“Enough,” she said, her tone clipped and controlled. “Whatever this was, it ends here. My father will not see us walk into dinner like children brawling in the courtyard.”
Calder and Caspian exchanged a look, scowls still etched on their faces, but neither argued. Atlas huffed, his blades lowering reluctantly. Jax flicked his knife once before sheathing it, smirk returning but thinner than usual.
Sapphire’s eyes swept over them all, hard but not unkind. “Get cleaned up. Straighten yourselves. In minutes, you’ll be seated before the King of Coralyth. If you want his respect, you will not look like wild boys dragged in off the street.”
Marco nodded quickly, adding his own weight to her command. “She’s right. We don’t win anything by fighting here. Save your strength—and your pride—for what matters.” His gaze lingered on Atlas and Jax until they grudgingly fell in line.
The group began to disperse toward their quarters, tension thick but contained.
As Marco turned to follow, Colby’s hand shot out, firm on his arm. Marco glanced back, surprised at the sudden urgency in his brother’s eyes.
“Walk with me,” Colby murmured, low enough that only Marco heard.
The look in Colby’s firelit gaze wasn’t anger or annoyance—it was worry, edged with something heavier. Marco, sensing the weight behind it, nodded silently and followed his brother into a quieter corridor away from the others.
The tide carried them into the grand dining chamber of Coralyth, a vast hall carved of ivory coral and inlaid with glowing pearl veins that lit the water in shifting shades of blue and green. A long table stretched across the center, its surface made from the polished shell of some ancient leviathan.
The brothers filed in behind Sapphire, each carrying the weight of their own feelings:
- Colby walked tall, expression firm, masking the storm inside him. He kept his jaw tight, eyes sharp—not just from the earlier courtyard tension, but from the secret knowledge of the forbidden books he’d discovered.
- Marco’s features were calm, almost diplomatic, but his eyes darted often, the strategist in him already reading the room, gauging every look, every breath. He carried Sapphire’s story in his chest, heavier than armor.
- Atlas strode forward with his usual grin, but it was thin, stretched; his eyes still burned from the clash with Calder. Beneath the bravado, he simmered, itching for the fight to restart.
- Jax slouched into step, lips curled in a lazy smirk, but his gaze was razor-sharp, flicking to every guard, every possible exit. His expression said amused, but his mind was on edge.
Sapphire entered at their side, her glow dimmer than usual, her jaw set. She hadn’t forgotten the courtyard, but she forced herself into the poise of a princess, unwilling to let her father see the storm beneath her calm.
Already seated near the king’s dais were two of Nerios’s most trusted advisers.
- One was a thin, eel-like man draped in flowing kelp robes, his eyes sunken but gleaming with cunning intelligence. He leaned on a coral staff, his fingers long and twitching, as if calculating everything before him.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
- The other was broad, heavy, his armor forged from jagged black coral, his jaw set like stone. His expression was one of perpetual disapproval, as though the princes’ very presence offended the sea.
Around the chamber, guards took their places—tall, spear-bearing sentinels with unreadable faces, their tridents pointed down but ready. Their watchful eyes never left the four brothers.
At the far end of the table, the seat of honor was left open—King Nerios’s place. The rest of the table had been arranged with deliberate precision: Sapphire seated beside her father’s chair, Calder and Caspian opposite the surface princes.
The brothers took their seats in silence, tension thick enough to taste in the water. Colby sat straight-backed, Marco leaned forward with measured calm, Atlas lounged with forced ease, and Jax spun a knife idly beneath the table until Colby shot him a sharp look that made him tuck it away.
The advisers whispered to one another, the guards shifted, and the water seemed to still in anticipation.
The dinner had begun in silence—yet the air felt as heavy as a battlefield.
The heavy gates of the dining chamber swung open, and the current shifted as King Nerios entered. His presence alone hushed the murmurs of advisers and stilled the guards’ postures. He walked with a slow, commanding grace, his long hair drifting in waves behind him, his eyes sharp and steady as the abyss.
He raised a coral chalice, filled with shimmering liquid that caught the glow of the hall.
“To the tides that bind us,” he said, his voice rolling like distant thunder. “May they carry us where we are meant to go—whether to peace or to war.”
The room echoed with the lifting of cups. Sapphire sipped delicately, her expression unreadable. Calder and Caspian drank deeply, their stares still fixed like harpoons on the surface princes.
Nerios lowered his cup, then seated himself at the head of the table, his gaze turning almost immediately to Marco.
Plates of delicacies from the sea were set before them—shellfish seasoned with strange herbs, luminous kelp wrapped in ribbons of pearl-flesh, and cuts of leviathan meat that seemed to pulse faintly with power. The brothers ate cautiously, though Atlas tore into his meal with relish while Jax toyed with his food, testing textures and weight as though expecting poison.
Conversation drifted, mostly from Sapphire and the advisers, until Nerios leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Marco.
“You spoke boldly in my hall,” the king said, his tone low but direct. “Most would have cowered under my words. But you chose to stand.”
Marco met his gaze, voice calm, steady. “Fear cannot build trust. And trust is what will matter if we are to find peace between our kingdoms.”
Nerios hummed, almost amused. “Peace… or survival. Do you think we need your aid, boy?”
Marco’s lips quirked faintly, not arrogant but confident. “I think we both need each other. My people cannot fight the sea and survive. And your people cannot thrive in isolation forever. The land and the tide could strengthen each other—if pride doesn’t drown us first.”
The words stirred murmurs from the advisers, but Nerios’s eyes narrowed with something closer to respect. He leaned back, sipping from his chalice. “You speak well. Perhaps too well for your age. But words… words alone will not sway me.”
Marco nodded, undeterred. “Then I’ll prove them, in action.”
A tense silence hung, but Nerios did not dismiss him. Instead, the faintest curl touched the king’s lips, an acknowledgment that Marco had planted a seed.
As the conversation continued, Colby’s attention drifted across the table. His eyes settled on Calder, who sat stiffly, a goblet in hand. At first, it seemed nothing—until Colby looked closer.
Calder’s grip was too tight, his knuckles white. His pupils flickered unnaturally, as though shadows were swimming inside them. Faint ripples of dark energy curled from his wrist into the water, subtle but wrong, almost like ink bleeding into the tide.
Colby’s firelit eyes narrowed. Not just anger. Not just jealousy. Something else… something darker.
He clenched his jaw, the weight of the forbidden texts he’d found earlier flashing in his mind. Sea monsters, corruption, control. And now Calder, twitching as though some unseen hand coiled around him.