Page 75 of Brine and Bone
Nyxarion’s gaze ticked over to the throne. Helplessly drawn back to his bride. But, despite his pissy mood, his lips twitched. “Negotiating with that slippery little shit is difficult enough without whispers bleeding through the trench, but…” A smile flitted across his lips. “We’ve reached terms.”
“Thalosagreed?” Sera asked, voice a crackle of scarcely audible sound, but the shock of discovery was every bit as delicious as he’d imagined it might be.
It was almost enough to distract him from everything else.
Almost.
“It all hangs on the child,” he murmured, and met her wide eyes with those that were shuttered with the strain of not knowing. “Kore’s transformation was incomplete. Influenced by both venoms in the Spiral. If the child contains AbyssariandThalassari traits, the covenant will stand.”
“And…” Sera frowned. “If it doesn’t?”
Scales lifting, Nyx vented the heat of his frustration. “She craves sun clams,” he admitted, evasive as he watched the colors shift through Kore’s skin and scale. Lifting the pouch of mollusks Thalos had tossed to him before they’d parted in the mid-ground. “The child… it may not be… mine. And if that is true,” he said, forcing the words to pass his lips, despite the way they burned, “Thalos will use the babe to undermine every clause. He’s already begun his plotting.”
Between them, the water shimmered as Nyx’s temper brought the temperature up. Tiny bubbles tickled between his scales.
“Thalassari tears,” he said at length, hissing. “Already she craves his infernal clams. If the tears appear, he’ll have grounds to claim the pregnancy as his own?—”
Understanding brightened Sera’s gaze, and she tilted her head. Watching her sovereign as his words hung between them.
And then, simply, “Milk.”
Nyxarion blinked.
Blinked again.
"Abyssari milk," she said, clarifying. “In the second trimester, Thalassari excrete the tears, yes. They alter the salinity of the water around their chosen nest and force conditions more favorable for a babe’s development. But we are of the Deep, Nyxarion. OurVireliidon’t need kinder tides when we were born to the harshest of them. They need nutrients. The sort that are exceptionally rare in the Deep, the kind that only comes from a mother’s breast.”
Breath hitching, Nyxarion was rendered speechless. Ignorant.
Sera rolled her eyes. “Search for both, you great fool. But she isinthe Deep now. The child won’t need a her to regulate the tide as much as it will need Abyssari milk. Thalos may have indeed have left a mark on the child, but you won’t convince me you failed to do the same.” She grinned, showing the edge of pointed teeth. “I take insults aimed at my sovereign as a direct challenge, and if I catch that scent again? Discounting your prowess? Doubting your bride?” She sucked her teeth, tongue clicking as she turned to leave. Peppering the current with the scent of her amusement. “There will be consequences.Direconsequences.”
And then she was gone.
But her absence scarcely registered.
Felt only in the vacuum where she wasn’t, for he hadn’t been able to watch her go. Hadn’t paused to question his general’s counsel, for his attention was fixed to a single point.
Kore.
Milk.
He hadn’t known.
Threnakar’s exiled prince, First Sovereign King of Vorynthar’s deep trench, and he hadn’t known so simple a truth of his ownVirelii.
Approaching with a graceful flick, Nyxarion went to her. Drinking her in. The way she floated in the cradle, her knees drawn up. Fingers laced in the polyps of Raskoril, unconsciously anchoring herself while she slumbered.
The place where he had kept her bent and breeding. Used her scent to entice his people to join his cause.
He hadn’t known, then. What she was.
That she wasn’t merely a prize, nor his most cherished possession.
She was something far more deadly.
Settling behind her, without daring to disturb even a hair on her glorious head, Nyx hooked his spines into the gruesome throne of bone and claimed his place at her back.
A tiny sound escaped her lips. Tiny bubbles issued forth, dancing toward the ceiling as she sighed.
