Nerio Tidebrine
the Glimmerdark Merman
Nerio, from the sea-god's name, and Tidebrine, for the salt-crust that forms on the shore at low tide—born under a moonless sky with a pearl clutched in your fist.
Power
You can pluck a single pearl from any shadow, but each pearl costs you a memory of light—a sunrise, a laugh, a face—and you are running out of things you can bear to forget.
- Familiar
- a moon-eyed starfish named Stagger
- Tide
- the Brineblind Shoal
You keep a cracked conch shell that hums in the dark. Because every time you hold it, you hear the voice of the drowned sailor who taught you to laugh, and you have not yet decided if that is a comfort or a curse. You float through the twilight zones, where the water turns from indigo to ink, collecting the pale glints that fall from creatures too deep to see.