Page 32

T oday, the Watcher would meet with Queen Astraea and Ryton had been called to attend the report on her visions as she scried in her great bowl of volcanic rock.

Despite the acid rising in his belly at the thought of what the queen would learn—and how he might very well be strung across the chasm to die for not telling the queen what he’d heard from the dying Jade during the recent battle—Ryton finished his breakfast of sliced eel and breaker fish that he’d boiled in an earthblood vent outside his back door.

He enjoyed large breakfasts that were more akin to dinners.

Hearty helpings, high in protein, with a fair-sized net of fresh sea apples to top it all off.

There were days when he had no time to eat after he’d left his home, days of endless strategy meetings, training, or warring.

So bolting down what sustenance he had on hand before he left was only sensible.

Ryton’s home was not much more than three spaces and a few tunnels hollowed from the teal green rock.

He had built a hammock for sleeping, a few cabinets for storage, and braided a seaweed rug for each room.

Windows with proper shell shutters could be opened to allow clean currents to sift through on days when the weather was good—calm waters and comfortable temperatures.

The table beside his hammock held a carved image of his brother and sister, back when they were children together.

The smiles on their faces, happiness ruined by the dragons, pushed Ryton to train harder and fight with passion.

The image was the only sentimental item in the whole house.

Sitting on the edge of Scar Chasm, Ryton’s place did not look welcoming. But he liked it that way. He did not care for visitors. At home, all he wanted was peace and quiet.

Upon leaving, he didn’t bother locking his stone door.

Only those folk whose job it was to harvest glow creatures dared the Scar Chasm’s electric eels and lanky sharks.

And honestly, if they wanted to steal Ryton’s manuals on battle strategy or his stash of food, they were welcome to it.

Blackwater knew they weren’t paid enough for the risks they took so everyone could have light in the darkest reaches.

And if the queen, displeased that he’d been too much of a coward to risk telling her what he’d heard from that Jade, decided to break down his door and destroy his home, no lock would stop her rage.

The murky waters of the chasm and its bevy of illuminated longfish, nautili, and jellyfish faded as Ryton passed a human shipwreck.

The masts had long broken free of the main ship, and they shifted in the pull of the sea like an old giant’s fingers, ready to grab unsuspecting sea folk.

Ryton would never stop being amazed by the talent and daring of the long dead humans.

Yes, they had been terrible and his sworn enemies, but they had stones. He could not deny it.

As he swam into the populated areas of Tidehame, the pathways straightened. The city planners had brought in white sand to line the pathways and tied glowing nautili along their borders. Most of the sea folk lived in group homes like the one Ryton passed now.

Bright purple and black striated rock stretched from the ocean floor to the moon-touched upper reaches of the water. Doors and windows showed families dining, some sleeping already, and one group of younger sea folk playing instruments.

Outside a ground-floor window the length of a full grown bull shark, Ryton slowed to enjoy the music. He was stalling, but would never have admitted that.

A dark-haired female turned the steel handle of a winding wail , her other hand pressing the strings down in varying patterns. A melancholy tune poured from the shell attached to the end of the four-foot instrument.

Beside her, a male with an impressive chin knocked a hammer against a set of brass hardbells, adding percussion to the song. Another male—too young for fighting but not far from it—sang along, his voice carrying with his water magic through the pull of the tide to reach Ryton’s ears.

Pushing away from the song, Ryton kept on, toward álikos Castle.

He had a job to do, and honestly, he had to be there when the Watcher announced what she saw.

If it was nothing, he would need to placate Astraea so she didn’t fall into a rage and slaughter the nearest guard.

If the Watcher saw the falling Jade or heard his words about an Earth Queen, Ryton would need to call Grystark and Venu and begin discussing strategy with the queen.

If it didn’t come out that he’d heard such news already…

Inside Astraea’s chambers, the Watcher had already set up shop. And the queen had called her other two generals, Venu and Grystark, already.

Ryton fought to keep his stomach from emptying right there on the mosaic-shell floor.

Venu nodded in greeting and Grystark smiled, a gesture that was more pain than happiness.

“Get on with it.” The queen swam back and forth behind the Watcher.

The Watcher’s hunched back moved in a deep breath as she reached her veiny hands over her bowl of volcanic rock to grip the sides. Her cloak of salt tulip leaves slid away from her forearms, showing fins that were surprisingly firm and shining. There was power in her still.

