Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
A kraken is only dangerous three days a week. Yesterday, today and tomorrow.
–An Incomplete Guide to Kraken Survival
Another car ride, this one accomplished in total silence as Sebastian typed furiously on his phone.
I let him work, though I didn’t know who he communicated with or what he ordered. From my angle, the screen appeared blank. I didn’t mind. I used the opportunity to sit with my thoughts, going over everything I’d learned.
In four days—closer to three, really, with the day nearly spent—the outer sea tide, the inner dome tide, and the moon’s pull would fall into perfect sync, awakening the rune.
For a short window, I must listen to its whisper and respond.
Somehow, this rune would imbue him with enough power to defeat the first-ever kraken berserker.
A monster who’d eaten his finger and taunted him about it.
“Are you ready for our date, Brona?”
His low, smoky voice snapped my gaze up. He’d stored his phone. Had emerged from the car and even filled the open doorway, peering down at me. Amusement curved the corners of his mouth.
“Ja. And nein. I’m worrying about the runes again,” I muttered in Japanese, lest any listening ears were hanging around. “Three open-ended details remain. The price for using it. What it actually does. How you used it to drive out the primordial the first time.”
As I spoke, he removed his glove. After pocketing the leather, he cupped the side of my throat. Skin to skin. I gasped as the pad of his thumb drew circles around my hammering pulse, reminding me of a predator closing in on prey. Slow, measured, intent.
“Jokull cannot be killed. Even when he loses his head, he regenerates. But the rune will stop all regeneration.”
He used his native tongue.
“Come.” He offered me that same hand, and I accepted, reeling. “I will tell you the story about driving him out when we are inside.”
Goose bumps broke out as I rose. Cool, salty air tried to kiss me, but his sizzling heat chased it away. Only a whisper of space between us as he led me forward.
A colossal building towered before us. A monument that could have been dredged from the ocean floor, fashioned from black stone shot through with veins of deep blue crystal, the surface carved in sweeping, wavelike patterns that seemed to move.
Tall columns flanked the entrance, their bases resembling coiled tentacles that disappeared into shadow.
Whatever this place was, it wasn’t meant to bring comfort.
We started forward, still hand in hand. Two armed guards opened the door for us, and we sailed inside a lobby lit by bioluminescent panels set into the walls. The floor glowed soft indigo and sea-green.
I scanned the lobby. We were the only beings present.
The dome overhead revealed churning, murky waters.
That alone would have held my attention captive save for the lone work of art that loomed just beyond the threshold: a massive sculpture carved from a single slab of obsidian coral, depicting a kraken king rising from the depths, crown cracked, tentacles flared and curling at the ends.
Fractures in the stone glimmered with faint light, as if the piece still remembered the violence that shaped it.
A strange pressure settled behind my eyes, as if the sculpture looked back at me.
“Who is he?” Definitely not Sebastian. The facial bones were far too sharp.
“The primordial,” he replied. “His image serves as a reminder of what we can lose if ever we surrender our strength.”
I peered at the visage with new eyes, noting previously missed details.
The crown wasn’t merely cracked but crushed inward, as if by a force applied from within.
One tentacle hung severed mid-coil, the break jagged rather than clean, while another curled protectively around what might be a pile of bones near the base.
Whose bones were those?
My throat wobbled, and I tightened my grip on Sebastian’s hand. This wasn’t a portrait of power alone, but a warning wrapped around loss.
As he led me away, he said, “Jon and I began training to join Jokull’s army at ten. We were friends then. As close as brothers.” He inhaled sharply. “When I emerged as king, he transitioned to my second-in-command. I trusted him with much. Too much.” His tone iced. “He stole the rune.”
Ouch. “Yet now you ally with him?”
“A temporary arrangement. A kingdom divided in war will always fall.” Even as his gaze slid from me, he caressed his thumb over my hand. “He offered it to me once, years ago. If I begged for it.”
I could not imagine Sebastian Mórisi begging anyone for anything. “What did you do instead?”
A cold, murderous smile flashed, satisfaction oozing from him. “I only recently delivered my vengeance, wiping out half of his army and letting him believe the primordial did it. Afterward, Jon begged me for a truce.”
