Page 73 of Brine and Bone
“Because,” Sera said, tone laced with something fierce and desperate, “Nyxaroth, his father… he would watch our people grow dim. Watch us vanish over eons, before he’d risk provoking Caelith Mare.” Jaw flexing, her gills flashed a brilliant, dangerous red. “He calls it wisdom. Preservation,” she whispered, swallowing. “None dare speak its true name.”
“Cowardice,” Kore said without pause, for she had known plenty of men who ruled behind the veil of power, while they dressed in holy robes that stank of gutless fear.
Teeth flashing, Sera grinned. Bright and savage. “He won’t act.”
“But…” Kore’s fingers traced the swell where her baby squirmed. Pressing at her navel. “But Nyx… Hewill. Nyxarion will risk everything. For this,” she said, and her palm flattened over what he’d pumped inside and let it swell. “He already has.”
Gleaming in the hushed dark, Serakh smiled. “Then you understand. That we didn’t follow him into this poisoned tide simply because he called.” Unblinking, Sera’s gaze was burning and intense.
The current shifted between them, warmed by something Kore had never known before.
“We came foryou.” Touching her, strong fingers heavy where they found an anchor on Kore’s shoulder, Sera squeezed. Gentle. A hint of strength kept in check. “A Siren. The promise of rebirth. Of bloodlines restored. The whisper of hope that our children might one day be born strong enough to lift what was lost. So we who remain aren’t left to watch them dissolve into nothing across a thousand empty tides."
Fingers trembling, Sera touched the ritual scars marking her throat. “Every single Pelagorn in Vorynthar braved the poisoned tide and swore fealty to a disgraced prince because ofyou."
CHAPTER 17
"Silver-tongued prick," Nyxarion hissed, jaw clenched hard enough to make his enamel squeal as Vorynthar's spires penetrated the gloomy abyss.
His return to the Deep was supposed to be a balm. A soothing embrace that compressed his lungs and forced the stress to leak from his blood. Instead, he found himself carrying a thousand times the weight of the entire Black Sea crushing down upon him all at once.
The negotiations for the Covenant were underway.
That fragile, tender pact they'd spent three tides bickering over. Bargaining and compromising. Constructing the framework through clenched teeth and scarcely restrained violence.
Tentative, but… promising.
Enough that both had agreed to keep it secret until after the birth. Until the effects of both venoms on the infant were known, and the evidence of what they'd done might speak for itself.
But, just as Thalos had turned to leave, he'd tilted his head and opened that fucking mouth.
"Watch for the tears,"Thalos had said. Off-handed. Casual. Lips curled around a particularly sinister smirk."Little crystalsof salt. She might excrete them between her scales. Like pearls. It's… exclusive to Thalassari mothers in the second trimester, and… well, I wouldn't have mentioned it, except… of course…"He'd shrugged, a sly grin slithering across his lips. "Kore can't go without her sun clams, can she? Poor thing. And if she's already displaying one trait exclusive to the Hollow Court… why not two?"
He was right, of course.
The way Kore groaned around every bite of succulent flesh, each swallow bringing a flush of color to her cheeks?
Thalos had noticed. Used it. Dressed her symptoms in pretty words and levered them into yet another trap, for if a second Thalassari trait appeared during her pregnancy… Thalos' claim would be stronger than Nyxarion's.
The battle forhischild would slip through his claws.
Negotiations for the Covenant, his argument for dissolving the Accord—all of it would implode before it might ever have a chance to rise.
All that he had built, everything he'd fought so hard to claim, would belong to the Shallows.
To Thalos.
Hissing, he dove through the layers. Punishing himself with a brutal, uncontrolled descent, for in his fist, another fucking bag of those accursed mollusks.
A gift from Thalos.
Each iridescent shell was yet another twisting barb lodged behind Nyxarion’s ribs.
One he would happily take, pain he would endure without question, if it had meant only that he might watch her glow and know his child was nurtured beneath her scales.
But it was tainted with the fetid stink of his own yellow fear.
Diving into the tunnels, snaking past the massive angler fish guarding the mouth of his inner sanctum, Nyx entered theantechamber. Eyes catching the dim glow as he swept the throne room.
