While Tripolis slept, the Diamond Storm raged. While Diamond Storm raged, the Assigner bathed in its radioactivity.
And tried to enjoy it, with futile effort, nonetheless. Enjoyment should never come with any effort, but now his mind was elsewhere entirely, not on pleasure but on the past. The hurtful, terrible past that he thought he left behind. Had Vectra not brought up her name, he would have continued his bath in peace, gathering his power and healing after that unseemly business with the Anchor.
As the diamonds were raining on Tripolis, the Assigner stepped into the middle of the shower, the hard granite piercing his skin, his golden blood oozing from all orifices until he couldn't bleed anymore and diverted the stream onto a particularly deep valley where Milada used to go to seek solace from his city. From his presence.
The gashes began to mend as the diamonds pummeled the earth away from his body. The White Snake found himself yearning for pain. It had been way too long, millenia, eons, endless ages since the first speck of the universe burst forth when he could still feel pain.
He missed it sometimes. The more that treacherous bitch rebelled, the more he wanted to inflict hurt upon himself. Constantly being reminded of the woman that left such exquisite wounds on him did nothing for his power.
The tendrils of thought he outstretched to the Queen were left unanswered for days upon days.
"Salacia," he sent forth, "have my children arrived at your doors? Are you really as stupid as to side with them instead of me?"
There was a faint humming ringing in his ears, the song of the Nereid a moment before the throaty croaking of the Queen carried across the stars and inside his head.
"It's not my fault my feeble husband sided with your wife instead of you. I killed him, I avenged us both, our pain. And you received a nice reward for yours, unlike me. It's time I get mine, Demon."
"A reward?" he sneered at no one in particular. How could a gift be called compensation for a wife and daughter? Did that wretched bitch forget it was he who helped her to the throne? Who transformed the true heir of Neptune's into a monster? This was the thanks he got?
Valorian once again meddled and never returned any favors.
It was always Valorian that meddled in his life.
"VECTRA!"
***
Aazor at dusk looked like a bad painting—orange light bleeding through crooked roofs, dogs sleeping in doorways, and the smell of fish and ferment everywhere. Cleo pinched her nose as they stepped over a gutter that burbled like it had opinions.
"This place is disgusting," she muttered.
"Then you'll fit right in," Nestor replied, his voice too low to sting but enough to make her glare at him.
They stopped outside a leaning shack painted blue once, now mostly rust and regret. Nestor pushed the door open, and the smell of stale wine, smoke, and saltwater rolled out to greet them.
Once inside, Nestor sat at a rickety table surrounded by empty bottles, a cracked map of the Twelve Seas pinned to the wall behind him. Clearly, a fisherman. Or, a former one.
His hair was silvering, his skin sunburned, his smile a masterpiece of bad decisions—and yet, there was something ancient in the way he sat, as though the chair was just pretending to hold him.
"I'd offer you wine, but my wife finished it."
A loud snore erupted from behind a thin curtain in the corner.
Las blinked. "That's your wife?"
"Sometimes," Nestor said with a shrug. "Depends on the day and how much she's had. Sit, sit! You look like you swallowed a thundercloud."
Las didn't sit. He looked like he might combust from tension. Nestor took one look at him and grinned wider. "Oh, come on, boy. You look like someone cursed your breakfast. Tell me, is that your normal face or is it special for me?"
Cleo snorted despite herself.
Las muttered, "We came for information, not insults."
"Well, that's unfortunate," Nestor said, leaning back until his chair creaked. "Insults are free. Information costs."
Cleo folded her arms. "How did you hear Tenebris's call?"
The humor dimmed, replaced by the kind of stillness that only comes from remembering too much. Then he smiled again, brighter than before. "Nasty little thing, isn't it? Cuts through everything but guilt."
"You are being obtuse," Las said.
"And you are a guest here," Nestor reminded him. The cold shoulder came back with a vengeance.
Cleo leaned forward, frustration simmering. "You're dodging."
"I'm reminiscing," he corrected. "You two need to work on your hospitality. You barge into my home, you wake my wife—"
"She's still asleep," Las interrupted.
"Then you're welcome," Nestor said with a grin. "Anyway, since you're here, I'll give you a free lesson. Valorian's funny about power. You're Sensitives, right? You don't belong to this world. So the planet fights back. Doesn't like being told what to do."
Las frowned. "That's absurd."
"Is it?" Nestor arched his brow. "Try it. Use your power, see if it does anything. I can see you thinking about it."
Cleo rolled her eyes. "Do it, Las."
Las lifted a hand anyway, closing his eyes. The air in the room shifted—tightened—then broke. Nothing. Nestor yawned.
Cleo stared. "How is that possible?"
