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R yton swam through a school of striped redfish and they scattered, dashing toward the distant surface of the sea. He had no time for beauty, or breakfast. Echo had reported that the gray-haired and diseased elf who’d turned on his own kynd was on the coast, ready to talk.

Jaw tight and gills flaring, Ryton couldn’t swim fast enough. They needed to know everything about this supposed Earth Queen.

Hopefully, the elf would tell them Mattin had killed her. If not, well, this might be the day Ryton killed his first elf.

The elves had once warred with his kynd, but they’d given up fighting the sea before Ryton’s birth.

Their air magic did little against crashing waves.

True, the spelled salt water did not affect them as it did dragons, but they could drown like the humans had.

The elves had powerful flesh, but if a sea warrior sharpened his coral spear correctly, the elves’ bodies split beneath the weapon’s edge with only a dose more strength behind the blow.

Ryton’s curiosity begged him to get a closer look at an elf.

He hadn’t seen one close up and wanted to know how they moved and spoke, what their mannerisms were and how they differed from sea folk.

Of course, elves had no fins along their skulls, arms, back, or legs.

But more than the obvious contrasts, he longed to see how they gestured when angry and how they behaved in greeting.

Once he reached the end of the more sandy run beyond Tidehame, Ryton increased his speed further. His body was warmed up now and he could move more quickly than most. His sensitive sea folk eyes told him the light above water had moved and it was nearly time to rendezvous with the scouts.

A verdant forest of panypsila fykia told Ryton he was getting closer to the edge of the mainland where the Forest of Illumahrah and the elves’ plateau held fast to the ocean floor. The wide leaves of the seaweed forest waved gently, brushing his beard and shoulders like hands.

He left the green-black of that place and swam toward the wreck of another human vessel. This one was far older than the one near his own home. No masts remained, only a portion of the … hull. He recalled the word from his school years long ago.

Wishing he had time to scour the place, he began to glide past, but a glint flashed from the sand near the last section of the hull.

It was something made of silver, that material the humans loved almost as much as their gold.

As he dug around the object, trying to free it, sand billowed around his fingers. It was a human coin.

Blackened nearly to the point of being completely unreadable, the disc had two crossed lines across the side that was less damaged by age and water.

The lines divided the coin’s face into four sections, with a few squiggly marks directly in the center.

Ryton tilted the silver piece this way and that.

He rubbed it with a thumb, but he still couldn’t quite tell what the symbols in each section were. Maybe a flame at the top right?

Ryton tucked the coin into the sealinen bag attached to his shell belt and kicked away from the wreckage. Later, he would study the coin in the privacy of his own home, away from the queen’s prying eyes. He knew exactly what she would do if she noticed his interest in a land artifact.

Astraea’s two scouts floated above an algae-covered outcropping along the edge of the island. Still underwater, their dark clothing and blue-black hair twisted in the tidewater, both sets of their arms crossed. They weren’t happy about this mission. Never had been.

The most experienced one, Calix, wore a look of resignation. He never could hide his emotions. Face like an open book. He ran a hand over his high hairline, then saluted to Ryton.

“The elf should be above now, waiting for us, High General.”

Echo, the second scout, saluted more sharply than Calix. The sun pierced the few feet of seawater above them and glowed over her short hair and her hands, hands that seemed a little too large for her frame.

Ryton saluted in return. “Do you have the tuber for him?”

Echo lifted a sack of the sea plant that the elf wanted to relieve himself of pain, and possibly of life. Because of the elf’s fatal disease, he traded information for the tubers.

Ryton reached his arms wide, swimming toward the harsh light. “Then let’s get this over with.”

At the surface, the sea folk moved their second eyelids over the first to lessen the light and placed tympanic leaves over the gills along their necks.

The air eased through the porous, water-soaked leaves and allowed their bodies to continue to process oxygen in the same manner as they did underwater.

It wasn’t comfortable, but in order to speak and stay above the waves for any length of time, it was necessary.

