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R yton hadn’t planned to be the Sea Queen’s consort. Yes, he’d nearly worked his fins off to become the youngest commander of the Sea Army ten years ago. Yes, he’d wanted power and influence. It was the only way to survive in the underwater world.

Eat or be eaten , his brother used to say when he was alive.

And sometimes, that was not only a metaphor.

But he had not planned on getting this close to Queen Astraea. No one was fool enough to do that. Granted, despite her age, she remained shockingly beautiful. But she was also cruel. Even more cutthroat than Ryton, and he was no angelfish.

Inside the queen’s multi-tiered rooms, deep within the vibrant, underwater walls of álikos castle, Astraea walked along the pale sand floor.

She idly touched her crown, which peeked through her blue-green hair.

Gold made up the base of the diadem, the metal supporting five points of scarlet coral inlaid with pearls and shells.

A luminescent curtain of seaweed grew from the ceiling of her chamber. The leaves cast a bright blue glow over the queen’s bare shoulders, sea tulip dress, and long, finned legs.

Desire bolted through Ryton and he pushed it away, wishing he could do so forever.

But it was complicated.

“If the Jades use dragonfire to melt our peak near Tidehame,” Astraea said, bubbles rising from her lips along with the small waves of sound, “we will need a new strategy.”

The queen kicked those lovely legs of hers, and the fins along the sides of her calves and thighs rippled as she swam to one of her many couches.

This one was made of the same scarlet coral as the castle walls.

A bed of salt moss covered the length of the piece.

Astraea lifted a pearl necklace from a bright orange coral shelf and lowered the string over her head.

The jewelry nestled in the intricately braided neckline of her dress.

The queen’s cheek dimpled as she looked down at herself.

Vanity aside, Ryton knew she worried about the Jades targeting their peak—with good reason.

A cavern filled with Blackwater hid under that cone of coral and rock.

If the dragons destroyed the Blackwater’s undersea shelter, where it blended magically with salt water, the sea folk would lose their most significant source of magic.

“We could distract the filthy reptiles with a double-headed, straight-on strike from units one and two, then send in the third unit to spear the dragons while the fourth lures them near.” Her soft, pink lips curved into a smile that gave Ryton the urge to check the shadowed corners of the room.

Sometimes, she looked too much like an elf, the creature from which all kynds had stemmed.

Elves lived near the original Blackwater spring.

Blackwater was in their very blood, and through it they had harnessed the power of the air, for all that was worth.

Humans had embraced the earth’s magic, moving rock and dirt like great insects, washing in Blackwater to wake their strength.

The dragons were the warped kynd, the worst of all.

They had lived too close to earthblood, magma infused with Blackwater magic.

Those creatures had developed an entire second form, with massive, grotesque wings to flee their own fiery havoc.

Couldn’t they see their own foulness? None of the other kynd had two forms.

Ryton gritted his teeth, remembering the day of his sister’s death. The smell of Selene’s flesh burning under a torrent of dragonfire. The shrill note of her scream, cut off when the Lapis matriarch finished her with the swipe of a spiked tail.

Selene had been on her first mission. Her last mission.

And Ryton's brother, on his deathbed, had made Ryton swear to get vengeance for their lost sister. A part of that oath included doing exactly what Queen Astraea asked. Ryton’s brother had meant well. Back then, none of them had truly known the queen.

Memories washed through Ryton’s mind—Selene’s sweet laugh and how her brown eyes had widened in fear when the dragons attacked. Bile filled his throat. She’d been too young to die.

In all the world, only the sea folk, his kynd, had improved with the combination of time and Blackwater sources. They worked pure water magic and had at last learned how to multiply salt water. Queen Astraea had developed the spellwork herself.

Now, Ryton rubbed his kelp-brown beard. “If we try that attack, we will lose two of our best units.”

The queen tapped slim fingers on her chin.

“And we’ll be left with lesser units to launch the full attack when the time comes,” he said.

Arguing with logic and strategy rather than honor or emotion was the only way to win with her.

She didn’t care about the sea folk who died even though they were hers to care for.

She wouldn’t even blink when Ryton’s only close friend, Grystark, led the first of those two doomed groups, despite the fact that Grystark had given his right arm, literally, to her cause already.

