Chapter 18
Pearlescent scales shone silver in the moonlight.
Flicking his tail, Thalos disturbed the glassy surface as he floated in the shadow of the island. That jagged, lonely outcropping of rock where Nyxarion had pulled a drowned priestess from the sea and remade her.
Where Thalos had won the Chain of Breath and succumbed to temptation, and decided to take her.
Where it all began.
Starlight gleamed across his scales. A taunting glimmer sparkling on the surface of something far deeper than the illusion of a one beautiful night. Murkier than the peaceful, still current carrying him through dark waters.
Kore had killed a Threnakar scholar before the king of the Deep Court.
With Queen’s lightning.
Scrubbing one pale hand down his face, Thalos exhaled. A measured hiss of water gushing through his gills.
The Accord of Nisyros.
Dead.
Dissolved by a pregnant Siren—herself not technically legal, despite the murky waters he’d created in losing the fucking Spiral and failing to kill her. Which would have been easier.
But…
Significantly less interesting.
His position—the one he'd fallen into as easily as he'd succumbed to that sweet, electric little cunt—was exceptionally delicate. Impossibly, for there would be no grand return to his seat in Caelith Mare.
No sweeping declaration that Sirens were legal. No way such an announcement might be met with celebration. Not when the seas had run red before his birth, and entire bloodlines had been extinguished to uplift that sacred doctrine.
Virelii still sang mourning songs for those who’d died.
The scholars built councils and edicts around the preservation of that very Accord.
To the Pelagorn—long-lived and staunchly resistant—change was a poisoned tide.
It demanded blood.
Generations of careful maneuvering.
Or…
… a common enemy.
Thalos eyed the shape of the beach where he’d won his chance with Kore.
And failed.
Considering all that Nyxarion had told him, that Kore had gained an enemy in Nyxaroth. An ancient king who’d been sovereign before the Accord and after. Ruled Threnakar for so long, lost so much, that the despair had turned him hard and cruel.
But there was blood in the water, now.
Lips pulled taut over a smile, Thalos knew the ancient king would never forgive such an act—and from a Siren, no less. Never mind that the girl carried his grandchild. That she wielded power thought extinct from his own bloodline, or what that might mean for the babe growing inside her.
No, pride like his was a thing that only knew how to fester and never relent.
It demanded reparation. Swift action. The Deep Court was probably already gathering its forces to flood the Black Sea in search of justice and uphold the very Accord Thalos himself had already broken just by continuing to let Kore live.
That Nyx despised his father was no secret, of course.
And the Hollow Court was addicted to power just as surely as they feared anything that might threaten the order they'd built upon Siren bones.
Lips thin and curved around a sinister little smirk, Thalos twisted through the current.
It was a recipe. One he already possessed every possible ingredient to engineer success. He just had to find the right order, before he gave the elements a gentle… stir.
Before he pushed them all to boil over.
After all, the seas were already flooded with whispers, for it was only a matter of time before the scholars spoke of what they'd witnessed at the bottom of the Black Sea.
What might it take to leak the report of Kore’s forbidden power, exactly as Syrathis had seen it?
To inspire Pelagius’ irate ranting as he flapped his ancient gills about the implications of Vorynthar being permitted to keep such a creature for themselves.
What was it, really, to allow Vorthane to confirm for the court that Nyxarion’s bride had claimed unprecedented traits during her transformation?
Reporting to the council was their duty.
Already, the scholars were pushing him to claim the child for Caelith Mare.
To use the law against Nyxarion, and pluck the babe from Kore’s arms the instant it was born.
Pushing him to prevent the Deep from possessing a Siren born in abyssal darkness, capable of channeling Queen's lightning.
One who breathed anoxic water, and whose blood was tied to the heretical reef more surely than even its creator.
To make absolutely no mention of her ties to the Asterion bloodline. That she possessed his own chromatic camouflage.
No, that would remain a secret. His.
Rolling, staring at the shine of indifferent stars, Thalos flicked his tail. Disturbing the surface.
It was an elegant logic.
A simple thing to let the whispers of her power spread. Growing louder with every passing tide.
For if the Deep could breed Sirens capable of carnage, it wouldn’t be long before the whispers became shouted demands for something to be done.
And Thalos was a good king.
Just.
He would let the councils convene, let the scholars wail about the threat rising in the Deep.
And when Threnakar moved against the Black Sea, threatening another bloody war neither court wanted, it would unite all against a common enemy.
Simple.
Rival kingdoms joined in a covenant against a shared predator. An elegant solution to an impossible blood oath. And, without so much as lifting a single finger, Thalos could return Sirens to the sea under the guise of folding to the demands of his own people pressing him for change.
It would be precarious, certainly.
The timing would have to be flawless, of course.
But this was the art Thalos did best.
And what else were his scholars for but to speak the truth as they saw it?
Thalos found them overseeing the reef breakers. Pestering the work of artisans, bickering over gradients and bedrock, while a Siren killed Abysssari ancients and declared herself Queen of the Black Sea.
Absurd old guppies.
“The angle is wrong,” Pelagius said, wheedling and petulant. Ancient, tattered fins spread in a bristling fan meant to display his irritation. “The adequate drainage requires a fourteen-degree anchor or—”
"The bedrock is shale,” the foreman returned. Scales flushing with an exasperated, shimmering heat. “Made porous by the toxins in the anoxic tide. It cannot support the weight."
Thalos hovered above them. Observing unseen from his position.
And then, voice laced with the weight of his station, he said, “Leave us,” in a tone that permitted no argument.
