Page 101 of Brine and Bone
"Here." Kore guided the tiny mouth toward her nipple, thumb brushing a shock of ebon hair back from her tiny brow. "Here, sweet one."
The latch was immediate. An instant of blind rooting, before she pulled that taut bead between her lips and suckled.
Entranced, unable to blink, Kore watched her swallow that first gulp of blue milk.
Small fingers curled against Kore's sternum. Each one tipped with the faintest suggestion of webbing, translucent. The baby's scales caught the den's glow and scattered it back in fragments—gold, violet, deep indigo shifting with every tiny swallow.
Kore watched her nurse. Watched the miniature throat work. Stared unblinking at her perfect little face and traced the length of her elegant tail.
"Aurora."
It came from a place she could scarcely recall. A quiet place thick with the smoke of incense, dreary with hymns.
But it was right.
"Your name is Aurora."
Nyx made a sound, curling around them both, silver eyes fixed on the infant at Kore's breast. Making the water dance as he purred. "Perfect," he whispered, tracing Aurora’s spine. "She is… I didn’t think anything could be more spectacular than her mother, but she is unmatched Kore. You made her perfect."
Vorynthar answered.
Not the bleached, gloomy white of torpor, nor the guttering pulse of death’s tide.
It was everything, all at once.
The glow spilled beyond the den. Through the narrow throat of stone, out into Vorynthar's corridors, flooding the bleached passages with sunrise. Past the throne room filled with posturing, useless males. Out through the reef's sprawling architecture and into the open water where two armies waited in the dark.
Deep blue. Violet. Gold. Cyan.
Dawn in the Black Sea.
Beyond the den, the bickering had fallen quiet.
Tearing her eyes from the most glorious thing she’d ever seen, Kore looked. As if drawn, her eyes landed on the spot where she knew he was hidden. Turning just in time to watch him drop the camouflage, she witnessed that hypnotic shift as his scales flexed in a cascade of opalescent white and glacial blue.
Thalos.
Floating in Vorynthar's throne room, above Threnakar's retinue and the Hollow Court's scholars. Cymareth clutched in his fist. “I refuse the call to join Threnakar in battle against this child and her mother,” he said, fins spread to their fullest breadth. Resplendent in the revived glow of Vorynthar’s light. “The Accord of Nisyros is rendered null, from this moment forward."
Snarling in outrage, Nyxaroth bristled. “You cannot?—”
Thalos lifted Cymareth and did not concern himself with the interruption. “The Covenant of Twin Venoms shall now govern the creation and protection of Sirens henceforth. I stand as Anchor to Nyxarion’s Tide Bound Siren, by right of venom and blood." Pausing to swept the throne room with frigid eyes, Thalos spun. Addressing them all. “Aurora Korrides is recognized as the bridge between kingdoms. Vorynthar is sovereign territory. These declarations are made before CaelithMare's own scholars, who will carry word to every court in these seven seas."
Aurora unlatched from Kore's breast with a tiny, wet sound. A shower of blue milk clouded her pretty face, bright enough to paint her chin in sapphire hues.
Nyx's purr had gone still. Every ridge and spine along his body stood erect, his silver eyes fixed on the corridor's throat as Thalos's proclamation settled into the bones of the heretical reef.
Speaking in low, venomous tones, Nyxaroth snarled. "You dare stand in a heretic's den and rewrite law that predates your bloodline, boy?"
“Are you challenging the authority of Caelith Mare?” Thalos returned, tilting his head as he looked down upon the elder Korrides. “You shall bring war to these seas, elder. Attack now, and you attack a newborn daughter of the Deep, born in sovereign territory.”
For a long moment, there was only the weight of Nyxaroth’s silent calculation. The silence of defeat strangled by pride too stubborn to admit it could not win.
Humming, loosing her Siren song, Kore kissed Aurora’s brow and felt her daughter's gills flutter against her collarbone. Warm. Alive. Unfathomably precious.
But in the end, Nyxaroth withdrew without a final word. He simply took the forces of Threnakar and bled back into the abyss from whence he’d come and left nothing but silence in his wake. An ominous sound of a one who intended to return.
But gone, for now.
