As she stood before the cerulean sea, Eden's blood surged and slowed in time with the rhythm of the tides.

She was not a creature of the ocean, as she knew many tributes born from the sparkling waters of Four could claim to be. To tell the truth, she had never truly felt comfortable even in the tranquil, shallow depths of the Karam family's pool in the summer. Perhaps her reluctance stemmed from practicality: on land, she was graceful precision and flawless skill taken form. In the water, she was a girl, slow and inelegant— and stringy girls with little fat on their bones were doomed by simple physics to sink like stones.

Beyond that, though, there was a discomfort that exceeded the proscriptions of mere caution. An ill-adapted body had never stopped her in the past; when she was younger and too slow to keep up with the dizzying movements of her mind's eye, she had simply worked harder until her tiresome form had the power and swiftness to match her skill. Yet after progressing beyond the boundaries of a clumsy doggie-paddle, she found herself abandoning the water for what she considered more meaningful pursuits, though she understood intellectually that her abilities in that area were far below her normal standards of acceptability. Something about the glitter of sunlight and shifting, hidden currents sang a warning into her soul like the vibrant colors of a coral snake; its beauty delighted and dazzled, but one should only appreciate it at a distance.

Still, the message in the sky had been very clear: If you wish to survive the sunset, you'd best swim for the coves. Only a fool would ignore a warning like that, and Eden had never been a fool.

A wave rushed forward and lapped at her toes before slinking sullenly back to the surf. So long had she been transfixed by thought and the gleam of the ocean that her feet had begun to sink into the golden sand. Shifting to adjust her balance, she fixed her eyes on the gray froth far ahead of her that marked the cove and safety. Her next breath expanded further than the one before, filling her lungs with air that tasted of salt and seaweed.

Her eyes narrowed. She was Eden Karam, the greatest tribute to ever leave the mountains of Two. And she was not afraid of a little water.

She marched into the surf, leaving only sandy footprints to mark that she had ever walked those shores at all.

The water was unlike what she had expected; her intellect had suggested that it would be warm with the heat of the tropical sun, while her subconscious fed her phantom sensations of the clear, chilly water of the family pool. What she actually experienced was midway between these two extremes; a rather delicious coolness inched up her legs with every step, delightful after the baking might of the sun and air without venturing into the sort of unpleasant chill which would stroke shivers up her spine. Her confidence beginning to grow, she walked faster, each stride leaving a swirl of chaotic quieting eddies and bubbles in her wake. In moments, the water reached her waist and sent waves to break with a bright scattering of spray against her chest. A flash of memory returned to her with sudden clarity— a six-year-old Eden squealing as her cousins laughed and splashed her mercilessly on a summer afternoon.The memory pulled a smile to her face, and on impulse she took a deep breath. A wave rapidly approached her, and she dove forward into the shining swell of sea.

Countless bubbles tickled her face for a long moment; then she opened her eyes, delighting in the clarity of the view around her. A gleaming silver ceiling shone mere feet above her with the light of the sun; below, an expanse of soft, stainless sand spanned in every direction, tugged into scalloped patterns by the insistent tug of the currents. She gave an experimental kick, then another. The odd, almost jolting progress forward pleased her in a way she could quite describe, and she began to fall back into the long-neglected strokes her cousin Esther had shown her all those years ago. It was with something like regret that she moved towards the surface and broke the fragile barrier with a gasp.

If this was what real swimming was like, she reflected, then maybe her previous conclusions had been premature. The breathless, weightless surge of the tides had held her like the timeless moment at the apex of a well-executed piece of acrobatics— in such instances, she felt certain that the laws of physics were petty things unable to bind one such as herself.

She began to swim more confidently for the cove, the sands below slowly dropping away and being obscured by rock, seaweed, and the occasional twist of coral. In time, the steady repetition of movement lent a pleasant, stretching ache to her arms, the burn of exertion quenched by the surrounding sea. The safety of the cove crept steadily nearer; as she approached it, her submarine gaze began to pick out the outline of an edge of rock, ascending from the depths to provide shelter and rest for the tribute wearied from their swim. In a matter of minutes, she had nearly reached her goal— when she allowed her eyes to drift downwards.

At its deepest, it was perhaps thirty feet to the sandy ocean floor. A fully grown coral reef thrived beneath her, extending to her left and right in a ring that Eden instantly guessed surrounded the entire island. As such shallow depths could not bleach away the light that filtered up from below, bright colors from scarlet to ultramarine painted themselves across her gaze. Aside from the sway of the seaweed, the entire structure was still, shapes that would be alien and disconcerting on land abiding with unearthly majesty below. Eden allowed herself to hang there suspended for a moment, admiring the view that was so different from the wasteland she had left behind. Thirst for beauty temporarily sated, she began to turn back to the cove.

A flash of silver at the corner of her eye caught her attention. Her gaze automatically flickered back to the world below in an instinctive attempt to track the source of the movement. The shy fish which caught her attention evaded her focused gaze— but something else did not.

On a flat bed of yellow coral a mere twenty-five feet below the surface sat shapes that could not possibly be natural. Her eyes picked out three objects, resting innocuously below the waves as though arranged there for her questing eyes alone. A rope of strange, braided material that she could not at that distance identify sat coiled on the reef like an offering. Beside it, a knife— no, a short sword the same vibrant crimson as a spiky coral outcropping to her left, sang out to her, giving her fingers a twitch of unconscious desire to test its edge on her foes. More mysterious was a cylinder of gleaming metal, a clasp on the side suggesting to her fertile imagination what deadly wonders might be contained within.

She hung in the water, suspended in shock at this boon. Not since the pitiful show of weapons at the Cornucopia had she expected to find supplies, and if her eyes didn't deceive her these were tools of the highest caliber. More than that, there was no other tribute in sight who might dare to compete with her for their ownership when she was small and -not helpless, she would never be helpless before anyone- distracted in the water, robbed of her usual grace.

For the briefest second, she debated finishing her journey to the cove and resting before attempting the dive. Nonetheless, impatience won out easily over caution. She surfaced and took a handful of deep breaths to oxygenate her lungs. Then, she ducked her head beneath the surface and dove.

A compact, fat-free frame finally served her well; she sank easily, the shining surface falling away as she descended towards her prizes. She kicked surely, the water growing somewhat colder around her as she approached the reef.

It was not until her fingers had closed around the rope that she saw the flash of silver once again. Momentarily distracted from her task, she glanced up to see what sort of fish might be circling the reef— and her blood ran cold.

The denizen of the deeps was no fish; or at least, not entirely. Glittering silver scales covered a body of approximately humanoid proportions. A hairless, ichthyic skull grinned at her with inhuman delight, too-human lips opened in a soundless laugh. It perched on a crop of vermilion coral, waving with webbed hands, and with a sickening jolt Eden understood what it was.

It was too slender, too intelligent to be a pure predator— its human mouth indicated that it was instead meant to speak, no doubt to lure her into a watery grave. It must have seen her, though, known that one such as she would be too canny and distrusting to follow a mutt into peril.

So instead of a song, it lured her with a gift: what could possibly prove more tempting to an arena of killers than the tools of death?

It was her own fault. She should have trusted the instincts that whispered insistently since she could first remember: never trust the water. Beautiful it may be, but you are no conqueror below. You are a girl, and the sea is mighty.

The sea, and the enormous shark that surged over the coral and sailed towards her with the inevitability of death itself.