Page 45 of Call of the Fathoms (Deep Waters #4)

Fortis

Fortis slowly came back into this world. The voice had been the one he’d heard in that tomb. The deep voice of reckoning had warned them all of what they had done.

“You have all entered a time where humans will now be part of your life. Whether you wished them to or not. I have been asleep for centuries. Waiting. I know what you face and what you will soon see. And it is I who will help guide you.”

And then all depthstriders were shown the same vision at the same time.

He wasn’t sure what they were meant to get out of it. Humans swimming alongside their own kind. New cities, ones that incorporated his people into them. He saw entire rooms where the People of Water had the ability to swim up into tubes and rest in entire homes that were accessed by droids for them. Metal arms that brought them food allowed them to work with the humans in massive spaces filled with people making decisions with each other. There were children, too. Children with smaller tails, two tails, children that looked like humans and his people mixed together.

It was a good future, but one he knew many of his kind would fear. This would fundamentally change their lives. No more would the People of Water have to avoid humans or expect to be fought with. They would be... enmeshed.

When he could finally see the surrounding world, he looked at his son first. Aulax had a bright grin on his face and so much hope in his eyes. “That is our future, father?”

“I believe so.”

“I cannot believe...” Aulax let out a shocked laugh. “Then it worked. Everything we did. It worked.”

So it had. More than any of them could have expected, it had worked. They had created something that had changed the very fabric of time itself. And he, for one, was so excited to see it come to fruition.

“And I get to be here to experience it with you,” he murmured, before throwing his head back and laughing.

Together, he and his son rejoiced in the future that would come. He knew there were some, like Mitera, who were terrified. They did not know where they fit into this new future, but he knew exactly where his family fit. Right at the heart of it all.

Alexia returned with Mira, and he knew that his life had only just begun with her.

“We’re moving some of the reborn. The droids are already preparing their transport, but we’ll need some of your people to guide the ships,” Alexia said. “The droids can get where they are going, but I’m concerned they won’t get there safely. The reborns are important.”

“Were are they going?”

“Beta, for now. There are fifty pods that need to be moved, twenty-five adults and twenty-five children.”

He nodded, but then reached for her. “Come with me. We’ll guide them together, and you can see them in their new home.”

Fortis knew how much that would mean to her. She had nearly given up her entire life to see these people safe and sound. She would need this closure, to know that they had made it to their destination, and that they were waking up to welcoming arms. He knew because he would need the same if he were giving up his son.

She leapt into the water without hesitation, and he made sure she could breathe before they were off. Aulax joined them, his son filling her in on the vision that the newly awoken god of the sea had seen.

“Another god?” she asked Fortis, not interrupting his son as the young man continued to tell her a more complicated tale with every moment. “Should you be worried about that?”

Faintly. A part of him wasn’t sure who was talking to them, and he feared what kind of creature would have that sort of power. “The sea is mysterious. I do not know what awoke in the bottom of the sea, but I do know that its purpose is similar to our own. It wants humans and the People of Water to work together.”

“Then it can stay.” She rubbed her hand along his forearm as he dragged her toward the transport.

It was a strange beast of a droid. It looked more like a ship than he’d expected, as the creation was made to harvest the pods. A few arms at the edges were plucking the pods out of the city and depositing them like egg sacks on the sides. There was a deep sea creature who looked like this, he was certain.

Wincing, he watched as the last of the pods were loaded up before it started heading out. The ship coasted out over the abyss, carefully moving until one lone pod shifted. He couldn’t help but notice the glowing egg sack drifting down into the abyss, its lights flickering before it went out.

“No!” Alexia gasped, before she grabbed onto his arm. “We have to go get her.”

But then he heard that deep, aching voice rumble in his mind again.

“ Her, “ it called, and there was so much interest there.

A flash of a vision appeared in his mind, but then he realized it wasn’t a vision at all. He was seeing what the god at the bottom of the sea saw. A sealed tomb, one that had been closed for centuries and one that he deeply hated. The entrance was dark, and covered in scratch marks from centuries of trying to claw his way out. But he never had been able to until this moment.

Now there was a light at the edge. A crack where a massive, green, clawed hand could wedge a sharp claw into the side and start to pry it open. Bit by bit, that claw wiggled and forced the opening larger and larger until it finally snapped open.

Fortis fell with the god, feeling the weakness in his body and how large he was. He was massive. Bigger than Fortis had ever felt in his life, with a tail that was tattered and worn. And as he looked down at his hands sinking into the muck, Fortis realized his skin was nearly translucent. He could see right through to the bones beneath.

The god flexed his fingers, curling his hands into fists and suddenly all those bones glowed. Fortis could see his skeleton through his skin, and he knew whatever this creature was, it was not one of their own kind. But it also wasn’t a god.

He had been trapped for years. Centuries. He had been stuck in a tomb that humans had made, but he didn’t want to destroy them all for it. No, he wanted one singular person to pay penance for what everyone else had done.

And that pod, falling into the abyss, was his opportunity to seek amends for centuries of pain and torment.

As the vision fell from his eyes and the pod drifted ever deeper, Fortis held Alexia a little tighter to his chest. “The sea demands reparations for what was done to it.”

“The death of the Originals wasn’t enough?” she snarled.

“No. The sea requires someone alive.” He looked at the pod with pity, and then turned toward the rest of the ship and continued onward with it. “There is nothing we can do now. Whoever that was will awaken as a servant to a god.”

Alexia nodded, perhaps believing his strange words likely for the very first time. And together, they turned toward a brighter future, knowing that enough sacrifices had finally been made.