Time had a way of dissolving beneath the Shivering Sea.
Caedrion could not tell if it had been weeks, or months, or an eternity since Thalassaria had pulled him down into her abyssal palace.
The days bled together in teal light, in the weight of her coils, in the endless pressure of her gaze.
He knew one thing for certain: he was running out of excuses.
In the beginning, he had survived on shock alone.
Each advance she made, he could deflect with the dazed bewilderment of a man still trying to comprehend that mermaids were real…
Except they weren't mermaids.
They were half-mad serpentine demigoddesses with delusions of eternal matrimony.
That excuse of "I don't even understand what you are" had carried him far.
Too far, perhaps. Because now, two months later, he understood all too well.
He knew her name. Her title. Her palace of coral and obsidian.