Pale sand stretched from the water to a spit of land covered in grasses and small trees that looked like diseased coral branches.

The elf crouched at the end of the isle, his face drawn and whiter than the beach.

His sickness was most likely to blame for his pallor.

The wind kicked up, and he pushed a strand of gray hair behind one pointed ear.

His sleeve fell back to show a forearm missing any type of fin.

Ryton couldn’t help but think this creature looked naked without the translucent fins that ran along everyone else’s arms.

Ryton swam closer as the elf called out in greeting.

“Good day, sea folk,” the creature croaked. The elf glanced over his own shoulder, toward the forest. Most likely he was merely making certain he hadn’t been followed, but Ryton readied his spear just in case an army of elves came out of the coral— no, the trees, he reminded himself.

“Please.” The elf reached a shaking hand over the water, his eyes wide and focused on the bag of tubers that Echo had brought up.

The elvish language was old and all sea folk were taught to read and speak it, along with human and dragon too. Though most sounds were incredibly difficult to produce, a lack of education simply wasn’t tolerated.

“Please give me the plant,” the elven spy said. “I’ll tell you all. There has been a great disturbance here and it will prove important for your kynd.”

Ryton kicked his feet and rose higher, the harsh air biting at his chest. “You will tell us what you know, and then, only then, will you receive the amount of plant we decide you deserve. Or Echo can simply toss it back into the sea. You are welcome to swim down here to fetch it.” Ryton grinned like a shark.

The elf paled further and drew back. “It’s the King. He’s dead.”

Ryton rubbed at his ears. “I heard you wrong.”

“King Mattin is dead. As well as his right hand, Canopus.”

Ryton swam close and stood on the sandy ledge above the outcropping. The ocean lapped against his calves. The world listed to the side for a moment, mostly because he’d never been so far out of water, but also because this information, well, this changed everything.

His dense body weighed too much out of the water to move properly, so Ryton cupped a handful of the sea and whispered a spell. The sound of water magic bubbled and rushed past his ears. His bones and flesh grew lighter and he was able to take a confident step forward.

Ryton’s mind raced. King Mattin’s promise to Astraea had somewhat protected them from an Earth Queen. But if he was dead…

Frustration seared Ryton’s veins. He gripped the elf’s cloak and lifted the frail creature high. “How did he die? Did the new Earth Queen kill him?”

“The dragons,” the elf choked out, his spindly fingers winding around Ryton’s grip, “joined with the potential Earth Queen and one of our own who rebelled—they came together and took him down.”

“And your kynd didn’t rise up to save him?”

“Mattin was bent, wrong, foul. He had been drinking Blackwater.”

Ryton dropped the elf.

He splashed into the water, hissing and moaning. He managed to get himself up and onto the beach.

Ryton’s mind could not wrap itself around what the elf had told him. Drinking Blackwater? He swallowed disgust. To take the Source’s blessed waters into one’s own filthy mouth? Horrifying.

“The Blackwater didn’t injure him?”

“It gave him great power. Enhanced his ability to wield air magic. He could twist minds and turn memories away.”

The elf shuddered, and for the first time, Ryton was in tune with the land creature. What Mattin had done, it was unthinkable.

“But the Blackwater did take a toll. It tainted the crown he wore, making it possible for him to hurt his own royal blood, albeit indirectly, through his cohort Canopus. And I think drinking the Blackwater wore on the King’s own mind as well.

Now, I have told you plenty. Give it over. Give over the plant.”

“Where is this potential Earth Queen now?” Ryton demanded.

“The dragons and elves banded together and made an oath to her. The Lapis matriarch claims she is in their palace, arranging strategy to fight you, but the wind says otherwise.”

“Don’t speak in riddles, elf.”

He swallowed, gaze too wide and focused still on the bag. “The wind has told many of us that she travels to the place where the humans once reigned.”

“Toward the Bihotzetik ruins?”