No, the queen would only see the win or the loss as it applied to her realm and her quest to cover the entire world in salt water.

He wanted the same outcome. It was the only way to rid them completely of the dragons and protect his kynd. But Ryton hoped to gain the victory without losing the last of his loved ones.

For two cycles of the moon, the queen and Ryton had argued about a planned series of attacks on the remaining dragons. He was the only creature regularly permitted to disagree with her.

“Give me one more meeting with Grystark,” he said, “and we’ll come up with a better plan for you. In the meantime, we will create confusion and fear by launching a small attack on Lapis territory.”

A smack of glowing jellyfish, white as moonlight, drifted past Astraea’s circular window.

“You feel strong enough to manage that yourself?” Astraea lifted an eyebrow, the gills on her slender throat moving.

“It will take a serious dose of magic to raise waves to a height that will actually do any damage. The Lapis aren’t like the fate-tempting Jades.

They don’t spend time near the cliffs. You’ll have to pull the water from the far eastern tides to have enough power to crash over the cliffs and then swamp even the lower levels of the mountain palace. ”

“I’m healed. I am ready.” He’d taken a hit of dragonfire during a raid on Jade territory, but the flesh of his arm and the charred scales on his leg were fully back to normal, as was his power, healed by the very Blackwater they’d discussed.

“Today we ran the most successful disturbance we’ve had yet below the Lapis cliffs, behind their mountain range. ”

“I heard about that. Ryton?”

“My queen?”

She was at his side in a second. So fast and powerful.

His body responded to her closeness despite the revulsion he felt, his skin warming and his blood pumping.

Her chest swelled under her pearls as she blew water past his ear.

The scent of her magic rose, a natural perfume of salt, blood, and freshly bloomed sea lilies.

His gills flared as the smell snaked through the deep blue water.

Her delicate fingers ran down his triceps, then through his brown hair.

Her round features were far too innocent-looking to belong to one such as she.

“Why do you follow me in this quest to pour my ocean across all the land?” She asked this question at least once a moon.

He always gave the same answer. His father and older brother had taught him the reason.

But Selene’s death truly motivated him. He would destroy all the Lapis matriarch loved before her very eyes.

Matriarch Amona would learn about true loss before Ryton and the armies flooded her land and ended her kynd once and for all.

“Because dragons are joyless creatures,” he said dutifully, “who destroy the beauty in the world and scoff at everything we hold sacred.”

The answer to Astraea’s question used to include Because elves are soulless and would kill us all if given the chance.

But the queen had made a deal with Mattin, king of the elves of Illumahrah.

Mattin had sworn to submit and render useless any human that managed to escape the flooding of the last of that kynd’s settlements, in case the human turned out to be an Earth Queen.

Astraea’s one true fear was an Earth Queen.

In return for Mattin’s heart-searing oath, the Sea Queen promised to allow the plateau that held the Forest of Illumahrah to remain dry.

Ryton knew that once she was certain of success, she would find a way to break that oath, a trick of magic to avoid the consequences of a promise like that, an oath that burned through lying hearts.

Yes, she would dig up an ancient spell or resort to dark power from the unknown, break her promise, and swamp the elves.

Her grin flashed like a fish in the sun. “You may go.” She waved a pale hand, dismissing him like he wasn’t her consort, but just another warrior in her vast armed forces.

He bowed, hiding his delight. If she knew how he longed for the nights when she didn’t require his company, she’d have him torn in two. She would think he wanted to go to another female.

But it wasn’t that.

On his nights off, Ryton explored the far reaches of the ocean, places no sea folk visited, save him.

In these lonely places, he’d glimpsed sunken cities of marble, built by the humans who were now extinct.

The distant currents held evidence of former elven civilizations too—crumbling archways that hummed with magic and fine swords with odd symbols and markings.

Ryton walked calmly from Astraea’s inner chamber and into the purple glow of the corridor that led to the descent to the first floor of the castle.

The soft hairs of the luminescent seaweed growing from the walls brushed his arms and legs.

One of Astraea’s scouts, Calix, swam by, stopping for a moment to salute.