The bioluminescent algae along the chamber walls had dimmed to a soft, intimate turquoise by the time night settled over Tidehome. The rest of the settlement had quieted—most mer-people retreating to their sleeping hollows or drifting in the outer currents—leaving only the gentle lap of water and the distant, rhythmic pulse of the reef itself.
Inside the land-dweller chamber, the air felt thicker, warmer, heavier with anticipation and something far more primal.
Mira had left strict instructions: no interruptions, no observers, no unnecessary witnesses. The birthing pool—now repurposed for the bonding—had been prepared in the deepest part of the chamber. A wide, shallow basin of living coral, its inner surface lined with soft, heat-retaining kelp silk and warmed by a natural thermal vent below. The water glowed faintly violet from dissolved luminescent plankton, turning every ripple into liquid starlight.