“Exactly so.” A line of drool ran from the corner of his mouth.

Echo wiggled the bag and lifted her eyebrows, urging the elf to tell Ryton more.

Ryton scratched at the tympanic leaves lying on the gills at his neck. He stepped back into the water, letting the sea come up to his shoulders. “But why would she dare to enter the ocean?” he asked, talking more to himself than anyone else.

“That I do not know. Now fulfill your end of the bargain and I’ll listen further for you.” The elf’s voice cracked with want. “Did you know Mattin had been diluting the Blackwater we gave the humans for a long time? To weaken them?”

Ryton had no room in his mind for more information. He waved at Echo and she tossed the bag of tubers to the elf. Despite the creature’s obviously diseased and skeletal limbs, the elf leaped and grabbed the sack from the air.

Echo and Ryton dove back into the sea, leaving Calix above water for a moment to be sure the elf returned to his plateau and brought none else to the water.

“High General.” Echo swam beside Ryton, her spear catching a bright beam of sunlight through the shallows.

Ryton stripped the leaves from his neck and relaxed as much as one could knowing what he did. That there indeed was an Earth Queen and she had already slain one of Astraea’s allies.

“High General,” Echo said again.

“Yes?”

“If the Earth Queen heads into the water, won’t we simply kill her? I don’t understand your anger. Please forgive me if I’m overstepping, sir.”

“Because when a mission or a duty appears easy, simple to solve, it absolutely never is. You will learn that when you’ve spent year after year after year at war.”

“But hopefully I won’t have to.”

Ryton smiled briefly. “Indeed. I do hope you don’t have to learn and that we find peace. We can win. But I don’t have any illusions about how difficult it will be to finally claim the last of the land.”

Especially now, with all the creatures on the island joining forces.

There was no way to fully predict how this development would affect the war.

What would dragons and elves do together in a battle against them?

They’d always faced the creatures separately, with the elves hardly putting up a fight.

Their magic didn’t work well against Ryton and his kynd, thank the Blackwater.

But could they use their shadow, light, and air to aid the dragons?

Outside álikos Castle, Calix gave Ryton his full report. The elven spy had returned to the forest and would sink a rock-filled red cloak when he had more information.

Ryton's mind wandered to past battles and long ago losses as he dismissed Calix and Echo and swam through the emerald coral and yellow fish in the castle’s courtyard.

Queen Astraea herself appeared at the outer castle door, flanked by four guards.

Pulse tripping, Ryton bowed low. She must have been too eager to wait for him in her chambers.

Whispering a spell, she raised her arms, pearly skin shimmering in the glowing lights set above the red coral archway.

A membrane of turquoise flowed over her body, then stretched to envelop Ryton.

The guards stood outside the membrane, eyes wide with panic.

They remained where they were and did not act rashly.

They knew their Queen well enough not to act without being ordered to do so.

“None can hear us. Now. What did you learn?” Astraea’s voice was dangerous, her eyes half-lidded. The sea lifted the edges of her blue-green sea tulip dress and tossed her long hair. A crown of scarlet coral nested in the braids over her ears.

“Mattin is dead. The Earth Queen is headed for Bihotzetik.”

Astraea’s eyes closed and her hands fisted. “Go, High General Ryton.” Her gaze flashed open and bright, power surging from their depths. “Go and slay our enemy. If you fail, do not return.”

So this was to be a quiet mission, completed on his own. A chill traveled the length of his spine and the fingers gripping his spear tightened out of reflex to a threat.

Heart thudding, he thought of what Grystark would say. Run, friend. Run to the South and pray to the Source the queen is too busy to find you.

Ryton’s brother would order the opposite. Go, brother. Avenge our sister and destroy the one chance the dragons have to live a life our Selene never had the chance to live.

But Ryton was no coward and he did intend to avenge Selene.

He alone would face this Earth Queen, the one born to destroy Ryton and every last one of his kynd.

Or he would die trying.