Chapter 36

Thirty-Six

Arges

He stayed there, lying in the sand, for weeks. Staring up at the darkness of the sea and swearing that he would get revenge for what they had done to him. For what they had done to them.

He had no idea where she was. He’d heard the moment Maketes returned. His brother had come home to much fanfare, but Maketes had remained quiet. Even when people asked him what he had done. So many of his people wanted the dirty details of how badly she had screamed. Had she writhed in the water while she died, trying her best to get a hint of air that her kind could not breathe?

It hurt to listen to them be so cruel. He knew that their limited knowledge claimed that her people were monsters. They were taught from the day they were born that the achromos were the enemy.

But none of them had spoken with her. They didn’t know what it was like to see her expression soften every time she saw something beautiful, nor did they know the tears that always welled in her eyes when he brought her a fish to eat. They didn’t see the bravery or the heart that burned so hot in her core sometimes he swore he could see it glowing in her chest.

He remained where he was. Tied up and fed only when Mitéra deigned to remember him. Every time she remembered he existed, she brought him a small fish and then asked him if he was willing to give up this fight.

He’d almost taken off a couple of her fingers every time she asked him such a thing, and she hated that he hadn’t given up yet. But he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. The rope burns along his scales should have told her enough about how he felt.

Arges would never stop fighting to get Mira back.

A soft sound near his head caught his attention. He had taken to lying on his back while his tail floated up in the water. It made him look almost dead, or perhaps that he had finally succumbed to the exhaustion. But he only wanted to see who was the first person brave enough to come up to him.

Nerves firing like lightning throughout his body, he forced himself to remain still and limp. He couldn’t let whoever was approaching him know just how aware he actually was.

“Arges,” a voice hissed. “I know you’re awake.”

“Maketes,” he snarled without looking. “How badly did she writhe when you killed her?”

“Pound sand. You know I didn’t hurt the girl. You didn’t want me to.”

“So, what did you do?”

“I brought her back to her home.” Maketes shifted, and he could see the frond of a fluke float over his head before it was ripped back. “She said there was some issue with the thing that let her breathe, but that was as far as I let her get. I swam off before someone could see me. The last thing we need is two warriors missing an arm.”

“You let her drown?” Arges felt all the lights in his body going out. One by one. They flickered, guttering as if his last hope had disappeared. He couldn’t imagine the fear she must have felt, the way she would have fought for air because Mira always fought. Always.

“I didn’t let her die,” Maketes whispered. “I waited to make sure they got her back into the city. I thought maybe she would reveal a secret way in. But she fought for a bit, pounding on the glass, and then they pulled her back into the building with one of those metal arms. They woke her up once she was inside and then I left.”

So she was still alive. His lights flickered back on, the slightest bloom of hope still in his chest.

If she was there, then he could go get her. He could find her, because that was what he did best. He had stalked her people for years. All it would take was a few moments in front of the glass and he would know exactly what room she was in. And maybe it would take a while for him to figure out how to get her out of there. But now they both knew they didn’t need her to wear that rebreather.

Her device would be good for others, if there were any other of his people who were kind enough to see that her kind were actually people like them. But she would never be so far from his side again. He wouldn’t let her get farther out of his reach, so he would breathe for her.

As if that future had already come to pass, he took a deep breath and felt the air sacs in his belly expand. Soon, he would breathe for both of them.

“Arges?” Maketes broke through his thoughts. “You can’t go get her.”

That made him turn his head. Finally, he glared at his brother. “What do you mean, I cannot get her? The moment I get out of these bindings, I will find her. I will save her.”

“Why are you so fixated on this creature? It has been weeks since you saw her. Weeks since you have been free of the effects of her poison.” Maketes laid on the sand, his webbed fingers gripping the fine white granules. His tail was flat to the ground as well, almost as though he didn’t want anyone to see him here. “It should have worn off by now.”

His eyes found and caught on the translation chip in Maketes’s ear. “You talked with her.”

His brother remained silent for a few moments, but he knew the truth when he saw it. So he waited, listening for the change in breathing before his brother blew out a long breath.

“I talked with her,” Maketes relented. “She is as fearsome as I always thought your mate would be. She attacked me first, to put the translation device behind my ear. The pain was immense, and I was certain that she had done something to permanently damage me. But then when she spoke, I realized she merely wanted to share her knowledge.”

“It is not that much knowledge,” Arges snorted.

“It is another world. Another language. She spoke to me like I wasn’t just some animal to her. She clearly sees us for who and what we are and it is... confusing.” Maketes shook his head as though trying to clear a fog from his mind. “I have not been able to stop thinking about it.”

“Did you return to the city to listen to them?”

“I did not return to the city they call Beta.”

It was not a denial of returning. Just not to the same city that he had been in before.

A sense of horror filled his chest. “Where did you go?”

“To all of them,” Maketes replied. “Alpha, Beta, and Gamma, they call themselves. Cities under the sea that are filled with so many achromos, it’s almost impossible to count them all. They are so different, though. Very different cities with very different people.”

Arges tugged against his bindings, trying to turn so he could see his brother better. “What do you mean?”

“Beta is the one that seems to do most of the work. The people like Mira do a very good job at working hard. They fix things. Create things. And then send them to the other cities. Alpha is a work of art. All the people there wear gemstones, jewelry, and the city isn’t like Beta. The entire area where they live is encased in a dome, like the small one you put your achromo in. Gamma is... dangerous. I do not know what kind of people they put in there, but the achromos seem to always be killing each other.” His expression appeared troubled. “Even the women. There are many women attacked there.”

Three very different cities. Three different problems that he would have to fix.

