Chapter 30

Thirty

Arges

Arges swam with rage coursing through his body. All the lights along his tail flared bright and hot. How dare they? His people knew better than to track him, of all people, through the water. They knew what his mission was, and that he was only doing his duty as he was supposed to do. Mitéra herself had given him this task, and he could choose to do it in any way that he wished.

These were the excuses he told himself for the anger and fear that surged through his entire body.

He knew better, though. The truth burned in his chest just as hot as the rest of the emotions. They had interrupted him. He had found a mate, a true burning light that even now warmed his chest. He’d almost had her, and now they tried to take her away.

She was his. His to take, to steal, to kiss.

And oh, what a kiss. He’d seen humans do it before, but he had never thought devouring another person would make him feel so complete. He had only wanted her more. Wanted to dig himself into her skin and coil around her heart until he was wrapped so firmly around it that he knew it would only beat for him.

Then his brothers had to ruin things. The other warriors that he’d led for years, the ones he had taught to track and hunt, had used what he’d taught them against him.

He’d seen the shadow pass over her dome, and he had thought it was just another sea creature. There were plenty of silhouettes that could make that shadow, and he hadn’t wanted to stop kissing her. Touching her. Lingering on the soft feeling of her flesh giving underneath his fingertips. He had wanted to stay in that moment and that had nearly cost them everything.

His lower gills around his ribs had scented his brother first. The rough water that she’d splashed up as she writhed against him had been enough for the acrid bite of anger and blood to taint his tongue. He had known who’d come to see him. He had known who was coming for them.

So he had thrown himself into the water and sped away from the dome. Like any predator in the ocean, they saw movement and gave chase. There were three of them. Maketes, Daios, and another he could not remember the name of. But the lighter blue male couldn’t keep up with the rest of them. He was smaller, weaker, and Arges was certain he could not get into the glass dome that kept Mira safe.

Now he had to deal with the other two. The two who were dangerous, even to him.

Even missing an arm.

He led them far away from the dome, but not into the open sea. Daios fought like the gods of the ocean were on his side in the open waters. Arges had taken many a beating from his blood brother, and there were two of them to be concerned with now.

The shallow waters would work to his advantage. Though his brother was larger than him, Arges was more nimble. Even Maketes struggled to keep up with Arges’s speed as he looped and wove over the abandoned achromo village that had sunk underneath the waves. The buildings were short and squat, but they created an obstacle course that would be difficult for his brothers to get through.

“Arges!” Daios screamed, his cry of rage blasting through the water as sure as the voice of a sea god.

He did not intend to turn and fight his brother properly. Neither of them could afford to do so. He feared they would kill each other. At one point in his life, that may have been an honor, but no longer.

Not with a woman waiting for him to return. A woman who needed his guidance and help.

A woman he perhaps had stronger feelings for than he wished to admit.

Rotating his body, he rounded one of the houses in a tight circle that made his fins scream as the water tried to force him forward. But they would expect him to exit the old base on one side, and he intended to do it on the other.

If they wanted a fight, they needed to remember that he was the tactician. Not them.

As expected, they raced for where they thought he would leave, not even looking at where he might have hidden. Arges took his time then, letting them sit and stew in their feelings until he knew it would be difficult for them to see anything but rage. They would think with less intelligence and more feeling.

He would need every advantage he could take.

Hissing out a low breath, he launched himself from the corner of a building and swam in a giant arc around them. Once behind their bodies, he shot forward. Tail working hard, his breath ragged through his gills, he struck Maketes first around the waist. The smaller brother, the lighter-hearted one, would be the first to give up when the fight no longer suited him. It was safer to keep him away from Daios. Far away from the fight.

Their tails coiled together, twining and tugging, digging long spines into each other and trying to find the soft places beneath scales where they could draw blood. That was always the game when fighting one of his own kind. Who would give up first due to blood loss? None of his people would stop fighting, no matter what limbs they lost or how death called to them.

A fight was a fight. And they would not give in.

They crashed into one of the old buildings, tearing right through the wall and spilling into the interior. Arges barely had a moment to notice that some of the pieces in here were still intact. An old table, a few floating pieces of driftwood, and countless barnacles attached to every surface before Maketes slipped out of his arms.

His yellow finned brother flared out, both fluke and side fins standing straight to make him look even larger than he already was. “Stop running, Arges.”

He would not. Not until they were farther away from her. “You know I can’t do that.”

“You can.” Maketes looked like he had been struck in the belly. Disgust turned his body a sickly yellow, not glimmering with his usual brightness.

Arges turned his attention to the holes in the walls, waiting for Daios to join them. “I was given this job for a purpose. I am going to fulfill what our own Mitéra has given me.”

“That didn’t look like a job to me.” Maketes let all the stiff fins drop until it was just his friend hovering in the water before him. The dust and debris made it difficult to see his expression, but he knew the color of sadness on his closest friend well enough. Maketes had never been able to hide his emotions like the rest of them. “You cannot truly believe I cannot see it. You have gone too far, Arges. Too deep into this. You need to be released from whatever poison she’s injected into your veins.”

“Is that what he told you? That she is some poisonous sea creature who has turned my will into her own?” He sliced his fluke through the water, forcing his brother back. “Idiot. You have seen her for yourself. Do you really believe a creature like that could harm me?”

“I think there are many tiny creatures in the sea who can do more damage than we think.” He batted away a small clown fish that was trying to dart past him. “You are blind to her wiles. I see that now. But Daios is right. You need our help.”

