Maris Calderon's Arc

Chapter 6 of 14

Maris told her everything. He was siren, born to a swamp kingdom stolen from him. He had taken it back. Their son carried siren blood, and that blood had turned the monster away. Elara listened with the baby, Rath, asleep on her shoulder. When Maris finished, she shook her head. "You want me to leave," she said. "To go live under water in a swamp I have never seen." "You cannot stay here," Maris said. "He will come back with men his law cannot stop. In Miredeep I can protect you both." Elara looked around the one room she had always known. The salt-stained walls. The narrow bed. The door still swollen from the swamp water Malachar had dragged inside. "This is my home," she said. "I was born here. My mother died here. You ask me to trade it for a place I cannot even breathe." Her voice cracked. "You show me a monster and a scar and ask me to trust a kingdom I cannot see." Maris had no map to give her. No window onto Miredeep. He could not carry the swamp to her door. He had only himself, and the cold pearl at her throat, the one he had given her the night they met. Rath stirred and settled again. Elara held him closer, and Maris saw the fear under her stubbornness. She was not refusing the swamp. She was refusing to lose everything at once. He crossed the room. He touched the pearl at her collar. It warmed under his fingers. "Then let me show you it is real," he said. He pulled her close and kissed her. The pearl loosened from its cord. He pressed it past her lips with his own, and she swallowed before she could think. Heat spread down her throat. The thin bond between them, worn nearly to nothing, snapped tight. Elara gasped against his mouth. For one breath she felt the swamp through him. Warm dark water. Stone halls. A green light like sun through leaves. She felt it in her chest, sure as her own heartbeat. She pulled back, hand at her throat. Her eyes were wet and wide. "I felt it," she whispered. "It is really there." "The pearl will let you breathe below," Maris said. "You will not drown. Neither will he." He looked at their son. "You can come with me. Both of you." Elara pressed her palm flat against her own chest, feeling the new warmth settle there. Rath opened his moss-green eyes and found his father's face for the first time. "Yes," Elara said. "We will come." Maris let out a breath he had held for three nights. The bond hummed between them, brighter than before. But it also opened a door both ways. If he could feel the swamp through her, then Malachar, out in the dark water, could feel her coming.