Chapter 98 THE DEEP PRESS

Chapter 98 THE DEEP PRESS
The giant white tentacle squeezed the submarine hull with a sickening, metallic GROAN.

The iron grating beneath my boots bent upward, snapping the silver floor wires like thin threads. The violent lurch threw me sideways. The silver staff fell from my grip, clattering down the sloped, wet metal toward the boiling ocean below. I clutched the railing with my human hand, my fingernails tearing against the rust, while my right purple bone claw dug deep into the deck to anchor my weight.

Beside me, the old woman, my father’s mother, tumbled across the iron floor. Her long gray braids came loose, the tiny silver needles scattering into the foam as she hit the broken hatch with a dull THUD. Her face was pale, the silver-rimmed eyes wide with a sudden, freezing terror.

She wasn't looking at me. She was looking at the white flesh wrapping around her precious ship.

"The Elder Kraken," she gasped, her voice losing its cold, mechanical power, turning thin and old. "No... the deep wall wasn't supposed to crack for another hundred cycles! The Emperor said the seal was locked!"

"The Emperor was a liar, just like you!" I screamed over the roar of the rushing water.

The hate in my chest gave a sharp, violent throb, pumping the World-Eater's purple smoke through my veins. It didn't matter what monster came out of the trench. It didn't matter if the whole ocean fell down on our heads. 

This woman had let them turn my family into spare gears. She had stood there and called my dead sister a perfect vessel. She deserved to be crushed into red paste, and I wanted to be the one who did it.

Across the tilting deck, Kael was already moving on his heavy iron peg leg. He slammed his back against a broken vent pipe, his thick hands reloading the massive steam gun with a loud, mechanical CLICK-JACK.

"Aria! Grab the kid!" Kael roared, his single blue eye locked on the black-leather guards who were scrambling to their feet near the hatch. "The boat is splitting! We have ten seconds before the battery room floods!"

I didn't waste a breath. I forced my good leg to kick off the railing, letting my single black-stained wing catch the heavy wind to drive me across the sloped deck.

The two guards were trying to lift Seraphina by her arms, but they were sliding in the yellow grease. I lunged at them like a wild animal. I didn't use a weapon. I drove my sharp purple bone claw straight into the chest plate of the first guard.

CRUNCH.

The iron plate shattered, and the black smoke from my fingers crawled over his leather vest, melting the straps into ash. He let out a sharp cry before sliding over the edge into the dark sea. The second guard dropped Seraphina in a panic, reaching for his sword, but Kael’s steam gun let out a deafening BOOM. The blast caught the guard in the shoulder, throwing his body back into the open hatch.

I fell to my knees, scooping Seraphina into my lap with my human arm. Her tiny body was shivering, her face pale and wet with salt water.

"Aria," she whimpered, her fingers clutching at my torn shirt. "The world is making that loud ticking sound again. The bad gears are coming back."

"I've got you, little bird," I whispered, my heart breaking into a million bleeding pieces as I held her tight against my ribs. "I'm not letting them touch you again. Never."

Suddenly, the giant white tentacle gave another brutal squeeze.

The submarine’s main deck snapped completely in half. A massive explosion of green sparks and black oil shot up from the internal engine room, blinding my sight for a split second. The tall woman, my grandmother, scrambled up from the hatch, her fingers hooking around the hilt of her silver staff which had wedged into a broken pipe.

She pointed the glowing tip straight at Kael’s chest. "You ruined the pattern, boy! If the line breaks here, the entire southern coast sinks into the mud!"

"Let it sink!" Kael shouted back, his scarred face twisted in a savage grin.

Before she could fire the green lightning, the white tentacle shifted, a massive, thick layer of slimy white flesh slamming down onto the center of the deck right between us. The force of the blow threw Kael backward onto his scout boat, the small iron craft sliding off the submarine’s tail and hitting the water with a loud splash.

The space between me and the tall woman was completely blocked by a solid wall of white monster meat.

The deck beneath my knees gave a final, sickening tilt. The submarine was going down, nose-first into the dark trench.

"Aria! Climb!" my mother's voice roared from the edge of the ship.

I looked back. The iron mother was still alive, her red wire body half-melted from the green lightning, but her heavy hands were wrapped around the railing of Kael’s floating scout boat. She was holding the small craft against the sinking submarine, her rusted steel face looking straight at me through the black spray.

I didn't hesitate. I tucked Seraphina tight under my left arm, using my single black wing to propel my body over the white tentacle wall. I landed heavily on the deck of Kael's small iron boat, my cutlass wound screaming in pure agony as I hit the floor.

Kael grabbed me by the collar, pulling me into the small cabin just as the giant black submarine vanished into the dark water below, leaving nothing but a massive, spinning whirlpool of foam and oil.

We were alive. The Council was gone. My sister was breathing in my arms.

But as I looked out the small glass window of the scout boat, the engine suddenly gave a loud, sputtering choke and died. The boat stopped moving, sitting completely still in the middle of the black, silent water.

The whirlpool didn't disappear. The center of the spinning water began to glow with a bright, solid yellow light that looked exactly like the grease from the palace kitchens.

A heavy, iron hand slammed onto the glass window right in front of my face.

It wasn't my mother’s wire hand. It was a perfect, human hand made of solid white dough, the fingers long and covered in fresh white flour. And pressed against the glass, his skin perfectly healthy, his eyes glowing with a bright, terrifying silver light, was my dead father.