CHAPTER 68: REVERSAL OF FORTUNE

The great doors of coral and pearl closed behind them with a resonant boom, shutting out the murmurs of Submareth’s court.

For the first time since being paraded before hundreds of hostile eyes, Caedrion was alone with her.

Alone in the sense that it was just the two of them... and the endless pressure of the ocean around them.

Thalassaria coiled languidly across a bed of woven kelp and silk, her teal glow softening now that the performance was over.

She pulled him into her coils again as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Caedrion cleared his throat, acutely aware of his state. His cheeks burned. "I... uh... I’d like some pants."

Her head tilted, scales catching the glow. "Pants?" she repeated, as though he’d asked for a square moon.

"Yes," he said, fighting not to wince. "Clothing. For my legs."

She blinked once. Then her lips curled in a smile, equal parts amused and baffled. "But you have nothing to cover. My people are not bound to such things. Scales are armor. Why should flesh be hidden?"

Her coils squeezed him playfully, and Caedrion felt the heat rise further up his neck.

"Because I’m human," he said, managing a strained laugh. "And we... cover ourselves. Especially men of rank."

"Ahhh," Thalassaria purred, eyes glittering as though he’d confessed a secret desire. "So modest, my guppy. So strange."

She tapped a claw against her chin, considering. "Very well. I will indulge you."

She waved a hand, summoning servants who slithered into the chamber carrying something that shimmered like woven glass.

The fabric gleamed with the faint glow of rune-threaded kelp and the translucent toughness of manta-skin.

They bowed low, presenting it as though it were royal regalia.

Caedrion took the garment with gratitude and slipped it on quickly, sighing as the strange material tightened to fit him.

To his surprise, it breathed easily underwater, the fibers exhaling bubbles whenever he shifted.

"There," she said, satisfaction lacing her voice. "My little guppy is dressed. If it eases your mortal dignity, then let it be so."

He nodded stiffly, adjusting the strange trousers. "Thank you," he said, carefully polite.

She leaned close, stroking his hair again.

"So careful with your words. So cautious." Her smile turned languid. "Do not think I miss it."

Caedrion’s heart hammered. He forced himself to meet her gaze.

"I’m... grateful. Truly. But I don’t understand. Why me? Why bring me here? You could have any warrior of the sea, any mage. Why a land-dweller?"

Her expression softened in that terrifying way of hers, like a storm breaking into sunlight.

"Because you are more than land. You are storm and fire, architect and king. I saw you crush Ignarion, bring the proud to ruin with steel and thunder. None of my people could stir such tides. Only you."

She brushed her lips against his ear. "You are mine. And I am yours. I’ve told you this, but do you understand the depth of its meaning?"

Caedrion’s stomach twisted.

He could still taste the truth in her words, not her love, but her certainty.

She believed this. And he realized, with a cold clarity, that survival meant playing along.

"Then I will... try to understand," he said slowly, feigning a hesitant softness.

"But I want to know you, first. Before..." He let the words hang, letting her fill in the meaning.

Her coils tightened with delight.

"Ahhh. So shy. So proper. Yes, I can wait. I will teach you of me, of the sea, of our eternity."

She pressed her cheek to his hair like a girl savoring her first crush, though the power that thrummed through her body could shatter cities.

Caedrion forced a small, awkward smile, averting his gaze. Inside, his thoughts whirred.

This is an opportunity. She commands the sea. She holds legions. She has resources beyond anything Dawnhaven could dream of.

If I can navigate her madness, if I can balance her obsession against my needs...

But the risks were obvious. One wrong word, one exposed lie, and she might crush him like driftwood.

Aelindria. The child. His family. Did she know? Had she seen?

If he denied them and she had been watching, he was dead. If he admitted them, what would her jealousy make her do?

Fine lines. Razor-thin.

He looked up as her claws combed through his hair again, her eyes shining with both adoration and possession.

For now, he would play the part. For now, he would be the blushing guppy she desired.

