The currents were restless that morning.
Even in Submareth, where the sea itself bent to the will of its queen, the waters trembled with a strange reluctance.
Columns of coral leaned as though bowing, the ever-present glow of abyssal lantern-fish dimmed, and the very palace of Thalassaria seemed to pulse with unease.
It mirrored her mood.
Thalassaria stood at the base of her throne, coils wound loosely upon the marble dais, her hair a black tide floating in all directions.
Those vast, abyssal eyes never left him, unblinking, dark and fever-bright.
Caedrion stood on the opposite side of the chamber, draped in a robe of woven kelp-thread, skin still bearing faint marks from where her coils had held him through sleepless nights.
His chest tightened with every beat of his heart.
He had convinced her, barely, that he must return.
But as the moment of parting approached, her hunger filled the water like a current dragging him back toward the depths.