Such cunning. He’d turned Jon’s scheme against him. But the patience required to wait to deliver his vengeance must have been staggering.
We paused before a monument set in a recessed alcove.
Unlike the primordial artwork, this piece used pale, smooth driftwood.
It depicted a kraken queen standing at the edge of a tide-ring, one hand lifted, clutching a rune stone, the other palm braced over her heart.
Unarmed and unarmored, yet the tide beneath her feet surged outward, frozen in rock mid-crash, as if obeying her very will alone.
Fine lines of light traced the rune, seeming to radiate from her touch.
“Can you hear these?” I asked, curious.
“They are decorations, not real.” He peered at the statue. “This is my mother. Magnificent, wasn’t she?”
My jaw dropped. His mother? “She was beautiful.” Elegance merged with strength.
He breathed deep. “I did not drive out Jokull before. She did. She’s the one who wielded the convergence rune back then. The reason it awoke.” His expression became adoringly soft and terrifyingly lethal. “She did it to save me.” Then his face blanked. “And she died for it.”
I squeezed his hand and pressed closer, resting my head on his shoulder. No words, just comfort.
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Everyone assumed I was the one to expel Jokull, and I let them think it. I wanted—need—my shot at the primordial, and seizing the crown was the only way.”
Well, no wonder he didn’t have the rune now. It hadn’t faded from him because it had never been his.
I’d been so sure he’d done the deed, that he’d paid the toll himself. I’d been wrong about the payee.
“My mother welcomed the rune, and it fed her its power. It will do the same for me, but better.” He jutted his chin.
“She was frail from hunger and weak from blood loss, and it drained her fast. Jokull, however, operated at full strength. And yet, even still, she was strong enough to spew him from the dome.”
That. That must be the cost. Would it drain Sebastian?
He spotted the question on my face. “I won’t let it drain me.”
Pretty words, but some things couldn’t be controlled. I kept the thought to myself, intending to sit with it before I instigated any kind of debate.
“And you, back then? You were missing a pinky and probably hurting in a thousand other ways.”
His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I helped her as best I could until she took her last breath. I couldn’t save her. This time—” any softness in him vanished “—I will wipe even Jokull’s memory from this realm.”
Aching all over again for the boy he’d been, I flattened my free hand against his chest, just over his thumping heart. “And I will help you.”
“You will.” His gaze dropped to my hand. Something in his expression softened. His fingers curled around mine, then abruptly severed contact with a curse.
Cold rushed in, swamping me, shattering the soft tenderness of the moment. “Sebastian?” I fought both sadness and frustration. This was the same kind of withdrawal he’d executed after the Tideweave. This man despised vulnerability; that much was obvious, even without Lady Harpa’s warning.
He raked his hand through his hair. “My enemies would love to exploit my woman. I cannot count the number of warriors I’ve watched fall because they chose romance over obligation. I will not—cannot—do the same.”
His grandmother was right. The man before me would never want to keep his firebrand long-term. But she was wrong about one thing: minds could be changed, even Sebastian’s.
“I’ve seen the opposite. In Ashmorra, dragon couples thrive, strengthened by their unity. Firebrands—” I said the word out loud, rather than gluing a pretty label over it “—protect each other.”
“Give them time,” he said, his tone bleak. “They’ll fall. They always do.” Head high, he started off without me. “Come. There’s more to see.” He disappeared around a corner.
I stood rooted, wondering how to proceed with him.
If I wanted this man, I’d have to fight for him.
That much was clear. The belief that love and firebrands were a weakness ran deep.
Straight to the trauma he hoped to avenge.
The death of his parents. The loss of his finger.
But fighting for him meant putting my own heart on the line.
Right now, only the mission mattered. After we won, he would offer to set me free from my contract, as our bargain stipulated, but I could say nein. I could maybe… stay.
Hopeful, I followed the path he’d taken, entering a vast chamber filled with awe-inspiring treasures salvaged from sunken vessels.
Towering shelves and low pedestals displayed relics pulled from the deep.
Jeweled goblets crusted with salt, shattered crowns fused back together with gold seams, navigational instruments frozen mid-calculation.
But it was coins that dominated the space. Mountains of them.
