Prolouge
Darkness in the Mariana Trench wasn’t just black — it was alive.
The water crushed bones and smothered screams, but it held a vast network of glowing reefs that were rivaled in beauty by the Palace of the Deep.
All manners of sea-life thrived among the cliffs and seaweed. Small angler fish glowed with their laterns, giant squids floating through small drifts of shimmering night skimmers.
Whales traveled in the higher waters above the deep, unable to reach the deep dark below, but they always paid homage to the merfolk on their yearly voyage to their birthing waters.
Little Aeaid floated among drifting jellyfish just above the reef, eight years old, scales still soft and shimmering pearl-pink, red hair floating like seagrass around her.
She loved this place, her entire childhood spent exploring with her clan their territory. But on this particular night, things changed forever. Her home had been sanctuary...before the shadows woke.
They came that night without warning.
Leviathans — ancient, monstrous, scales crusted with coral, teeth like shipwrecked spears. Their eyes glowed abyssal red. When they moved, whole currents trembled.
Aeaid’s mother, Serasha, pushed her behind a towering anemone. “Don’t look,” she hissed, voice shaking. “Don’t make a sound.”
But Aeaid did look. Curiosity had always been her sin.
She watched as the leviathans tore into the clan. Aeaid’s father, trident raised, was snatched by jaws wider than a cave mouth, crushed in seconds. Blood plumed into bioluminescent clouds, painting the dark in terrible colors. Her uncle sang the old siren song, voice trembling the water, but the leviathans kept coming, ancient scales impervious.
A cousin’s headless body drifted past Aeaid. Her stomach clenched; she almost vomited seawater.
“Run!” Serasha shouted. But the current pulled mother and daughter apart.
Aeaid screamed, bubbles bursting from her mouth. A tentacle, slick and barnacle-encrusted, coiled around Serasha, dragging her down into deeper dark. Her mother’s eyes met hers for a final heartbeat — full of love and apology.
Then nothing but bubbles. Her mother’s pearl necklace floated free, caught in a swirl of red tide.
Aeaid snatched the necklace, held it to her chest, heart hammering like a drum.
All around, the trench smelled of blood and horror. The leviathans roared — a sound older than merfolk memory.
She couldn’t fight. Not yet.
Clutching the necklace in a death grip, she turned tail and swam as fast and as far as she could across the reef, no direction other than safety to survive the nightmare around her.
But the promise bloomed inside her tiny chest, hot as volcanic vent flame: One day, she would rip their f*****g hearts out.
Centuries later, the promise still burned.
