Chapter 13: The Song of Return
The path down to the cove was a treacherous gash in the cliffside, all loose shale and slippery moss. Yamato carried Taichi in his arms, the merman’s tail draped over one forearm, his own back screaming with the strain. Taichi was heavy, all dense muscle and solid bone, but he held himself rigid, minimizing the burden. His breathing was a sharp, wet rasp in Yamato’s ear.
No one spoke. The only sounds were Yamato’s labored grunts, the scuff of his boots on stone, and the ever-present sigh of the sea below. The sun was a bleeding orange wound on the horizon, staining the clouds violet and throwing long, distorted shadows behind them.
Barnacles crunched underfoot as Yamato reached the final, broad slab of rock that sloped into the water. The cove was a secret place, littered with the ghosts of the village’s industry—frayed loops of synthetic net snarled in the rocks, rusted hooks, the skeletal spine of a long-dead crate. The air smelled of rotting seaweed and iron.
“Here,” Yamato gasped, his arms trembling.
“Further,” Taichi said, his gaze locked on the darkening water. “I need depth.”
Yamato waded in. The cold was a shock, stealing his breath as it soaked through his clothes, climbing his thighs, his waist, his chest. The water pulled at him, alive and insistent. Taichi’s body became buoyant, lighter in his arms.
When the surf lapped at Yamato’s collarbones, Taichi stirred. “Now.”
It wasn’t a gentle release. It was a surrender. Yamato let his arms unwind, and Taichi slid from his grasp into the sea.
The merman sank for a second, then surfaced, his hair plastered to his skull, his gills fluttering open and shut in rhythmic relief. He drifted, his powerful tail moving in slow, experimental sweeps beneath the surface. The water transformed him. The weakness was sluicing away, replaced by a latent, fluid power. The dying creature from the shack was gone. In his place was a prince of a diminishing realm.
Taichi turned to face him. The last of the sun caught in his amber eyes, making them glow like banked coals. The waves pushed them together, then pulled them apart.
“You played for me,” Taichi said. His voice was different now—clearer, melodic under the roughness, carrying over the water’s whisper.
In the silent hours of the afternoon, while Taichi sat in the tin tub gathering strength, Yamato had finally picked up the guitar. He hadn’t sung. He’d just played, letting the notes—haunting and incomplete—fill the shack’s emptiness. A winding, wordless lament. Taichi had listened from the water, his eyes closed, his head resting against the tub’s rim.
“Yeah,” Yamato said. His teeth wanted to chatter. “Figured I owed you a song.”
Taichi swam closer, the motion effortless. He stopped just out of arm’s reach. The water between them felt like a continent. He lifted a hand from the sea, droplets falling from his clawed fingers. He reached out and brushed the back of his knuckles against Yamato’s cheek, the touch cool and rough.
“I will remember it,” Taichi said softly. The promise felt heavier than a vow. It felt like a sentence.
Their eyes held. Yamato wanted to say a hundred things. Stay. Be careful. What happens now? Every word died in his throat, useless against the reality of the deep.
Taichi’s gaze dropped to Yamato’s mouth for a fleeting instant. A muscle tightened in his jaw. The moment stretched, taut and fragile.
Then, without another word, Taichi pushed backwards. He drew a deep breath, his gills sealing shut. He gave Yamato one last, unreadable look—a mix of gratitude, warning, and something profoundly lonely—and arched his body.
He dove.
The orange-red flare of his tail broke the surface once, a final shard of captured sunset, and then he was gone. The water swirled where he’d been and went still.
Yamato stood, chest-deep in the freezing sea. He listened to the waves slap against his body. He stared at the dark, empty water. A numbness spread from his core, colder than the ocean.
The absence wasn’t empty. It was a presence. It was the ghost of a weight in his arms, the echo of a click-hum against his throat, the phantom scent of deep water on his sheets. It sat in the hollow of his ribs, sharp and specific.
A full minute passed. Another.
He was just a man standing in the sea at dusk. Alone.
A cramp finally seized his calf, the cold locking the muscle. He gasped, stumbling as he turned toward shore. He slogged back through the water, which now felt like lead dragging at his limbs. He climbed onto the rock, dripping and shivering violently. He didn’t look back.
The climb up the cliff path was a blur of aching muscle and gathering dark. By the time he shoved open his cottage door, the sky was the color of a fresh bruise.
Inside, the silence was a physical thing. It pressed on his eardrums. The tin tub sat in the middle of the room, full of still, briny water. The blankets on the bedroll were tangled. The space smelled of salt and of him—of Taichi.
Yamato stripped off his soaked clothes, leaving them in a heap on the floor. He pulled on dry pants and stood there, bare-chested, the damp air raising gooseflesh on his skin.
His eyes found the guitar leaning in the corner. He walked over, picked it up, and sat on the edge of the bedroll. He didn’t play. He just held the worn wood, his calloused fingers resting on the strings.
He thought of war. Of fishing boats being torn apart from below. Of amber eyes filled with feral vengeance. He thought of a tribe, waiting for their prince in the shallows.
The realization hit him like a wave. Taichi was gone, but the problem wasn’t. The threat was still out there, brewing beneath the placid surface. And the only human who knew about it was him, a broke musician nobody listened to.
He had to get to the tavern. He had to find a way to warn them, to make them listen, before the first net was cut, before the first hull was breached. Before the sea they all depended on turned against them with teeth and claws.
He laid the guitar down gently. The movement was decisive, final.
He grabbed a threadbare sweater, shoved his feet into boots still damp from seawater, and headed back out into the night. The door banged shut behind him, leaving the cottage empty save for the silent tub and the lingering, oceanic scent of a prince who was already leagues away.