The explosion didn’t sound like fire. In the crushing depths of the Trench of Lament, it sounded like a thousand glass bells shattering at once. The violet shockwave hit Elara with the force of a falling mountain, catapulting her body away from the collapsing rig.
She spun through the lightless water, her matte-black scales scraping against the jagged coral of the trench wall. Her vision blurred, the silver-grey of her hair tangling around her face like a funeral shroud.
Kaelen.
The name was a jagged shard in her mind. Through the fractured bond, she felt a sudden, sharp spike of his agony—and then, a terrifying, absolute silence.
The weight of the ocean seemed to double. Without the pulse of the Star-Core or the heat of the Alpha, the water felt like liquid lead. Elara clawed at the d
