Chapter 38

He'd nearly made it to the city when he noticed there were others. People of Water who he did not recognize, all of them swimming toward Alpha with him. He had made it so quickly. How were others able to join him?

They must have been lying in wait, he realized. Maketes must have done something, but he couldn't focus on what his brother had done at all.

There was a hole in one of his hearts that bled. One of them beat for the other, because half of him had died the moment that bomb went off. She was gone. He was so certain of it that even the lights on his body wouldn't work. She was dead, and he had to find her body to bring her home.

He watched the other undines join him with a numbness that spread throughout all of his fins. He could hardly swim at all. Everything felt rather mechanical, as though the sea goddess herself pulled the strings of his body to move him forward. Not that he wanted to.

Would she be limp in the water when he found her? Already he could see the blood surrounding her like a graceful dress of crimson. She would float down within the glass of the city, a creature trapped beyond measure. Golden hair would coil around her head, stained red with more blood as her graceful spine would curl in on itself.

Even in death, he knew she would be the prettiest thing he'd ever seen. An otherworldly creature who had come from the sky to give him a moment of bright light.

How was he supposed to go back into the darkness without her to guide him?

"Brother." The word sliced through him, because he knew that voice. These weren't People of Water, not like he knew at least.

Turning his head as he sped through the currents toward the city, he realized it was Fortis beside him. The dark purple coloring lit up the moment he glanced over at the man who had once been a friend.

"Fortis?" he asked, feeling as though perhaps he slurred the word. "What are you doing here?"

"We knew it would happen. We are here to help."

"Since when do the depthstriders help anyone but themselves?" He shook his head, trying to clear himself out of the fog of rage and heartbreak. "What could you possibly help with?"

"You won't make it in time." Fortis pointed toward the city, and that was when Daios's mind cleared enough to see what was happening in front of him.

She'd blasted a hole in the side of the city. Not a huge hole, but enough that water was rushing in through that area. It was so small that only three of his kind could have moved through it, a surprisingly small amount of damage for the destruction it had caused.

But then his eyes moved up the glass casing that protected the city. Fractures were creaking through it, fissures moving all the way up the glass dome until he could see there were thousands of them.

Cracks in not just the first layer, but the second as well. Cracks that were getting worse and worse with the pressure of the ocean.

"She did it," he said, his voice little more than a croak. "She brought the city down."

"That she did." Fortis cleared his throat before placing a hand on his back and shoving him forward even faster. "We perhaps saw the future wrong when it came to her. I feared she would fold under the weight of her father's disappointment. But she is an impressive woman, brother. Impressive enough to win the favor of the depthstriders."

That numbness crept back into his soul. Because how was he supposed to say yes she was, when he knew that was in past tense? She had to be dead. That hole was big enough to drown her, even if she had survived the blast.

She was gone.

Two figures appeared in the murky darkness surrounding the city and, for a moment, his heart leapt once more. Perhaps she had made it out. The People of Water she had saved. Surely they had taken her with them. They had to have...

But it was a depthstrider with one of his own people in his arms. The two males were worse for wear, too thin to be healthy and barely making it through the water.

Fortis moved faster than he did toward them. He grabbed the limp one from the other's arms, passing the body off to another of their kind before he gathered the depthstrider up in a hug. They coiled around each other for a moment, their tails looping and twisting before they broke apart.

"You are well?" Fortis asked, his voice croaking.

"I am alive," the younger depthstrider said.

And Daios realized they were the spitting image of each other. The younger one looked almost identical to Fortis, even down to the spots on his tail and the yellow tips of his tentacles.

"You have a son?" he asked.

"I have a son. And her people took him from me."

"Why didn't you just say that?" he spat. Anger rose again, and some of his lights flickered back to life with the force of it. "Instead, you spun this story of a dead creature you ripped the memories from, when you could have just told me that your son was in danger!"

"I didn't know if we could trust you." Fortis never let go of his son's shoulder. "You were so entangled with her, I did not know if you would tell her and she would get a message to her father to kill him. I could not take the risk."

"And yet she took the risk for you and your people." Again that burning in his chest, that ache that he could not rub away. He turned his face from his friend, not able to look at either of them. "I have to go inside and get her."

"Daios, it is too risky. We need to return to the others and help the achromos with their escape pods. We will guide them to Gamma, where it is safe. That is the plan, is it not?"

He didn't want to know how Fortis knew even that much. It was all pressing down on him until he felt like he couldn't breathe again.

Fortis's son cleared his gills of dust before saying, "She saved our lives. I could see the danger she was in, and I could smell how terrified she was. But she still did it. If a woman exists who could survive that blast, it is her."

The words should have made him feel better, but they didn't. Instead, all they reminded him of was that no one could have survived the blast. No one. And he had tried so hard to do everything possible to keep her safe.

Until she had chosen to put herself in danger. Until she had chosen to take her own life to save so many others. And who was he to stop her from seeking that honor?

Feeling like a broken man, he nodded at the younger one before locking his eyes with the elder. "Fortis, make sure everyone gets out who needs to get out. Gather our people and make it known they are not to kill those who remain alive."

"I will. Until your brother gets here, they will all be safe."

He turned back toward the city and felt that ache jagged like a dagger in his chest. He hadn't realized that it would hurt this much to lose her. If he had known, would he have taken the risk?

Daios went into the murky dust blind, feeling with his hand for the ragged edges of the metal. They scraped at the delicate webs between his fingers, ripping at his nail beds. And through all the pain, he knew that he would do it a thousand times over to have the memories of her living in his chest. He would give anything to touch the golden strands of her hair.

Flames illuminated everything around him. All he could see, however, was the way her eyes crinkled at the edges when she smiled at him. How she had seen straight through all of his anger and instead trusted that he wasn't a monster. No matter how surly he'd been, no matter how much he'd tried to make her hate him.

