Epilogue
Valerie & Rakan
The screech of packing tape cuts through the quiet living room as I drag the dispenser across the last cardboard box. Inside are three sweaters, the last of my grandmother’s mismatched coffee mugs, and the maritime law tome I once used to build a case against Sigurd’s company.
I slice the tape and add the box to the stack in the corner.
Most of the cottage is already packed. It makes the room look larger than it ever did when I lived here.
The bookshelves are bare, and the photographs have come down.
Pale rectangles mark the places where furniture protected the wallpaper from years of sunlight.
Rain taps steadily against the windows. A fine coastal mist hangs over Saltweather today, softening the houses across the lane. I draw in a long breath without thinking about it, and the air fills my lungs easily.
For several days after we returned from the abyss, I kept waiting for the old burning pressure to come back. It never did. The completed claim settled whatever the first one left unfinished. Now the Saltweather air only smells like rain and the harbor.
I carry the tape dispenser into the kitchenette and drop it beside the kettle. Two mugs wait on the counter, already steeping with chamomile. I take both into the living room.
Hattie is curled into one corner of the faded couch with a tissue crushed in her hand. Her eyes are red enough that pretending she has allergies would insult both of us.
“Drink this before it gets cold.” I hand her the blue mug and sit beside her. “I put extra honey in it.”
Hattie accepts the tea with both hands and stares into the steam. “I still can’t believe you’re moving to the bottom of the ocean. What if you want to order pizza? You can’t even call anyone down there.”
“Sigurd’s staff can handle pizza. Bastian makes an excellent deep-sea flatbread.”
“It’s not the same.” She takes a slow sip and looks around the half-empty room. “The library won’t be the same either. I’m going to miss you yelling at the trolls.”
“I’ll ask Sigurd to improve the postal system. He enjoys fixing things nobody asked him to fix.”
Hattie gives a watery laugh and leans into me. I wrap an arm around her shoulders and pull her against my side.
“I’m going to miss you,” she says quietly. “Probably more than I’m prepared to admit.”
“I’m going to miss you too. You’ll just have to save up your complaints for my visits.”
We sit there for a while with the rain tapping against the windows. Hattie keeps both hands around her mug, and I let the silence settle.
“If you ever change your mind about visiting, Ysra can help with the pressure suit,” I offer.
Hattie shoots me an unimpressed look. “I love you, but I’m not voluntarily descending into an abyssal trench. I intend to keep saying that from the safety of sea level.”
“That confidence might last until curiosity gets involved.”
“I’m willing to take that risk.”
We finish our tea without rushing. Hattie carries both mugs into the kitchenette, and I pick up the last bag beside the couch. Our coats are waiting near the door.
We leave the cottage beneath a steady coastal drizzle and start down the sloping pavement toward the harbor. Rain slicks the cobblestones and carries the familiar smell of brine, diesel, and wet rope up from the docks.
Sigurd’s yacht waits at the end of the breakwater, enormous enough to make every trawler around it look temporary. Hattie slows beside me and squints through the rain at the polished black hull.
“He’s taking up half the municipal slip. I hope somebody charged him for all of that.”
“I’m sure the harbormaster found an appropriately insulting number. Sigurd probably paid it without looking.”
“That somehow makes it worse.”
The loading zone is already busy. My packed boxes move steadily up the metal ramp, and two hulking stone gargoyles carry the heavier furniture beside human longshoremen in high-vis jackets. A draft-horse centaur waits behind them with the last cart of books.
Then I spot Sigurd near the bottom of the ramp.
His dark trench coat sheds the rain almost as efficiently as his expression discourages conversation. Today Marta has him backed against the railing, and he’s standing there with the solemn attention of a man receiving instructions from his board.
I catch Hattie lightly by the arm. “Hold on. I think Marta has found a flaw in his management style.”
Hattie follows my gaze and bites back a laugh. “Should we help him, or would that ruin the lesson?”
“We should stay out of it. He looks like he’s learning something valuable.”
