Aria POV
The fall was an eternity of silence followed by a roar of crushing pressure. The sinkhole didn't lead to a cavern; it led to a grave of salt and shadow.
I hit the water hard. It wasn't the fresh, cool water of a mountain lake. It was the heavy, ancient brine of the Primal Grave, thick with the mineral taste of dissolved bones. The light of the surface was a shrinking emerald needle above us, and then—nothing. Total, suffocating dark.
« Breathe, » a voice echoed. It wasn't the White Wolf. It was the water itself, vibrating against my eardrums. « Let the salt in. The Moon belongs to the tides, and the tides belong to us. »
I clawed at the water, my lungs screaming for air. Beside me, I felt a massive, cold presence. Through the Silver Leash, a surge of raw, oceanic terror flooded my mind. Logan.
"Aria!" His voice didn't come through the air; it came through the bond, distorted by the Kraken's burgeoning power. "Don't fight it! If you fight, it will crush you!"
I ignored him, reaching for the silver fire in my chest. I needed light. I needed to see.
The Glass Floor
I slammed my will into my palms. The Vitrification didn't spread like it did on land. Instead of a wave, it was a spear of incandescent white. The light caught the salt crystals in the water, refracting into a thousand jagged blades of luminescence.
Where the light touched the liquid, the brine didn't just freeze it transformed.
I felt the water beneath my feet harden. I wasn't floating; I was standing. I had vitrified a platform of solid, translucent glass in the middle of the abyss. I gasped, coughing up salt water as I dragged Logan onto the ledge.
The light revealed our surroundings, and my heart nearly stopped.
We weren't in a pit. We were standing on the literal ribcage of a god. Massive, fossilized bones, each the size of a skyscraper, arched over us in the dark. This was the true form of the Cobalt Kraken from the First Age a skeleton so large it formed the foundation of the continent.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Logan whispered.
He stood up, but he didn't look like the man I had rejected. His skin was turning a pale, translucent blue. His cobalt eye was no longer a pupil it was a whirlpool of living ink. The Silver Leash hummed, glowing a violent, agitated violet.
"It's a tomb, Logan," I rasped, my voice sounding like grinding stones. "And we're the sacrifices."
The Surface War
Above us, the world was screaming. Even through miles of rock and water, I could feel the tremors of Gabriel's fury.
« Gabriel! » I shouted into our link. « Close the hole! Virens is using the sinkhole to drain the jungle's life into the Grave! »
« Aria? » His voice was faint, eclipsed by the roar of his Abyssal fire. « I can't reach you! The Serpent is... he's not one man. He's the entire forest! Every time I burn him, he grows back from the ash! »
I felt his pain a sharp, burning ache in my own shoulder. Virens had landed a hit. The Emerald Serpent was playing a war of attrition, waiting for the Grave to finish us so he could harvest the Primal cores.
The Kraken's Choice
Mera descended through the water, her form flickering like a blue flame. She didn't touch the glass; she floated just inches away, her eel-hair lashing.
"The White Wolf thinks she can build a floor in the house of the Deep," she mocked. "Break it, little Kraken. Reclaim your throne and drown the moon."
She pointed her staff at Logan.
The Silver Leash between us turned white-hot. I felt Logan's soul thrashing against the tether. The Kraken inside him was roaring, a sound of tectonic plates shifting. He looked at me, his face a mask of agony and hunger.
"I could do it, Aria," he said, his voice overlapping with a thousand watery echoes. "I could shatter this glass. I could let the pressure take you. I'd be free of the leash. I'd be a King again.
I didn't back away. I stepped closer, until the heat of his Cobalt aura singed my hair. I grabbed the Silver Leash with both hands, wrapping the glowing wire around my knuckles.
"Then do it," I challenged, my silver eyes burning into his. "Break the glass. But know this, Logan: the Kraken doesn't want a King. It wants a corpse. If you let me drown, there will be nothing left of 'Logan' to enjoy the throne."
He roared, a sound of pure, unadulterated grief. He slammed his fists now wreathed in heavy, pressurized water not into me, but into the ribs of the ancient skeleton beneath us.
The impact sent a shockwave through the Grave. The fossilized bones groaned, and for a moment, the water itself seemed to recoill.
"I won't be his vessel!" Logan screamed at Mera.
I didn't waste the opening. I channeled every ounce of my Vitrification into the Silver Leash. I wasn't just tethering him; I was reinforcing him. I turned the leash into a bridge, pouring my silver light into his cobalt darkness.
The result was a blinding, iridescent explosion of Eclipse energy.
The glass platform beneath us expanded, racing up the ribcage like a crystalline wildfire. We weren't just surviving the Grave; we were taking it over.
"Mera!" I shouted, the power of two Primals vibrating in my throat. "Tell the Serpent to open the gates. Or I'll turn this entire ocean into a single block of glass."