Princess Araxa's Arc

Chapter 3 of 14

They swim higher, away from the fissure and its cutting light. Araxa's shoulders start to relax. Tide's glow returns to silver, steady again. Then the water shifts. Not a current. Something moving below them, something big enough to push the ocean aside. Araxa looks down and sees it rising from the fissure. A serpent, long as ten of her laid end to end, its body dark indigo and black with red markings down its belly. The head is wrong, too flat and wide, with glowing red eyes that sweep the water. Spade-shaped fins ripple along its sides. It moves slow, almost lazy, but its size makes the slowness mean nothing. It's following the path they took, head swinging side to side. Hunting. Araxa grabs Tide and pulls him close, pressing them both against a rock shelf. The kelp forest below them sways in thick ribbons of indigo and green, dense enough to hide in. But getting there means moving, and movement will catch those red eyes. The serpent turns, its head tilting toward them. Araxa stops breathing. She drops. No thought, just her body falling through the water, one arm wrapped around Tide. The kelp rushes up and she twists between the stalks, letting them close above her. The fronds are thick as her wrist, tangled tight. She finds a space near the bottom where three stalks cross and wedges herself in, holding Tide against her chest. His light goes dark. She can't see the serpent but she feels it, the water pressing against her as it passes overhead. Once. Twice. On the third pass it stops. She counts her heartbeats. Twenty. Fifty. The kelp sways and the serpent's shadow moves across it, a shape too big to look at all at once. Then the water shifts again and the pressure fades. She waits longer, every muscle locked. When she finally looks up, the serpent is gone. But her hands are shaking, and they don't stop for a long time after.