We move closer. Marta’s wet feathers have puffed along her arms, and she smells strongly of fish and harbor water. Sigurd notices me almost immediately, but Marta keeps his attention by tapping the front of his coat again.
“I don’t care how much money you have,” she says. “If she misses every holiday because you’ve buried her at the bottom of the ocean, I’ll find a pressure suit and come down there myself. You do not want me arriving angry.”
Sigurd inclines his head with complete seriousness. “That sounds unnecessarily dangerous, Mrs. Ferreira. I’ll make sure Valerie visits often enough to prevent it.”
“I’m not finished. If she stops writing, or I hear from anyone else that she’s miserable, I’ll bring a gutting knife with me.”
“I’d prefer to avoid that outcome, so I’ll take the warning seriously.”
Hattie makes a strangled noise beside me, and Marta finally turns around.
Her expression changes the moment she sees me. She crosses the remaining distance and pulls me into a tight hug. I wrap both arms around her and laugh against her wet feathers.
A few months ago, I stood in this harbor terrified that Marta would lose the stall she’d spent years building. Now its shutters are open behind her. Two customers wait beneath the awning as though their fishmonger threatening a billionaire is nothing unusual.
Marta pulls back and grips my shoulders. “Keep your coat zipped on that deck. The wind coming off the water is brutal.”
“I will. I promise you don’t need to threaten me with the knife too. And I’ll write as soon as we’re settled.”
She gives my arms one last squeeze, then wipes quickly beneath one eye and pretends it was rain. After pulling Hattie into a shorter hug, she orders both of us to stop standing around getting soaked and marches back toward the market.
Hattie watches her go. “I think that went surprisingly well. Nobody was stabbed.”
“Sigurd still has both eyes too, so I’d call it an excellent result.”
Sigurd reaches us a moment later and takes one of my cold hands between both of his. “You should have worn gloves. Packing them doesn’t provide much protection when they’re somewhere inside the yacht.”
“You survived Marta threatening you with a gutting knife, but my cold hands are apparently the crisis that concerns you.”
“I’m choosing my battles more carefully now. Your hands seem considerably safer to address.”
Hattie hugs me one more time at the foot of the gangway. This one is quick because neither of us trusts what will happen if we make it ceremonial. Then she lets me go without a word. Neither of us really wants to say goodbye.
I follow Sigurd onto the gangway. His hand stays wrapped around mine on the climb to the main deck.
The crew starts clearing the loading area once we’re aboard. Mooring lines come free from the pier, and the gangway retracts with a metallic groan. A low vibration travels through the deck as the engines wake beneath us.
I move to the railing, where Hattie is still standing on the breakwater with both hands shoved into her pockets. Marta has come back out from beneath the market awning and stands farther behind her, one feathered arm raised above her head.
I wave until the distance makes the gesture useless.
The yacht turns toward the mouth of the harbor. Saltweather softens behind a curtain of rain. The market lights linger after the clustered roofs have begun to disappear.
Sigurd comes to stand beside me and slips an arm around my waist. I lean against his side and keep watching for as long as I can.
Sigurd presses his mouth briefly to my temple. “Are you ready for whatever comes after this?”
I wait until the harbor is little more than a gray shape behind us, then turn toward the open water and lace my fingers through his. “I am. What about you, Mr. Eiriksson? Are you ready?”
A faint smile pulls at his mouth. “Not nearly as much as I should be. I certainly wasn’t ready for you. But if nothing else, I’ve learned my lesson.”
“That sounds suspiciously optimistic for someone who spent most of our relationship preparing for disasters.”
“I’m trying something new. You’ve been a disruptive influence.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should.”
I laugh and lean into his side as the yacht clears the harbor and cuts into deeper water. The sea stretches dark beneath the gray sky, hiding miles of water and one absurd fortress somewhere below it.
Sigurd keeps his hand wrapped around mine, and together we watch the horizon open in front of us.
