Page 33 of Secrets of the Void
"You are unique. I've never seen an undine that looks like you." Her words trailed off at the end, growing a little quieter as though she didn't want to admit that to him. "I'm ashamed to admit I have seen many of your kind. The experiments in Tauwere brutal, and none of them deserved to be pulled apart as they were. It always made me sick when I walked by them."
"Humanity has always experimented. I doubt we were the only people those scientists pulled apart." He hated it as well, but he had not been released until now. The rage and anger at what had been done to the People of Water burned hot and wild within his chest, but now there was nothing left for him to stop. "Your kind has always been a desperate people who would do anything to stay alive. That is the reality of their situation. They knew if they did not discover a new way for them to live, then they would be destroyed. Hundreds of years ago, they already knew that the end barreled toward them. They had one generation, maybe two, and then all they knew would be completely and utterly wiped out."
"That's a rather benevolent way of looking at it, I suppose."
He glanced down to see an odd expression on her face. Her eyes were narrowed, her jaw clenched as a feeling came over her.
"What is it?" he asked.
"It's just... You make it sound like they didn’t have a choice. Death was the only option if they didn’t do what they did, but desperation isn’t an excuse for cruelty." She shook her head. "Where were you? Aren’t you a god? Shouldn’t you have stopped them?"
He sighed and adjusted his hold on her pod. It drew her a little farther away from him, tilting her so she couldn't look straight up into his features. "I was trapped. Imprisoned by my own people so I could not interfere with their choices. They wished to attack the humans, but I have always seen the use in collaborating with humans. I argued too hard one day, and they renounced all worship of… me. So I was stuck. Unable to help either side, no matter how much I dreamt of doing so."
"For how long?"
"Hundreds of years." Even saying it seemed as though it couldn't possibly be true. No one could survive that. But he had.
Her eyes widened even more. "Hundreds of years?"
"Far longer than I should have been trapped."
A shadow passed over him, though that was strange. He hadn't thought there was enough light to cast one. But then he realized the glow of his own body had illuminated a massive, pale form moving past them.
She went absolutely silent in the pod, as did he, as they both watched the sperm whale move past them. Its small eye barely even glanced at the sea god before it disappeared into the darkness once more. Scars dotted its sides, most around its mouth where it had fought massive squid for many years. The battles had been hard enough to leave marks.
"Wow," she whispered. "I forget how dangerous the sea is until I'm in it, and then... Well, it's hard to forget this place is terrifying when I'm just a small speck that could be killed by almost anything here."
"I would not let them kill you," he murmured. "There are few creatures brave enough to go up against me in these waters."
"Perhaps. But you would have to drop me to fight."
The spines all along his arms and back rose, lifting in deadly, poisoned points. "No, I would not."
Her eyes widened again as she looked them over. "I can see the water shimmering around those. Is that venom?"
"In a way. It paralyzes most creatures. Anything that breathes it in. It would not affect the mammals in the sea until I cut them, and then it would make it hard for them to move. They know better than to touch one such as I. If they are paralyzed, they will drift to the bottom and die long before they are able to wake." He looked down at her, trying to soften his expression that he knew must be truly wicked. "I will keep you safe, little human. You do not have to worry when you are with me."
It should have eased her mind, but instead, she just stared at him. Then her hand lifted, pressing against the glass. "I'm not sure I'd call it safe, but I don't think anything other than you could kill me now that you have me in your sights."
She was right.
He turned away from the original direction he'd planned on bringing them. If a sperm whale hunted in these waters, then it was very likely there were other creatures hunting as well.
The last thing he needed was for them to be attacked on this journey. He wanted to focus on her and nothing other than that. Distractions were unnecessary when their time together was limited.
Fourteen
Ellie
Ellie had no idea how long they traveled. For the most part, it was rather quiet. The depths of the ocean muffled all sound other than what she and Pilot made. The robot was relatively quiet, and she only heard his legs clacking together as he readjusted himself. Which meant the loudest noise was her own breathing and the thudding of her own heartbeat that echoed in her ears.
She'd seen the massive whale as they swam by. The scars on its face had terrified her, as had the intelligent look in its eyes. The whale had seen her. Not just recognizing that it was swimming past something other than empty water, but actually seen her.
The beast looked into her heart and seemed to see far more than she even knew was there. It even recognized that she had a soul, which she hadn't really thought about before.
Swimming through these waters gave her too much time to think. So she didn’t. She just stared at Proteus. A god of the sea, and a monster she hadn't thought possible to exist. He glowedin the water, his bones so visible they were almost painful to look at. She could see each one, count the ribs that decorated down his torso, although there were a few more than a human. She could see his hearts beating beneath them, the silhouette of all his organs so obvious that she found herself counting his heartbeats as though that would help calm her.
Something about being in total darkness except for him made the entire experience almost seem like it wasn't real. She was floating in nothing. She was nothing. And all that existed was him.