“I must wait for the feel of it, my queen.” The Watcher’s head lifted and she turned to Ryton, a smile stretching her wrinkled mouth. “High General Ryton.”

He bowed to her even though she had no eyes to see it. Somehow she saw everything in both the physical and metaphysical world. “Honor to you, Watcher,” he said quietly after bowing deeply to the Sea Queen.

Old stories claimed the Watcher clawed her own eyes out when the Sight came on her. She couldn’t stand seeing double when the visions came. Ryton had always wondered if she regretted that hasty action, but of course, he would never ask. That would be horribly rude.

Besides, she most likely knew he was curious about it.

She couldn’t see everything in the great world, but she saw many things and was keenly perceptive when it came to those around her regularly.

Last year, she’d told Grystark to remove the growing lump on his thigh fin before it killed him.

He did as she instructed and the healers confirmed the fin was eroding with blueeater, the disease that tended to take down sea folk if one lived long enough.

Now, the Watcher leaned over her bowl and peered into its empty depths. She said the shape of it, the hollow of it, helped her to focus.

“I see a storm,” she mumbled, wiping spittle from her mouth.

“Where? Near the Lapis lands? Or in the North?” the queen asked.

“In the far, far south. Southern hemisphere.”

The queen waved the information off. “Move on. No one cares about the desolate southern realms.”

“I see three Jade younglings.”

Venu snarled quietly and his hands became fists.

The general, second to Grystark and Ryton in rank, traded a look with Ryton that reminded him of how many he’d lost to the battle with the green dragons.

Ryton shuttered his own eyes halfway and gave the male a nod of acknowledgement.

He too mourned those new recruits, lost too young to the vicious Jades and the dragonfire that bled into the waves themselves. Such abominations dragons were.

“What is so special about these young ones?” Astraea demanded, her sharp teeth flashing like pearls in the light of the nautili along her walls.

“They were born in the far, far North. Not here.”

“What of it?” The queen raised a hand like she was about to strike the Watcher.

Ryton swam to her and gently took her fingers, then kissed them. “She’ll tell you, my queen. She will.”

The queen glared, but allowed him to keep caressing her hand.

“I see … I see that these three Jade younglings, born in the far northern edges of the island, under the cold sky’s flurry of color, will rise to be the strongest of all.”

Did she mean strongest of the Jade territory?

“If we don’t drown them as eggs.” The queen crushed Ryton’s hand in hers.

“I’m not a dragon,” he whispered into her ear, going for a teasing tone and wincing at her strength. He was no shrimp, but this Queen was Touched, imbued with water magic he couldn’t dream of. Her power went far beyond muscle and bone.

She threw his hand and swam to the far end of the Watcher’s bowl. “What else do you see? Anything we actually need to know?”

Ryton knew Astraea worried that the dragons had learned about the underwater tunnel.

The Watcher shook her head, her hood sliding away from her straggly white hair. She sat straight up and slammed her hands onto the sides of the bowl. “By the Blackwater.”

The queen yanked her away from the bowl and gripped both of the Watcher’s arms. “Tell me. What did you see?”

The Watcher swallowed, her leathery throat moving in successive swallows. When she finally spoke, the normally deep and confident timbre of her voice went reedy and thin. “The Earth Queen. An Earth Queen. She has washed in the Blackwater of the elves. She begins her journey.”

Ryton’s heart hung in his chest. It was as the Jade had said. There was a surviving human. And she wasn’t only a regular human. She was an Earth Queen.

The room went hazy, and Ryton put a hand on Grystark’s chest to steady himself.

Astraea dropped the Watcher’s arms and swam backward slowly, her eyes widening and the veins at her temples pulsing. “That can’t be. I killed them. I killed them all.”

“This can’t be true,” Grystark said, allowing Ryton to keep his hand where it was. “We annihilated the last of the things at Tristura. None of our scouts—”

The queen flew at Grystark, clawed hands out and spells drumming from her lips. Before Ryton could fully process what was happening, he had flung out an arm and spoken a spell to throw the queen back.

Shocked, she stared at Ryton.

Grystark and Ryton both went to their knees, sand and shell grinding against their flesh.