The sunlit turquoise shallows slowly gave away to the freezing, ink-black depths of the outer trench as Eagre descended into the aquatic abyss.
His massive silver tail lashed the pressure-heavy currents with rhythmic, furious power.
Clutched in his claw-tipped hands was the third and final one-ton granite boulder-a massive, jagged monolith of dark basalt that he intended to hurl onto the beach before submerging himself into the deep sea for the next three centuries.
“One more rock,” Eagre growled in High Siren, venting a thick steam of angry bubbles from his gills.
“One more rock, and I am finished with land-pests, grass skirts, high-stakes poker, and unlit leaf-cigars forever.” Suddenly, the ambient temperature around him plunged.
The warm coastal currents evaporated, replaced by a bitter, unnatural chill that smelled faintly of rotten kelp and paralyzing reef-venom.
A sharp, sonic hiss vibrated through the water column-a high-frequency Siren call designed to freeze a swimmer’s heart in their chest.
Eagre halted mid-swim, his luminous ear-fins flaring wide into warning shades of jagged purple.
He shifted the heavy granite boulder onto his left shoulder, his emerald eyes narrowing as he scanned the shadowy, twilight depths beneath him.
“Show yourself,” Eagre commanded, his voice rumbling through the water like subterranean thunder.
From the shadow of a collosal, black coral formation, a dark figure glided into the light.
Her long, slate-gray tail cut through the freezing current with eerie, silent grace.
Her thick, jet-black hair floated around her pale shoulders like an underwater mantle of dark silk, swirling around two piercing, glowing crimson eyes that burned with lethal, predatory intensity.
“Eagre,” Vespera purred in High Siren.
Her voice a hypnotic, echoing melody woven with subtle threads of dark magic-a siren song that usually drove sailors to hurl themselves into the waves.
Eagre didn’t flinch.
His emerald glowing eyes flicked over her jagged, obsidian-blade fins and the sharp, black claws resting against her hips.
“Vespera,” Eagre spat, his gills snapping shut in disgust.
“What are you doing in my coastal waters?
The Pearl Shelves are three leagues south.
Go back to your trench.” Vespera glided closer, circling him like a reef shark assessing a wounded whale.
Her glowing red eyes lingered on the massive granite boulder resting on his shoulder, her lips curling back to reveal two rows of needle-sharp, translucent fangs.
“Your coastal waters?” Vespera mocked, her voice echoing with dark, vibrating laughter.
“Is that what you call this pathetic sandbar, Eagre?
I have been watching you from the reef shelf for five days.
I watched you retrieve the Great Pink Pearl-a royal relic of our ancestors-and hurl it at a hairless, two-legged creature of dust and mud!” “It was a projectile!” Eagre roared underwater, sending a localized shockwave through the current.
“I was attempting to shatter her skull!” “And yet she wears a flower in her hair and sits upon your pearl like a queen!” Vespera hissed, her gray tail whipping violently, casting a wave of bitter ice-water against his scales.
“I watched you wear plastic eye-covers!
I watched you play parchment-games with a decapod!
And now…now the Great Terror of the Aethel sands is hauling stone foundations like a common beast of burden while she dances in a skirt of dried leaves!” Eagre flushed a dark, violent shade of purple under his scales, his clawed fingers digging into the hard granite of the boulder.
“I am fulfilling a contractual obligation!
A god’s word is iron!” “A god’s word is meant for gods, not livestock!” Vespera snarled, her crimson eyes flaring with blinding, furious light.
She stopped her slow circle, hovering directly in front of him, her black-clawed hands outstretched.
“Look at yourself, Eagre!
You are an ancient titan of the abyss!
You command the tides!
You should be singing death to imperial armadas, not fetching building materials for a sunburnt lunatic who demands musical theatre ballads from a sea-deity!” Eagre opened his mouth to deliver a furious rebuttal, but the sheer accuracy of her insult hit him like a physical blow.
He winced internally, his ear-fins drooping slightly.
“Return with me to the Deep Trench,” Vespera commanded, her voice dropping into a low, hypnotic hum that vibrated straight into his mind.
“Abandon this foolish land-pest to the sun and the salt or better yet…” Vespera’s expression twisted into a cruel, razor-sharp smile.
She flexed her black claws, a cloud of dark, paralyzing venom seeping from her fingertips and drifting into the current between them.
“…let me swim up to that beach right now,” Vespera whispered silkily.
“I will drag her into the outer trench before she can take another step of her ridiculous hula dance.
I will sink her beneath and rip the air from her lungs.
She will choke on the sea, and you will be free.” Silence fell over the deep trench, cold and absolute.
Eagre stared at the dark siren.
He thought of his quiet, peaceful abyssal cavern.
He thought of his lost dignity, his bruised skull, and the sheer humiliation of the last four days.
If Vespera killed Saira, the madness would end.
No more loaded cards.
No more pink pearl shrines.
No more palm skirts.
He could return to being a feared, terrifying god of the sea.
He looked down at the heavy granite boulder in his arms.
Then, he thought of Saira’s obnoxious, smug, completely unshakable voice.
“…you’re helping me clear the debris!” He thought of the tiny crab holding an unlit leaf-cigar.
He thought of the ridiculous drawing of him with floating hearts.
Eagre slowly raised his head.
His pupils narrowed into lethal slit, emerald razor-blades.
“No,” Eagre said coldly.
Vespera’s glowing eyes widened in disbelief.
“What?” “No one touches the human,” Eagre growled, his voice dropping into a terrifying, guttural register that vibrated the very seabed beneath them.
“Not because I care for her pathetic, air-breathing existence.
But because SHE IS MY ANNOYANCE TO DEFEAT!
She owes me a proper, dignified surrender!
If anyone is going to cause her ultimate ruin, it will be ME-not a second-rate trench-stalker with bad manners!” Vespera’s face twisted into a expression of pure, unadulterated venom.
“You fool!
You’re infected with her land-madness!” “I am a sea-god!” Eagre bellowed, hoisting the one-ton granite boulder over his head with explosive power.
“And I have a delivery to make!” With a violent, thunderous kick of his massive tail, Eagre shot past Vespera like a silver missile, creating a massive underwater slipstream that knocked the dark siren backward into the coral wall.
He rocketed toward the sunlit surface, leaving Vespera screaming siren curses in the freezing dark behind him.