Arthur drifted forward, the cold seizing his flesh like a living hand. Water, black as ink, pressed tightly around his scales, unending and oppressive. He had long believed himself fearless, but fear had never worn a face so vast, so absolute as this bottomless ocean. Every breath he held in his chest felt like borrowed time, every slow beat of his heart sounded a distant drum counting toward the last.
The great underwater trench unfolded beneath him, a sheer precipice of rock vanishing abruptly into darkness, a darkness so profound it seemed to pulse with its own slow heartbeat. Arthur strained his dragon-slitted eyes, narrowing against the deep.
He was accustomed to shadows, accustomed to piercing them with ease, yet here the water itself fought him, filled with drifting clouds of sediment, microscopic particles sparkling like pale stars in an unreachable cosmos.
