them space. Relief filled the apprentice's eyes before the swirl behind them consumed my peripheral sight again.
Faster, I urged myself. Colors had narrowed to dull greens, the world a dying kelp forest stripped of sunset hues.
At the trench lip the sea roared. A sinkhole wider than the hatchery plaza twisted downward, a liquid whirlpool pulling rubble, plumes of sand, and entire schools of fish into its gullet. Ashekan and Darun clung to a stone fang at the edge. Darun's legs flailed in the pull, armor screeching across rock.
Thirty lengths away, the mech stood like a black idol on a stable ledge, resonance rod plunged into seafloor. Motebands streamed toward the rod, feeding the vortex with glittering veins.
I shaped a broad lens, hurling it crosswise at the funnel lip. Water bucked under my hands. The lens stuttered, lost grip, slid away. Nausea coiled. Reds were gone, oranges forgotten, even yellows faded to weak straw.
Rejah thrust three cores to Echo-Hand. The Exile tapped each with precise rhythm, resonance swelling. I pushed water through crystal song, carving a countercurrent. The vortex slowed, but Darun still drifted.
The anchor line snapped. Darun screamed half a laugh, half terror. Ashekan lunged, snagged his harness, but momentum dragged them both. I threw the countercurrent aside, dove, speartip reversed. My ears filled with silent pressure, every sense blaring. The spear caught Darun's strap. The drag nearly tore my shoulder, but Ashekan dug heels in shale, holding.
The mech moved. A tendril of living sinew uncoiled from its shoulder, wrapped around a grafted organ that glowed dull red. The tendril shot for the crystal lattice. Echo-Hand blocked, blade glancing off, but the tendril forked, lightning-fast.
No time. I shoved forward, spear intercepting. Rod, tendril, spear met, and collision tore the shaft in half. Force slammed through my armor, tossed me like driftwood. Water became gray noise. The vortex mouth yawned wide under me.
I tumbled once, twice, pearl screaming silent colorless pain. My lateral line flickered useless static. In a last, frantic blink, I saw the mech's visor tilt, as though it took notes while I fell.
Water roared, colors fled, and the vortex swallowed me whole.