Nestor smiled around the rim of his cup. "I have tricks up my sleeves. But mainly, your power is greatly diminished on Valorian. You're not the guardians of this world, so nature struggles against your commands. It's just what it does."
He leaned back, all charm again, as if the demonstration hadn't mattered. "Now. You wanted your siblings. I'll save you some time."
Cleo's pulse quickened. "You know where they are?"
"Oh, sure," Nestor said. "They're camping outside the city walls. I'd offer to take you, but if I were you, I wouldn't go there."
"Why not?" Cleo snapped.
"Because," Nestor said, swirling the dregs of his wine, "your father just tore through that camp to try and slaughter your siblings. My guess is—you're next."
Silence filled the room like a held breath.
From the next room, the wife snored again, oblivious.
Nestor smiled faintly, almost tenderly. "Best to drink while you can. World's ending faster than it used to."
***
The echoes of Rosum's slaughter would reverberate through the Mengana Forest for millenia to come. Soileen said that when the member of the tribe dies violently, they leave a trace of their soul where they died so that a new witch could draw from the energetical mark of their death.
But I was already powerful enough to summon the moon from the sky while my brother held the sun in the palm of his hand.
There was no witchcraft the Vlachy possessed I did not already have.
"That is arrogance at its finest," Soileen said. "You will not be able to beat the White Snake with arrogance."
Volmira kneeled at Rosum's grave, ignoring the conversation. She stared at the wooden headstone, at the grove of flowers growing around it. I feared she'd never get up.
She clutched him to her chest the way mothers held their dead children. Devoid of feeling for death had claimed them too, but entirely too strong in their arms to let go completely.
If I ever thought of Ari as my twin, then Rosum had been Volmira's.
"What would be … the most reasonable solution, then?"
There was a great wound at the center of this conversation that I did not quite manage to find. All I knew was that it had been bleeding for some time, and the lack of attention to it caused this massacre.
"We need to find a place to raise the dragon in peace. Once it is grown and powerful, you can ride it. Ride it and destroy your enemy."
Soileen did not tell me where the wound was. But I was starting to think that it wasn't possible to heal it. And that is why it could not be found. Desperation liked to hide itself out of shame of not being good enough to join the ranks of those emotions that held the cure to disappear.
***
When we soaked our immortal bodies in the lake, just my brother and I, I asked Ari what he thought of raising the little dragon to adulthood.
We did not know much about the power of the beast, but we knew enough not to trust the humans with it. They had their own agendas, and just because mine and theirs aligned for a moment did not mean I could trust them.
But Ari … Areilycus saw something in the beings with such a short life span that I did not see, and often told me that my work on Tripolis was essential. It was the reason I endured, until, of course, the work reached out to him with its poisoned hand and touched his soul. His golden, immortal soul.
He swam towards me, the cold water parting under his care and took me into his arms. I felt weightless.
"If we start a war," he whispered, "it better be for a good reason."
"You are my reason," I said, clinging to his body.
"That's not a reason," he argued. He always argued with me, and I loved him for it. "That is a justification. A poor one at that."
"We could find a world where civilization has progressed beyond superstition and herbal communing."
I felt his lips stretch into a smile near my ear. "And bring a beast of fire into it? Do not underestimate the natural powers of this planet."
"I find nothing interesting or powerful about this planet," I confessed. "I'm not Cleo."
"No," Ari said. "You are made of metal."
"Except I cannot be bent or shaped."
"Hm," he hummed into my ear, petting the soft, wet hair on my neck. "I know. It's why I love you."
***
"Get that side, Maren! And mind the pitch—she's bleeding again!" Edward barked, though his tone held more affection than command. If Mila really wanted to give the bitch queen her legs, he would not be around to see it, no matter how necessary it was.
He stood shirtless on the deck of the Lioness, sleeves rolled, scrubbing the salt stains from her hull. Around him, his crew worked in rhythm, swabbing, hauling rope, humming bawdy songs that drifted across the port like a chorus of ghosts.
He worked with them, muscles gleaming with sweat, the tattoo of a compass over his heart catching the morning light.
Down the pier, Nestor watched, leading Cleo and Las through the bustle of fishermen and market girls. The two Sensitives followed half-listening as he gestured vaguely toward the western cliffs.
"Your kin are camped that way," he said, squinting against the glare. "If you reach the broken jetty, you've gone too far. Don't stop to chat with the dockhands; they'll rob you blind or marry you, depending on the hour."
Cleo offered him a curt nod. "You're not coming?"
Nestor chuckled. "Oh, no. I've seen enough family reunions to know they end in shouting or funerals. I prefer my breakfast quiet."