Ancient, foreign, and mismatched. Gold stamped with forgotten emblems, edges worn smooth by centuries of currents. They glittered softly under the bioluminescent glow, not polished to perfection but burnished by survival.
Oh, my stars. The dragon in me pleaded to hoard, hoard, hoard. “This is… I can’t even…”
Sebastian stood before a series of open wooden trunks with his hands in the pockets of his pants, watching me as I flitted from this selection of coins to that selection, exclaiming with wonder. The dragon purred with excitement.
“Kraken have a natural urge to claim their wealth,” he told me. “From the sea, from history, from the bones of empires.”
Once, twice, a dozen times, I almost reached out to trace my fingertips over the collection. “They’re so beautiful.” Had I slurred my words?
“I thought you might like these.” He grinned, more big bad wolf than vengeful kraken. “Go ahead. Touch.”
“Seriously?” Squealing, I dove my fingers into a mess of heavy trade coins. They were thick, irregular discs stamped with tide-marks and crowned beasts rather than the usual faces.
The mysterious berserker beside me had grown still. “What?” I asked, craning my face to look at him.
“Nothing.”
Nein, not nothing. “You’re smiling.”
He canted his head. “Am I?”
Nervous now and not sure why, I began to ramble.
“Dragons are collectors by nature. I’ve been drawn to gold coins my whole life.
At home, I store the bulk of my assortment in an underground cavern, but I keep a bowl of them on my nightstand.
Nothing grand. Just one coin from every dragon province where I’ve danced. Proof I was there, I suppose.”
He absorbed my words, and I could almost see the wheels turning in his mind.
Lady Harpa’s warning surfaced. How he remembered everything and forgot nothing. I thought he might be adding details to the mental file labeled All Things Bronwyn and hid a grin.
“Did you know kraken and dragons once worked together?” he asked.
“Above us, beyond the dome that protects my realm, are islands where the dragons lived. They used their fire to make gold, which drew the attention of humans. The kraken destroyed the ships, ensuring those humans never reached the islands, and in thanks, the dragons dropped gold into the ocean.”
I’d heard stories, certainly, but I hadn’t known we were so close to history. It made the dome’s enclosure a little less restrictive. But. Hmm. The coins began to hum faintly, a low vibration climbing my arms.
I chuckled. Dragon gold sang like this too, a resonance only my kind could feel, the metal remembering the fire that created it. Giddier by the second, I pressed my palm flatter against the pile, chasing the sensation. Hello, old friends.
Except, I also heard tapping. Tap, tap. Tap, tap. It cut through my thrill. Different from coins, coming from somewhere above. Like a servant at a door. Someone come to fetch us, perhaps, or announce the next wing of the gallery?
My ears twitched toward it. A second later, Sebastian went rigid.
Something was wrong.
Rubbing the dome-rune on his chest, he jerked his gaze up. Cold fury coated his features as a strange glow began to seep through his clothing.
I followed his stare and realized I’d let the coins overshadow instinct.
Hundreds of merfolk covered the dome, their bodies long and powerful, scaled in iridescent hues that shifted between oil-slick black, venomous green, and bruised violet.
Webbed hands ended in talons and gripped the surface with ease.
Their faces were beautiful but unsettling, with eyes too large, pupils slit, and mouths lined with rows of fine, translucent teeth that caught the light as they hissed down at us.
Many wore harnesses of bone and coral, embedded with glowing runes, similar to Sebastian’s, while others wielded massive, trident-like tools that pulsed with pressure and light.
Then the tapping stopped and a shudder ran down my back.
One beat.
Two.
A coordinated crew surged forward. They brandished long, dark armaments I couldn’t identify, striking the structure in perfect rhythm.
Each impact reverberated through the dome above us.
With every blow, fractures spiderwebbed across the glassy surface.
One crack became three. Three became dozens.
The jagged lines raced outward with terrifying speed, branching and connecting.
A water droplet fell, hitting me on the cheek.
This was a siege.
I braced for battle, claws extending from my fingertips. Though I’d never fought, I had the training.
Sebastian dove for me, trying to shelter me as the dome shattered, thousands of pounds of water flooding upon us in an instant.