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He had come from a long line of men who had essentially taken control over what was left of humanity. No more presidents or kings or rulers. Just a general with the entire army at his beck and call. There was nothing for them to fight against, so why they needed a general she had never understood. Maybe it was because he could kill anyone who disagreed with him.
Alys hadn’t realized her father was working with this man.
“I understand your primary concern is safety,” her father started, clearly trying to choose his words wisely. “But we need to build a place that is both safe and feels like home. Otherwise, no one will move there.”
“I think you’re underestimating the circumstances. We only have a few more years on land. At best. The volcanoes are erupting more frequently. The storms are getting worse. Soon, all life will be wiped out. If we have nowhere else to go, then those who wish to survive will join us.”
“A few years?” her father choked. “I need far more than that to design a functional city under the sea! This will take a lifetimeof work, perhaps even a lifetime more of architects to design something that is safe.”
“You don’t have years, Fairweather. And you have a working design currently. Don’t think I don’t see it. You are afraid that your design isn’t what you think it is, and so you are stalling. I understand fear. I know what you fight against, but the beast must die. Give me the design, and I will have it built in a year.”
“It’s simply not possible. You will destroy too much in doing so.”
“I will destroy whatever I must.”
Heart in her throat, Alys slipped out of the house. She didn’t know where she was running off to. Maybe to him. Probably to him, if she was being honest with herself.
And that was silly. She shouldn’t go to the people whose homes her people were likely going to destroy. She shouldn’t feel so guilty about this, either. Her people had to survive, and they didn’t realize that the undines were there. Right?
Surely they didn’t.
But that pit in her stomach did not loosen. No matter how much distance she put between herself and those men, she couldn’t stop thinking about what they were going to do.
Imber deserved to know. But she didn’t have any way to communicate this with him, and what if he didn’t understand what she wanted him to do? What if he realized that this would destroy his people, or could, and then there was a war that she started?
Panic had long set it by the time she got to their meeting spot. She didn’t even know if he would be there waiting for her. So far, he usually was, but what if she was wrong?
The “what-ifs” turned her inside out. They ripped through her lungs, rioted in her stomach until she thought she might throw up.
“Miss Alys, your heart rate is dangerously high,” Beta said, its voice echoing through the room. “You need to calm down before you go outside. I cannot promise there is enough oxygen in that tube to sustain your current body needs.”
Hyperventilating. Her mind knew what was happening, and yet she was already ripping at the hatch over her head. She didn’t care. She had to get out of this little bubble that her father had made because his touch was all over it.
What was he going to do? Was he really going to go along with this and ruin so much of the sea for... what? Glory? Honor? A legacy that would be forgotten about the moment he died?
“Miss Alys—”
She wasn’t listening. She couldn’t. Yanking the mouthpiece over her face, she slammed the button to close the door. Sealing Beta inside the sub even as she risked opening the top hatch, maybe a hair too soon. She was thrown against the wall of the submarine, her back catching on a piece of metal and searing pain slicing through her spine.
Still, she crawled her way out and blasted into the sea. She swam far above the sub and just let the sea buoy her. She could feel it moving all over her body. The currents gently held onto her, like the warm pressure of a hug. And the sun above her head glittered on a rare day when the sky wasn’t full of ash.
She couldn’t breathe. There wasn’t enough air in the damn tube and her father was going to do something stupid. She couldn’t tell the undines about this, not yet. All of this reaction was maybe just dramatics, and she didn’t actually have to do any of this. Maybe her father would stop it. She had to believe in him.
Cool arms slid around her from behind.
Immediately, all the panic disappeared. It bubbled out of her mouth and suddenly she could breathe again. She could inhale, long and slow. Breathing in through her nose and out throughher mouth as he drew her against his chest and held her safely in the circle of his arms.
“You came,” she whispered, allowing her body to sag against his.
She let her eyes drift closed, allowing him and the current to rock her gently from side to side. Together they hung there, suspended where gravity had no rule on her body. Every now and then, she felt his tail shift between her legs, flicking to keep them afloat.
Finally, she was calm enough to open her eyes and practically liquid in his arms. Like he sensed it, he held something out in front of her.
The box. The copy of Beta that she’d given him. If he was giving it to her then... that had to mean... He touched something to the side of her head, and she knew it was a translation chip. Just like she had told Beta to make before, this box was no longer useful. It would then destroy itself once it had made two translation chips. One for him and one for her.
In awe, she took the box from him as his arm tightened slightly around her waist. He leaned down and murmured in her ear, “Hello, Alys.”
Tears pricked in her eyes.