I hover inside a thin sphere of magic above the newly warmed basin. I decide, not for the first time today, that I’ve spent enough of my life underwater.
The spell around me smells faintly of woodsmoke and desert sand, which helps.
Outside the barrier, black water presses against jagged stone under enough pressure to turn a human into a cautionary tale.
Amber fire runs beneath my skin as I feed the last of the heat into the rock below.
My hands have started trembling from the effort, but the basin is warm, and the leviathans have finally stopped complaining.
Lotan moves through the basin in his shifted form, immense enough to make the surrounding rock look narrow. Several younger leviathans follow him between the fissures. They’re darting through the warmer currents and disappearing among the dark growths opening along the stone.
Lotan lifts his armored head toward me. “The brood is settling. The heat is stable, and the basin will serve.”
Coming from Lotan, that’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to gratitude.
I glance across the territory one last time. The warmer water follows the eastern ridge exactly as we agreed, and the colder trenches beyond it remain untouched.
“Then enjoy it. I’m not rebuilding another piece of ocean because you change your mind.”
Lotan’s golden eyes narrow. “Your concern for my judgment is touching, al-Rashid.”
“My concern is entirely selfish, but I’m pleased you noticed.”
A deeper vibration rolls through the water and ends the exchange. Two enormous blue eyes emerge from the darkness beyond the basin, followed by the vast shape of Solveig Haraldsdóttir.
She stops outside the warmed boundary and studies the younger leviathans weaving through their new territory. Lotan turns toward her without any sign that he intends to restart the fight we spent days preventing.
“The boundary holds,” Solveig says. “Do you consider the agreement satisfied?”
Lotan gives the basin another slow look. “I do. My brood has no reason to enter Saltweather waters.”
“Excellent,” I mutter. “That means I can finally stop living at the bottom of the ocean.”
Solveig turns one enormous eye toward me. “You object to the deep that strongly?”
“Madam, I was raised in a desert. I’ve been remarkably patient.”
Below us, one of the younger leviathans circles Lotan twice before vanishing into a fissure. Lotan follows at a slower pace, leaving Solveig and me above the basin.
I’m happy to see him go. With him safely settled in his new home, the chaos that started at my wedding can finally be put to rest. Sigurd’s arrangement works.
No one needed to die for territory. Saltweather is no longer part of the bargain.
Considering where this began, I am willing to call that a successful afternoon.
Some of the tension finally leaves my shoulders.
The effort of holding the barrier immediately reminds me how tired I am.
I flex my aching fingers against my sleeves.
I have no regrets. The magic I’ve spent here was definitely for a good cause.
If there’s anyone who deserves to be happy, it’s Sigurd.
Solveig looks toward the colder trench, then back to me. “You have done my son a great service.”
“I did it because Sigurd is my friend,” I reply. “Besides, we both know I wasn’t completely uninvolved in the matter that brought us here.”
Solveig doesn’t answer, but she seems pleased. It’s the same subtle amusement I’ve often seen in Sigurd. I don’t find it nearly as endearing in Solveig. “If there’s nothing else, Madam, I’m going back to my wife,” I tell her. “Preferably somewhere with dry ground.”
“There is nothing else,” Solveig confirms. “The clans will honor the agreement.”
“That may be the finest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Solveig’s immense head tilts. “Safe travels, Rakan.”
“And may your next crisis occur several centuries from now,” I reply.
I release the last thread of heat into the basin and sever the connection. The strain disappears so abruptly that I have to brace myself against the inside of the barrier.
I’ve had enough saltwater and deep-sea politics for several lifetimes. Right now, I want dry air, warm stone, and Iris.
Amber fire brightens across my skin as I gather the spell for the journey back. The familiar scent of smoke overtakes the brine. The black water begins to disappear behind the growing light.
Lotan has his basin, Saltweather is safe, and Sigurd finally has Valerie. My honeymoon has already been delayed far too long. I close my eyes and let the fire take me. Iris, I’m coming home.