CHAPTER 67: THE SOVEREIGN OF THE SEA

The silence stretched, water swirling faintly in the wake of her shivering scales.

Caedrion inhaled slowly, schooling his features.

Then, deliberately, almost coyly, he let his gaze falter.

His eyes darted aside, his cheeks flushed as though with embarrassment.

It was an act, a mask hastily woven, but one she longed for.

Softly, as though the word itself burned his lips, he spoke:

"...Thalassaria."

Her name carried into the abyss, muffled but unmistakable.

He forced the tone as though shy, hesitant, as if yielding to her demand out of bashful surrender rather than calculation.

The effect was instantaneous.

Thalassaria’s entire form lit with ecstasy, her scales shimmering with teal fire, her laugh bubbling like a tide breaking against stone.

She hugged him close, rocking him in her coils as if he were both lover and cherished child.

"Yes..." she hissed in glee, stroking his hair, pressing her cheek to his. "Yes, my guppy. My darling. You spoke it! You are mine!"

Inside, Caedrion’s stomach churned.

But outwardly, he blushed deeper, averting his gaze once more, keeping the illusion alive.

Fucking kill me now....

Thalassaria’s coils tightened around Caedrion’s waist, and before he could protest she surged upward through the abyss.

The currents obeyed her, streams of water spiraling to lift them with impossible speed.

Pressure that should have crushed his lungs simply parted around her glowing form.

The blackness gave way to light.

Not sunlight, but an eerie teal radiance that shimmered through vast arches of coral and stone.

Towers spiraled like seashells, their surfaces inscribed with runes that pulsed in rhythm with the tide.

Streets of pearl and obsidian wound through gardens of swaying kelp, where creatures with too many eyes slithered between statues of kings long drowned.

Caedrion froze, breath catching as he gazed across the panorama. Atlantis, he thought, unbidden.

The lost city of myth, or at least how men of his old world had dreamed it.

Grand, ancient, and untouched by time.

But this place was no ruin. It was alive.

Naga of every hue swam among the towers, their scaled bodies gleaming, their voices carrying in low, echoing songs.

The sight of him, a lone human in the coils of their queen, stopped them cold.

Their stares burned hotter than magma.

ome glared with naked hostility, their fangs bared.

Others with thinly veiled jealousy, hands tightening on weapons they dared not draw.

Caedrion’s throat dried.

Naked, unarmed, utterly at her mercy, he felt their gazes as blades pricking his skin. His every instinct screamed danger.

Thalassaria noticed. She turned her head, lips brushing his temple, voice soft and venomous all at once.

"Let the minnows glare with envy," she whispered, stroking his jaw. "It is all they can do. They may wish to murder you, to rip you from my coils, but they cannot act."

Her scales brushed against him as she tightened her embrace, guiding him through the great coral gates into the heart of the city.

The waters themselves seemed to pulse with her words.

"The waves answer to me, little guppy. Every current, every breath of tide. All who dwell beneath them are mine, subject to my will. None may harm you while you are wrapped in me."

The naga citizens bowed low as their queen passed, though their eyes never left him.

Some burned with hatred, others with fear.

Caedrion forced his expression into guarded calm, though inside his stomach twisted.

She’s not lying, he thought grimly.

These people can’t touch me. But that doesn’t mean they won’t wait for a moment she turns away.

Thalassaria only laughed, delighted by his tension.

She pressed him tighter against her chest, as though flaunting him before the hostile stares.

"See how they look at you?" she cooed, her eyes gleaming with a madness that both terrified and entranced.

"They cannot believe you exist. That I chose you. But you are mine, Caedrion. Mine to crown above them all."

The streets stretched endlessly ahead, lined with glowing spires and monuments carved from leviathan bones.

For all its beauty, Caedrion felt no awe now, only the weight of countless hostile eyes, and the coil of the queen’s embrace binding him like shackles.

Thalassaria swept through the coral avenues like a storm given form.

The currents themselves parted before her coils, the teal glow of her leylines bathing every surface in shifting light.

Caedrion, bound in her arms, could only watch as the spires of Submareth rose higher, their tips lost in the ocean’s gloom.

At last they reached it: a hall of titanic scale, carved into the side of a trench wall.

Obsidian pillars wound with living coral rose like columns of a drowned cathedral.

A dais of living stone crowned with thrones of pearl and bone dominated the far end, the walls lined with ancient carvings, battles fought, seas claimed, gods drowned.

The courtiers of Submareth were already gathered.

Hundreds of naga, their scales gleaming in the glow of enchanted lanternfish, turned as one when their queen entered.

Their songs faltered. Silence fell, heavy and tense.

And then they saw him.

A human, naked but for the cloak of her coils, carried in her arms like a prize.

Gasps rippled through the chamber, scales rattled as spears shifted, and in a dozen pairs of eyes burned disbelief, fury, envy.

Thalassaria’s smile was radiant.

She carried him to the dais as though he were already crowned.

With deliberate ceremony, she coiled about her throne, seating herself while keeping Caedrion tight against her, her hand stroking through his hair.

"My court," she said, her voice echoing like a tidal wave across the chamber.

"Behold. The man who shattered the tyrants of the Crucible. The one I have chosen. Your king-consort."

A murmur of outrage rose immediately.

Some lowered their heads, bowing without hesitation. But others remained upright, their eyes blazing with defiance.

One bold noble slithered forward, his fins flared, voice carrying in a hiss.

"No, my queen. This cannot stand. A land-dweller? A human magus of dirt to sit at your side? You insult the blood of Submareth. You insult the Abyss itself!"

Several others hissed agreement, their bodies arching in open refusal.

Caedrion stiffened.

His heart pounded as he felt their gazes, the hunger in them, the very real promise of violence.

For the first time, he wondered if they might indeed strike him down.

Thalassaria only tilted her head, eyes narrowing, the glow of her leylines brightening until the whole chamber shimmered with teal fire.

And then, without a word, the rebels began to convulse.

Their eyes bulged, their mouths opened in silent screams as water poured into their lungs.

Their coils thrashed, striking against coral and stone, before their bodies went limp, drifting lifelessly in the current.

The chamber fell utterly still.

Thalassaria turned her head slowly toward Caedrion, holding him tighter as though shielding him from the sight, or flaunting it for his benefit.

Her lips brushed his ear, her whisper low and intimate:

"I told you, little guppy. The sea is mine, and all in it. You thought they would dare act while you were away from my side? So cute... so naïve."

Her tail curled tighter around him, her hand pressing to his chest as if marking him.

"No life within the sea can escape my command, no matter how far they swim. I know all. I command all. And now you do too."

The courtiers bowed, some trembling, some shivering with awe.

None dared lift their eyes again.

Caedrion’s stomach twisted as he forced himself to remain calm in her coils.

Every instinct screamed at him to fight, to flee, but he knew better.

For now, he had to play along. He had to survive.

And Thalassaria smiled down at him, utterly convinced that her tide had already carried him beyond the shore of resistance.