Blowing out a breath that sent bubbles out of his gills, he laid flat on his back again and stared up into the darkness. “It is strange to think of them as people and not just a school of fish that we haven’t been able to access.”

“I resent her for giving me this gift,” his brother murmured. “But I thank her for it as well. There is so much I have learned, and I feel as though I’ve only tapped the briefest hint of the surface of what we can learn about them.”

“You’ve been hidden?”

“Very hidden. It is easier than you’d think when there is only one of us. the achromos do not hush their voices inside of their cities. They think we cannot understand them, so they are safe in their glass cities.”

This was a terrible move. Mira should never have given more of his people the ability to understand her kind. This would only lead to more bloodshed, more violence, and nothing would get fixed. He didn’t know how to stop this, though. Not now that it had happened.

“Have you told Mitéra?” he asked.

His hearts thundered in his chest, drowning out even the sound of the current. He waited to hear the terrible news. That Maketes had taken his place and that Mitéra would unleash yet another warrior full of anger on Mira’s people.

But then his brother sighed. “Do you think I would be speaking so quietly if she knew, Arges?”

Jerking his head so quickly his neck cracked, he looked at his brother in shock. Maketes shrugged in response.

Arges couldn’t contain the glee. A feral grin spread across his lips and he said, “I always knew you were my favorite.”

“Shut up, Arges.”

“The one brother who can see the future better than all the others.”

Maketes lit up for a second before he forced his lights to disappear. “Shut up, Arges. You know there is little else I can do. All I can even attempt is to keep you in on the loop. Your brother will kill me otherwise.”

“Daios has one arm.”

“And he can do enough with the other. I swear, he’s gotten more aggressive to make up for the loss. He’s planning another attack against the achromos.”

Arges squeezed his eyes shut. “Another death swim, you mean? If he has his way, the achromos will shoot us with their weapons until there is nothing left of our kind.”

“Mitéra isn’t listening to him yet. She wants to see when the poison will leave your body before they do anything else.” Maketes dragged himself a little closer, pitching his voice even lower. “If you want to get out of these bindings, you’re going to have to convince her that you will lead the pod in another attack.”

“I have no wish to attack their kind any longer.”

“I understand that. And I know you are honor bound to not lie, because that is who you are. But a little lie to get out of these bonds, to go and find her... Wouldn’t it be worth the mark on your honor?”

He hesitated.

Could Arges lie convincingly? Could he pretend he wanted to kill Mira’s kind and that the fog had lifted from his mind?

Maketes lingered for a few more moments before he added, “I don’t think the achromos were happy to see her back. I returned to Beta only once, and it took a long time to find her. They were questioning her in a room that had no windows, but I saw them bring her in. She was tied up, and there were bruises on her face. I don’t think they are happy that she survived any more than Mitéra is happy she survived.”

They were hurting her? Her own people?

A low snarl erupted from his mouth, pressing against the back of his throat. “I will do it.”

“I figured you would.”

Maketes darted up into the water above him, making sure he was visible to all who looked. “Arges has returned to us! Our warrior is back!”

A few shouts echoed from the water, and it didn’t take long for Mitéra to appear. Her glowing bell hair undulated around her body as she stared down at him, suspicion in every line of her body. “Has he?”

He bared his teeth in a feral snarl. “The fog has lifted from my mind, Mitéra. the achromo has released her hold on me, and I am ready to attack their home again.”

“I don’t believe you, son of my soul.”

He slammed his tail hard into the sand, allowing a plume of it to rise around him before he did it again. “Give me leave to destroy them, Mitéra. I was able to converse with the achromo. She told me many of their secrets. I will bring the fight to them. Dismantle their city piece by piece until we can sneak into their underwater cities. We will ruin them from the inside out.”

“How?”

He didn’t have to think that hard. Arges had stored all the information away from when they had met. From the first moment he had laid eyes on her. “There are a few moon pools throughout the base, the same kind that were in the dome where I was keeping her. Those pools are going to be the best way to get into their city. She showed me the tools to seek out. There are many of them on the ocean floor where the achromos have discarded their garbage. We will melt our way into their city and come in through the bottom. They won’t even know we are there.”

Daios appeared out of the darkness and was the first to reply. His dark, demonic voice echoed through the crowd. “He wishes us to fight on land? You want us to go into the very city where the achromos live and fight them in the air?”

“Expel the water from your lungs, brother. Perhaps you will remember what it is like to breathe air rather than water. We will fight their people. Destroy them from the inside out. The city is a clam, sealed shut from the rest of the world and impossible to break open. We must become the rot that forces it to open.”

These were the words he never wanted to say. The words that meant he had truly betrayed the one person who meant so much to him.

But Mira would understand. She would fight him at first, maybe even strike him with those tiny fists. But she would know that he had done it to save her, and that was all he could do in this situation.

Her own people had hunted her. They were beating her, harming her, destroying her even now. And he would not wait until she was dead. He couldn’t.

So he would bring the fight to her. Even if that meant tearing down her entire city to get her back.

Mitéra narrowed her eyes at him, then turned her attention to Maketes. “Is this the truth?”

His yellow finned brother was staring at him with a mixture of horror and respect. “It is, Mitéra. I have seen what he says. I was there with him when he first scouted it out with this human, but none of us knew there were many of them. If he knows the locations of all of them, then this would allow us to attack them from many angles. We would destroy the humans easily.”

“We are larger,” Arges interjected. “We are stronger. The humans would not know how to stop us.”

Mitéra’s bell swelled, growing immensely large as her eyes flashed a hundred colors. “Then we will destroy the achromos tonight. Release him.”

And as the bindings fell away from his wrists and tail, Arges permitted himself one moment to wonder...

What had he done?