The reef breakers scattered.
Whirling, the scholars spun in the current to face him. All three going still.
“There’s been a development,” Thalos said without preamble. Waiting only long enough to ensure they were alone before he continued. “The Siren killed a Threnakar scholar. An ancient. One of Nyxaroth's delegation."
Letting the words settle, watching the shock filter through each of their minds, Thalos waited.
Jaw working, grinding side to side, Pelagius’ flaking scales shivered.
"The scouts reported as much, though in not so many words. Threnakar’s envoy emerged from the Black Sea lacking one of their number.
But… to think him slain?” he spluttered.
“Preposterous. We assumed the savages were engaging in territorial violence. Trench filth turning on their own."
"Assumption," Thalos murmured, head tilted. "An… understandable error, given the context."
"An Abyssari ancient," Syrathis whispered, clouded, amber eyes growing wide. Rimmed in white. "Killed by a Siren."
Fins stiff, Vorthane said nothing. Offered only a frown deep enough to obscure his eyes as he sank into thought.
“In the Gauntlet of Tides,” Thalos said, dragging each syllable out.
Careful, as if considering. As if suffering some profound discovery.
“She struck me with what I thought might have been the Queen’s lightning.
But”—he laughed, shaking his head—"it’s been lost for generations.
Thought to be extinct, as I understood it. ”
Barbles shivering in the current, Syrathis’ spines clacked. “The Korrides line lost that manifestation three generations past—buried under genetic decay before the war."
"Perhaps not… lost," Vorthane argued, breaking his silence. "Nyxarion created her. It would follow that the trait was merely dormant. Waiting for the right conditions to be expressed.”
"That creature isn’t worthy of…” Pelagius bristled, spluttering. “It is… an abomination. To suggest it capable of containing a power such as the Queen’s lightning?"
At this, Thalos allowed himself a low chuckle.
Something touched with a conspiratorial edge.
“The power she struck me with in the Gauntlet was enough to hand Nyxarion the win, Pelagius. And if she’s progressed since then?
Enough to kill an ancient?” Fingers touching his ribs, where his scars were fresh and raised, Thalos shook his head.
Eyes gleaming with the sheen of something calculated and devious, for he didn’t need Cymareth for this battle.
Curiosity was the blade pressed to their throats. Their own bottomless, covetous thirst for knowledge turned back upon them.
And he watched it ripple through their weathered faces.
The greed.
Dressed as studious intrigue.
“If Nyxarion’s Siren carries lightning for the Deep,” Vorthane hummed, the first to say it. “One must… wonder—”
Barbles retracting, Syrathis hissed. “Careful.”
But Vorthane ignored him. “If an extinct gift might be revived from the Deep Court… what might sleep in the Shallows? Dormant. Waiting.”
"The Tidecaller's Breath," Syrathis said, abandoning his hesitation in favor of purpose. Speculation. "That was Asterion, once.”
Cutting through the current, listing to the left, Vorthane’s voice was edged with something positively giddy. "And the Lateral Weave? I haven't known that since the time of my youth.”
Squaring frail shoulders, Pelagius set that calcified jaw.
Reeking of ancient bitterness. "Speculation," he snapped, though he’d begun to tremble.
"We cannot know what traits have been lost without examining the records, and we are needed here," he said, fins spread.
"Or have you forgotten there's a Siren bearing multiple lineages, living at the bottom of this accursed puddle. "
Snaking free from where he'd been anchored against the shelf, Syrathis slithered free. "We spend our time hunting sun clams and bickering with reef breakers," he said, voice thin with the edge of his excitement. "We can swim to Caelith Mare and back before the girl begins to whelp."
"A Siren bearing the venom of two kings," Pelagius said again, shuddering with what might have been disgust. "The implications… they stagger the mind."
"Indeed worrying," Vorthane agreed. Hedging and careful. "If such power could not be controlled—"
"I have fought Nyxarion Korrides twice," Thalos said, interrupting. Guiding them back into the current he wanted them to tread. "Whatever forbidden power manifests in Kore's child, I assure you, the Deep does not wield it with precision."
Brow furrowing, Vorthane nodded. "If it cannot be controlled, then it must be met with equal or greater force. I assert we return," he said. "At once. Before another tide is wasted on talk of drainage gradients while history reshapes the very sea around us."
Arms crossed, fins pressed flat in sullen defiance, Pelagius said, "Returning to Caelith Mare is… prudent. We mustn't allow ourselves to fall victim to guesswork. We consult the archives. Properly. And return before the girl spawns, armed with answers."
But even as the ancient protested, Thalos saw the way those faded, pewter scales gleamed. Betraying him with a flush of faint gold.
Allowing himself a tiny smile, Thalos lifted one hand. "A word of counsel, if you must depart. Tell no one what you have seen here."
Spines flaring wide, bristling and outraged, Pelagius coughed. "The courts must be informed—"
"The courts do not contend with Nyxarion Korrides," Thalos said, silencing the objection with a condescending glare. "Who allows this outpost to exist under fragile pretense, and who, I remind you, has killed for much less rumors spread about his bride."
Three ancient heads bobbed as one, chastened.
But brimming with a secret knowledge too extraordinary to possibly contain.
It was power.
Wisdom.
Secret whispers they would ferry all the way back to Caelith Mare.
And before three tides had passed, maybe four, every elder of the Hollow Court would hear of the impossible powers manifesting in a poisoned tide.
Lips twitching, Thalos rolled.
Basking in the silver moonlight.