Anya had looked at him with affection and love from the beginning. Not as a pet or some strange creature from the sea. But as a man who had seen too much in life, and she knew what that felt like.

There was air above him. Flames that flickered to life as well, but there was still a pocket of air.

His gills felt frozen as he poked his head into the room. The blast had ripped open the metal floor and flooded a majority of the area. The floor had cracked in two, and it seemed somehow the entire room had tilted. Part of it was still out of the water, quite a bit, actually. The flooding seemed to be sucking into tubes that funneled the water deeper into the city. From the faint sound of screams, he had a feeling it was flooding the lower levels, and that there were quite a few people who could not get out.

He should feel some sort of pity for them. After all, he was in love with one of their kind and yet... he felt nothing.

Emerging from the water, he cast his eyes throughout the room that he remembered having walls. At least, that's what it looked like from Anya's perspective. There were no walls in this room any more. Just shattered rubble and a ceiling that looked like it was going to cave in at any point.

The floor had cracked open so far that there was a small water pathway he could use to get deeper into the room, so he did. Slowly swimming through the current and avoiding the areas where wires had fallen into the sea and sparked bright hot shards into the air that burned when they first touched his skin.

Hissing, he turned toward a sound as something moved in the distance. Metal crunched and there was the faintest sound of a groan.

If someone had survived, he would rip them limb from limb. Violence would ease the loss of his love. He would coat himself in the blood of their enemies, dripping with it in honor of her sacrifice.

Yanking himself out of the water, he forcefully expelled everything from his gills. Instantly, all he could smell was smoke and burning wires. This place was going to cave in at any second, so he had to find her body and get out.

But first, he would slake his bloodlust.

Grabbing onto the warped and dented metal sheet, he yanked it free from the person hiding beneath it. Teeth bared and lights glowing blood red, he knew he was a looming creature of the depths that would terrify even the bravest of souls.

But it was not an enemy hidden beneath the dark, warped metal. It was a little blonde woman, curled in on herself like she'd just been tucked inside an egg. A gift from the gods, it seemed.

All of that rage seeped out of him in one swell and he couldn't even hold himself up anymore. The muscles of his tail spasmed. Suddenly, he was right there in front of her. Cupping her face with his hands, one cold and metal and the other warm and alive.

"Anya?" he whispered, his voice shaking because he would swear he heard a moan from this corner. He thought he saw her chest rise with a breath. "Kalon? Please tell me you live."

Another moan, this time as she rolled her head. There was blood on her face where the lens had shattered against her cheekbone and forehead. More lines of blood dotted through her scalp where Bitsy had been crushed against her head. The little droid wasn't moving, and he wasn't sure it ever would again.

Dragging her into him, he leaned against the wall and pulled her into his lap. Looping his tail around her, he created a shield out of his body so not even a spark of heat would touch her skin.

He was shaking. Trembling with her in his arms so hard, he was afraid the movement would hurt her. But then he dragged her closer, pressing her head underneath his chin and squeezed his eyes shut as hot tears trailed down his cheeks.

Rocking her back and forth, he tried to get control over what he was feeling. But these emotions refused to be tamed or named in any way. They were a typhoon of madness and hope and relief and love.

So much love.

All of it shuddered through him as he pressed his lips to her head while she slowly woke in his arms. He'd found her. He had found her before she was lost and he didn't know what god to thank for sparing her, even if she was covered in blood and even if she was not the same. He didn't care. If the head injuries changed her, he would keep her safe for the rest of her life.

Just knowing that she breathed was enough for him. Nothing would ever risk that again.

His breath came in short gasps as he curled himself tighter around her. That metal arm didn't feel right, so he made sure it was farther from her skin so he didn't accidentally crush her.

Again, he pressed his lips to her hair, tasting her blood in his mouth.

"Wake up, my kalon," he whispered, though he did not recognize the sound of his own voice. "You have to wake up now, my love. We have to go before this city takes us with it."

Another moan, and then he felt something shift in her body. A tension that came to life as she woke.

"Daios?" she said, even though her eyes were barely open.

He leaned back, trying to give her enough space to breathe but also not wanting to stop touching her. "My kalon," he said again, breathless with relief. "That's it. There you are."

"Daios?" she repeated, that tension coiling ever tighter. "I can't hear… Where is Bitsy?"

He didn't feel right pulling any of the shards of glass out of her cheek. He was no healer, nor had he ever been talented at helping others through pain. The mere thought of her in more pain, caused by his own hand, made his stomach roll.

So instead, he lifted both of his hands so she could see what he said. "Broken."

"Broken?" she whispered, and then her fingers fluttered up to touch the wounds on her face. She made a terrible sound as her fingers skittered over the shards of what remained. "What happened?"

Cupping her neck, he turned her attention toward the rubble and then signed, "You did it."

"I did it." She repeated the words one more time before nodding. She seemed a little... shell shocked. "I destroyed Alpha."

He would have held her in his arms for hours longer, but another part of the wreckage shifted and moved. A large portion of the ceiling had fallen in the back corner, and he had assumed that was immovable. But something did move underneath it. Something that groaned and started swearing.

Wrapping his arms a little tighter around her, he moved toward the water before whatever else was in the room saw them. He needed to get her to safety. The water was safe. It was...

"Wait," she said, her voice a little too loud. "Wait, Daios."

That moment of hesitation, where he would have done anything she asked, was the moment the rubble finally cleared. A man stood, covered in dust and black soot and blood of his own.

A man that looked surprisingly familiar.

Every fin flared on his body, and he bared his teeth as that familiar rage swelled yet again. For the first time in his life, he stared at the living version of the General.

And oh, he had never wanted to kill someone more.