He had never made an easier decision in his life.
Leaning forward, he pressed his lips to hers, lingering for a few moments before he wrenched the tendril free from her neck. Mira hissed out a long breath, wheezing through the pain even as the strange substance his tendrils had emitted closed the wound for her. There was no blood, no mess. She didn’t even have a hole in her neck where her own air leaked out.
But there was a strange new dot there. Almost as though his body had permanently changed hers.
“I have to go,” he said against her lips. “I have to tell my people that I am leaving. With you. We are going to make a life together, away from all of this.”
“Arges, wait—”
He couldn’t stay to listen to her attempt to change his mind. Instead, he plunged into the water and speared through it. Leaving her back in the dome where he knew she could not follow him, even as he sank into the depths that would have stolen all the light from her eyes. His entire body lit up, brighter than it had ever been, as he made his way toward his future. His people would be fine without him. They had Daios, who hopefully would get his head on straight after his arm fully healed and his brother had lost him. Maybe all the People of Water would turn their attentions toward themselves.
He mourned that he couldn’t be there with them to celebrate those successes. He wished he hadn’t been put in this place where he had made a choice between his future and his past. But right now, there was no choice to be made.
He wanted to be with her. The future he had seen was the one thing he’d always wanted, and he would not give it up for anything.
But in the hours that it took for him to swim to his home, his mind second guessed itself. He saw the people lingering outside their homes, waiting for him. He saw the mistrust in their eyes, and perhaps the fear that he would judge them. And he knew.
He knew.
Something had happened.
Swimming slower, he reached up for one of the coral arches and pulled himself through what had once been his home. The glowing coral illuminated the grip of his hands as he swam past homes filled with far more people than he had expected to see here. There were usually so few of them, and yet, right now, there appeared to be everyone in the town.
Waiting for him.
Frowning, he swam through the crowds to the center where the council already gathered. He had never seen them all look so worried. All of their eyes were on Mitéra, who only had eyes for him.
Every light in his body flared even brighter with anger. They thought they could stop him. Mitéra had already guessed what he planned on doing, and she would argue.
He refused to believe for even a second that they truly thought they could stop him. He would be with Mira for the rest of his life. The ancients had given him that vision for a reason, and if he had seen it, then so had Mitéra. She wanted to steal all of this from him.
She wanted to take his future and mold it into the one she desired. But she didn’t get to do that.
Swimming toward her, he paused in the center where the swirling colors stilled. Arges met her gaze and waited for her to speak. Even the sand seemed to settle faster from his movement to hear her words.
“Arges,” she said, her voice booming through the clearing. “Your brother has told me of the poison the achromo has injected into your veins. She has pierced through the shield of your soul and sickened your heart.”
“No one has harmed me in any way.” His tail flicked the sand, drawing up a dust that swirled around him before settling. “I went to the ancients, as you told me to do. They showed me two futures, and I chose her. I will choose her in every instance. I know this means I must leave this place, my home, my family. I do not make this decision lightly.”
“Your people need you to lead the pod that keeps them safe.”
“There are others.” He turned his attention to the crowd. Each one of them watched him, and he knew them all. Beloved faces, people he had protected for years now. But no longer. There was only one person he wanted to protect. “It saddens my heart greatly to leave you. I have never once wanted to lose you all. But this is a choice I must make for myself.”
He didn’t tell them that his body had changed for her. That he had found a way to live with his kairos and combine their worlds.
Sure, it would be difficult. It would be hard to sleep separately from her, or to have to wait days until her fragile skin could get wet again. But maybe his body would change even more. Maybe hers would as well. The more time they spent together and the more his body adapted to hers. The People of Water were a hardy bunch.
He couldn’t wait to see what their future would bring. Even if that meant he had to lose his own people as well.
“We cannot lose you, Arges.” Mitéra almost seemed... sad as she said it. “I have spoken with the ancients. We all agree the future you have chosen for yourself affects the rest of us too much. You have left us no choice.”
He heard it before he realized they were going to attack him. Spinning, he flicked his tail and shot forward, but the net still caught his fluke. Struggling, he had to slice through the cords before another reached around him. Then another. Then there were hands, ripping and tearing and pulling until there were ropes around his neck, around his arms, up and over his tail. All of them binding him to the ground. To anchors he had not seen before.
Straining against his chains, he could feel the muscles of his neck bulging as his gills flared to suck in more air. Mitéra floated above him, giving directions to what had once been his pod.
His brother was with them. His red brother, full of so much rage since the day he was born. But this time, Daios looked down at him with sadness and pity. As if to say it didn’t have to be this way. We could have stopped this together.
“Not him,” he snarled. “Mitéra, if there was ever a time you respected me, you will not send him.”
His hearts raced, thundering in his chest with anxiety because he knew if Daios was sent to her, that Mira would be dead the moment she laid eyes on him. His brother would destroy everything that he held so dear.
“Not him?” Mitéra’s bell hair undulated, pulling her a little closer to his bound body. “Then you may choose, son of my soul. Choose who ends the achromo.”
So they were going to kill her. No matter what, Mitéra wanted her dead, and this wasn’t... It wasn’t right. She didn’t deserve to die because he had chosen life with his kairos.
Frantically, he searched the gazes of everyone in his pod. Someone who would know there was a mercy to pity.
Gaze locking with Maketes, he knew his brother would do the right thing. He trusted this light-hearted brother of his to know what he was saying.
“Maketes,” he said. “He has always known that there is beauty in forgiveness.”
His yellow finned brother seemed to hesitate before nodding. “I will show her swift mercy, Arges.”
It wasn’t enough for him to feel any sense of reassurance, but he could only pray to the ancients that they sent Maketes to her with kindness. Otherwise, he had already lost the best gift the sea had ever given him.
He had failed his people. He had failed his mate.
This rotting future reeked of despair, and he had no idea how to fix it.
Thirty-Five
Mira
Mira poked at the small incision on her neck. Whatever the tendril of his had emitted was impossible to get out of the hole. Byte had told her to stop touching it, that he had permanently changed her body as well as his own. If she pulled that goo out, there was no way of healing it back up. She could breathe strange for the rest of her life or she might fill her lungs with blood and drown in her own fluids.