“I don’t need your help!” Arges thundered. “The person who needs your help is stuck in a bubble of air halfway underneath the ocean with one of our own kind terrorizing her. I have not lost my ability to count. How long do you think it takes before our brother cracks that glass bubble? Before he drowns an innocent?”

Maketes had never been a killer. He was the brother who mourned any creatures they had to kill, even the ones they killed for food. He was the brother who took the time to value life. This must have been eating him up inside because he was going to be the reason someone died. Arges could use that to his advantage.

His brother wavered for just a second, and it was enough.

Arges coasted a little closer, still with enough distance that he could flick his tail and disappear if he had to. “She’s scared, Maketes. I moved her here because I knew Daios would want to hunt her down. I tried to get her to a place where she could be comfortable. I can understand her language now. She can give you the same device. You can talk to her. Ask all the questions that you’ve wanted to ask for ages.”

“How?”

Arges turned his head and pointed to the small pinprick of metal beside his hearing holes. “It’s so simple. A small bit of pain, nothing worse than what we’ve felt before.”

He had him. Maketes had ever been curious, and he wasn’t the brother to be so serious. Fighting wasn’t in his blood and surely he would let go. He would turn away from Daios.

But then a blast of darkness erupted through the hole in the wall and Arges knew he had lost his chance. With a grunt, he was caught around the waist and thrown through the nearest wall.

“Maketes!” he shouted. “Get out of there!”

He didn’t have time to see if his yellow finned brother made it out of the collapsing building. Daios had a thick arm around his waist and he couldn’t wriggle free from his brother’s grip. He hated how deep he had to claw through Daios’s forearm, even knowing that it was the only one left. Surely his brother was not strong enough to fight like this. He’d only just lost his other arm.

The currents blasted them far away from the human homes, closer to the shore. Daios slapped his tail against his, coiling them together until they were locked. Impossible to get out of, and even more infuriating.

He hated grappling with his brother like this. Even when they were little brood mates, just out of the eggs, Daios had been bigger. He would wrap himself around Arges and they would fight until they were both struggling for breath. This wasn’t a fair fight. Not when they were so close together.

Locked in, he wriggled until his upper body was above his brothers. And then he used the sharp spines at the base of his elbows and brought them down upon Daios’s shoulders. Over and over again, he fought against the thick water and didn’t stop, even when black blood plumed around them. He would not, could not, stop.

Mira needed him. Every moment he was away from her was another moment when she was alone. Alone and scared, and it tore at him worse than his brother’s claws.

Daios picked up speed. And for a moment, he didn’t have the faintest idea why. Was his brother going to slam him into the rocks? Was that the plan? Would he scrape Arges’s spine against the sharp ground until he had ripped all the flesh from his back?

He realized too late what the plan really was. With one more burst of his powerful tail, Daios thrust them both out of the water. But his strong arm continued the movement and with a terrible snarl, he launched Arges out of the water and out onto the sharp ground. Stones cut into his tail, ripping through the gills of his side and tearing through his hip fin.

The sound that came out of Arges was unlike anything he had ever made before. His hip fin was nearly ripped off his body. He didn’t know if he could ever reattach it, and if he could, he’d never use it like before. His arm was bleeding from where he had skidded, and it hurt to breathe through the right side of his gills. Going back into the water would be painful. Though the salt would cleanse his wounds, it would also make them infinitely worse.

Gritting his teeth, he braced himself on the ground and leveraged himself upright. He wasn’t far from the water, but dragging himself back into it would tear many scales from his tail.

Daios lifted his head above the water just as a crackle echoed through the air. Light flashed and then the sky itself cried out in anger, rumbling its rage that a creature of water was so far from its home.

“I saw you with it,” Daios said, his voice mimicking the rumble that still rocked through the skies. “I saw the look on your face.”

“She is the mission I was given by Mitéra.”

“You have feelings for her. Abominable feelings that will tear you and the rest of us down. You will die if they see what you have become, Arges. Our people will never accept her. It is unnatural, and the sea will destroy you both for how you feel.”

“How would you know?” Arges spat, his fingers curling so hard on the rocks that the webbing between his fingers split. “You have no right to speak for the gods. I have seen my future with the ancients. I know the path that I will choose, and the path I wish to choose.”

For a brief moment, there was a flash of sadness across Daios’s face. “The future you saw must be one of loneliness and hardship, then, brother. I have no interest in seeing you rip apart the very legacy you have built after years of fighting and proof that you are worth following. Your only future is one of pain.”

“Pain caused by you,” he replied.

“Yes.” Daios’s eyes flashed red, and the sea kissed the stump of his arm that had started to bleed again. “I will hunt you down for the rest of time if necessary. You will not taint my home with her scent, or any other scent of achromo. They are monstrous creatures who have no love for our home or our people. You deny our very existence by touching her.”

His brother sank beneath the sea, leaving Arges alone with the storm above his head and the thunderous noises of the land’s rage. He could feel it boiling in his own chest. Churning and tossing like he’d swallowed a kraken, and it wanted to tear him apart from the inside out.

The seas parted on a yellow gold head, and he met Maketes’s gaze. “I will take care of your brother,” he said. “But you have to know that it is a dangerous game you play. Soon enough, the land and the sea will fight again. What side will you fight on?”

With those words, Maketes left Arges alone. Stranded on the land, bleeding and broken.