But inwardly, Caedrion vowed: I will find a way home. And if I must, I will bend even the sea itself to do it.

---

The palace felt hollow without him.

Aelindria paced the marble floors of Dawnhaven’s grand library, her hands twisting the hem of her gown until the fabric nearly tore.

She had not slept since the night he vanished.

Her bond with Caedrion flickered faintly in her mind, like a guttering candle in a storm, enough to prove he lived, but never enough to guide her to him.

Malveris sat hunched at a long oak table, parchment and tomes spread like a battlefield before him.

His staff leaned against his shoulder as he scribbled notes furiously, muttering half-spells under his breath and striking them out again with a growl.

Sylene, for her part, had sequestered herself amid the high shelves, her voice rising and falling in an endless litany as she scoured ancient codices for a single useful line.

Her usual composure had cracked; dust streaked her hands, her hair hung loose, and her eyes were ringed with fatigue.

"Nothing," she spat at last, slamming a leather-bound tome shut with a clap of dust.

"Ten thousand years of wards, treaties, barrier-lore, eidolon fragments, and not one line tells us how a man can vanish without trace, not through portal nor spell."

Malveris did not look up. "Because this was no spell," he muttered.

"No mortal working could steal him so cleanly. No residue, no tear in the veil. Something greater."

Aelindria spun on him, her eyes wild. "Then what, Father? What? If it is greater, then what hope do we have? I can feel him, I know he’s alive, but he drowns and suffocates in my head. Do you understand? I feel it every time he draws breath, a breath that is not his own!"

Her voice broke, and she collapsed against the table, trembling.

Sylene crossed the chamber swiftly, her hands gentle on her daughter’s shoulders.

"Steady yourself," she whispered. "If you lose hope, we all do. He yet lives. That is enough for now."

But her words were brittle. Even she did not believe them fully.

The three worked on in silence, the only sound the creak of shelves and the scratching of Malveris’s quill.

Candlelight guttered low. Shadows deepened between the columns.

And then, a sound not of their own making filled the hall.

At first it was a vibration, a low thrum that rattled the glass of lanterns and sent a ripple through the inkpots.

The servants stationed near the doors blinked but said nothing, as if they had heard nothing at all.

But the three magi froze.

The voice did not enter their ears, it entered their minds, deep and resonant, each syllable echoing as though spoken from beneath the earth itself.

"The void..."

Aelindria gasped, clutching her temples.

Malveris staggered to his feet, his staff flaring to life. Sylene’s lips went pale, her eyes darting across the ceiling though the sound had no source.

The servants nearby continued their work without pause, oblivious.

Malveris’s knuckles whitened on his staff. "You hear it too," he rasped.

Sylene nodded once, sharply. "Yes. Not illusion. Not madness. A voice."

Before any of them could speak further, it came again, louder, heavier, as though the stones themselves were groaning.

"The void rebels..."

The library shook. Dust sifted down from the rafters. Scrolls fell from their racks.

Aelindria cried out, doubling over, tears springing to her eyes. "It... it comes from below. Beneath us!"

Malveris’s face was ashen. "The Engine."

Silence pressed in after the words.

Sylene’s expression hardened, but her voice was quiet, reverent almost.

"The Engine that sustains Dawnhaven’s barrier. The ancient relic buried beneath the palace, bound since the Exodus. It has never spoken."

"Because it was never meant to," Malveris hissed. "It is not a device. It is... something else."

Aelindria lifted her head, her breath ragged. "Alive..." she whispered. "It’s alive. And it has woken."

The three stared at one another, fear and awe mingling in equal measure.

For ten thousand years, they had drawn upon the Engine’s power as if it were stone or steel, a relic of the Eidolons, unquestioned, unfathomed, unchanging.

But now the truth loomed, vast and terrible.

If the Engine spoke, then it thought.

If it thought, then it watched.

And if it now whispered of rebellion, then something deeper than even the Abyss had begun to stir.

Worst of all, it had mentioned the Void....