Las gave him a long, uneasy look. There was something in Nestor's eyes—an undercurrent of knowing too much, of humor that ran too deep to be mere vice. But he said nothing.
When they'd gone, Nestor turned back to the docks. His gaze caught on Edward—shirtless, sunlit, alive in a way that stirred a long-dormant ache in him. For a man who'd drowned a thousand times, it was infuriating how beauty still undid him.
He hesitated a moment, then strolled down the pier.
Edward looked up from his work, surprised. "Well, I'll be damned. If it isn't the drunk of Aazor, come to bless my ship with his hangover."
Nestor grinned. "Don't act so high and dry, Kinsley. You used to outdrink me before you started playing captain."
"Difference is," Edward said, scrubbing harder, "I grew up."
"Mm," Nestor hummed, glancing at the ship. "The Lioness looks good. Almost makes a man forget the sky's been trying to melt her for weeks."
Edward snorted. "Yeah, the acid rain hasn't been kind. Half the docks are rotting through. But you know the bitch queen. She would have found a reason to melt me and my ship even if I hadn't screwed her husband."
Nestor didn't like that. Edward rarely saw him this lucid or this angry. Usually, he was just a happy-go-lucky drunk who did odd jobs in his neighbourhood to pay for his wife, food and drink.
It was enough for Edward to grab his half-soaked shirt and put it on, at least haphazardly and return to his scrubbing.
"Maybe it's her gods' way of telling you to quit chasing your ghosts."
Edward froze mid-scrub. The brush stopped moving.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, voice low. Nestor tilted his head, the morning light glancing off his salt-streaked hair.
"Come now, Edward. Everyone in Aazor knows you've got your nose in old storms. Maybe it's time to let it go."
Edward dropped the brush into the bucket with a hard splash. "You think I do this for fun?"
"Can't say," Nestor replied with infuriating calm. "But obsession looks the same from where I stand. All fire, no warmth."
Edward stepped down from the deck, closing the distance between them until they were almost chest to chest. "You don't know a damn thing about what I've lost."
Nestor's smile softened. "Do you wish to do comparative suffering with me?"
Something flickered in his tone—something raw and ancient that Edward couldn't name. It hit him like a wave before he brushed it off with anger.
"Save your riddles," Edward said, turning away. "You've never cared for anything but your next bottle."
"I've cared more than you think," Nestor said quietly.
Edward glanced back, ready to retort, but Nestor's expression stopped him. There was a sadness there, hidden behind the grin, like the memory of sunlight on an ocean long gone.
Then the man laughed, breaking the spell. "Don't worry, Captain. I'm not here to lecture you. Just wanted to see if you still had a temper."
Edward's mouth twitched despite himself. "Still do."
"Good," Nestor said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Means you're not dead yet."
He turned and walked off down the pier, whistling something low and familiar—an old sailor's tune Edward hadn't heard since he was a boy. For a moment, it stirred a memory he couldn't place: a storm breaking, a voice calling his name from the deep.
Then the moment passed.
Edward watched him go, brow furrowed. "Crazy bastard," he muttered under his breath. But the words lacked conviction.
Above them, gulls wheeled and screamed over the waking sea, and somewhere beyond the horizon, the sea temperature warmed.
***
The ocean remained tranquil as Queen Salacia made her way towards the sacred grotto. Her radiant scales appeared subdued under the gentle illumination of the bioluminescent coral. Before her was a stone altar, embellished with lustrous shells and intricate wreaths of kelp, signifying the spot where Neptune's essence had merged back into the ocean.
With a trembling hand, Salacia reached out to trace the inscription etched into the stone. "To Neptune, Sovereign of Tides, my Beloved."
Her thoughts wandered back to that pivotal moment—when her desperation led her to seek the aid of the Demon. Her posture had been steadfast, her crown gleaming, yet inside, she had felt herself faltering.
She had convinced herself that the Demon was the solution, his power a means to heal her fractures. "Just a single favor," she had reassured herself, "simply one favor." She had not grasped the implications of that decision until it was too late.
Salacia's fingers clenched into a fist, her nails digging into her palm. While the Demon was now bound, as she had commanded, the chains of her pact felt like seaweed—ensnaring and suffocating.
Then, her thoughts turned to the twins that swam through her memory.
The girl. And her brother.
"I should never have summoned him," she lamented, her voice quivering. "I should never have engaged the Demon. I should have placed my trust in you, Neptune." As tears mingled with the saltwater, she sank to her knees, her forehead resting against the cold stone of his burial site. "But I was vulnerable. And now... we are all ensnared. By chains I cannot sever."
Above her, the glow of the coral waned, dimming as if the ocean mourned alongside its queen.