Edward heard someone scream as the mob's roars dissolved into a distant, angry hum somewhere behind the tree line, and Salacia—curled up on a bed of moss Edward refused to call "a blanket"—slept with her mouth unflatteringly open, snoring like a whale clearing its blowhole.
Edward, exhausted and raw, was picking at the sleeve of his coat, his thumb rubbing a worn seam until the fabric frayed.
"W-what did you call me?"
Nestor blinked once. Twice. Then looked away and muttered, "Ah. Shit." Edward stood so fast the moss blanket slipped off Salacia's legs.
"No. No, no, no." He pointed at Nestor, shaking. "Only one person has ever called me that."
Nestor rubbed the back of his neck. "…Yeah. I know."
Nestor sighed, a long, weary breath that sounded older than the forest around them.
When he lifted his eyes, they weren't Nestor's eyes anymore. They were green in the morning and blue in the afternoon.
A familiarity Edward's bones recognized before his mind did.
"My darling," Nestor said quietly. "I hoped you wouldn't figure it out like this."
Edward staggered a step back, breath knocked out of him.
"No," he croaked. "You died." He jabbed a finger at the drunkard's chest.
"The body died," Nestor corrected softly. "Not me."
Edward stared. His pulse thundered in his ears. "You… transferred your soul."
"Into the only vessel available," Nestor admitted, gesturing vaguely at himself. "Nestor was unconscious in a puddle of cheap liquor. Better than nothing."
"And his soul?" Edward demanded, throat tight.
"In a fish," Nestor said flatly. "Swimming. Probably happier than either of us."
Edward slapped him.
It rang through the clearing like a gunshot.
Nestor didn't defend himself. He just touched his cheek, winced, and said quietly, "Yeah. I deserved that."
Edward shoved him backward, chest heaving. "You died!"
Nestor's eyes widened, and he slapped a hand over Edward's wrist, hissing, "Lower your voice! If she wakes up—"
His voice cracked, raw as salt in a wound. "I held you. I carried your body out of the surf when Salacia's tide spit you out—do you remember that? You didn't breathe. You didn't move. You—"
Edward choked on his gasp. "You transferred your soul."His voice was shaking with fury, grief, disbelief, all tangled into one violent knot. "Into a drunk lying in a puddle of piss behind the docks."
"Better him than nothing." Nestor shrugged almost sheepishly. "He was unconscious. And roomy."
Edward almost hit him again.
Edward's chest felt like it was collapsing inward, all ribs and ache. "Why didn't you tell me?" he whispered. "Why did you let me bury you?"
Neptune's face softened — truly softened — in a way Edward hadn't seen in years.
"You had a life again," he said quietly. "You were healing. I didn't want to tear it open unless I knew I could stay."
Edward swallowed hard, eyes burning. "Stay?"
Neptune met his gaze. No wobbling. No drunkenness.
"I didn't know if it was going to work, Chuchu," he said, resting his forehead against Edward's. Edward's eyes long closed, lips trembling from the tears he was holding back.
"You must understand. Soul transference is not exactly easy. Possessing another's body is a sin," Neptune explained. "And Gorgo had never really … well, she had never really done it before."
"Does Salacia know?"
"She suspects," Neptune said. "When she caught Gorgo with Tenebris's child, she figured we tried to do something. I suppose that's why she was so hell bent on getting her legs. She wants to find me on land. I could never hide in our realm, but this is Vlachy's territory," he whispered into Edward's ear.
Edward exhaled shakily, like something inside him was crumbling. "So it was all a lie? This chase you set up to find Isla Rhea?"
Neptune took Edward in his arms. Although Nestor's body was of average height, Edward's perception shifted and he now seemed a giant as he swallowed his trembling form in his arms.
"No, Chuchu, of course not, it was a contingency plan. I tried to talk you out of it multiple times, remember?"
Edward scrubbed at his face with both hands. "Gods, you're a selfish bastard."
"Always," Neptune said with a rueful half-smile.
Edward's voice cracked again—softer this time, almost a whisper.
"…You called me chuchu."
Neptune looked down.
"Yeah," he said. "I never stopped thinking of you that way."
Edward's throat tightened.
For a long moment neither moved. Neither spoke. The only sound was the child's breathing and the forest wind.
Finally, Edward whispered, "I'm going to hit you again."
"Yeah," Neptune murmured. Edward snorted through what might've been a sob.
Neptune smoothed his tears with a brush of a thumb. "Let's wake her and move to the rendezvous point, okay?"
Edward nodded.
***
The forest thinned at last, giving way to a vast wound in the earth.
The Rotunda.
Half myth, half cautionary tale, all crater—an ancient scar left by a meteor whose core still pulsed faintly with the planet's buried heat. The rim rose in jagged, uneven ridges like broken teeth, and the bowl itself plunged so deep it swallowed sound. Mist curled upward from fissures in the stone, glowing faintly blue where Valorian's inner energies leaked through hairline cracks.
Edward arrived first, the child slung against his chest, Salacia stalking beside him like a bedraggled cat dragged through brine. Nestor followed, still catching his breath despite insisting he was "in excellent mortal shape" to Edward.
"So this is the grand meeting point?" Salacia scoffed, flicking a strand of kelp-tangled hair over her shoulder. "A pit? Truly? Did the mortals run out of flat surfaces?"
Edward shot her a look sharp enough to cut kelp. "Shut your mouth."
Salacia turned her glare on the crater. "It's hideous. And it smells like burnt rock."
"That's because a celestial meteor slammed into it," Edward snapped. "You would know if you asked Ne–ppie about it."
Salacia sniffed dramatically. "Well, it could have chosen somewhere less dusty."
Nestor pinched the bridge of his nose. "Salacia, stop complaining."
Her head whipped toward him, eyes narrowing. "I nearly lost my legs again tonight. I am allowed a complaint."
"Enough," Nestor cut in sharply. "We're jumping."
Salacia recoiled as if he'd suggested eating sand. "Absolutely not. That is a bottomless hole."
"It isn't," Nestor said.
"It looks like one!"
"It's safe."
"Dangerous."
"Salacia," Nestor exhaled, "it's too deep for the Aazorians to climb out of. They'll stop at the rim."
Edward hooked a brow. "And why do we jump in?"
"Because," Nestor said with exaggerated patience, "we have magic. They don't."
"Celestials have magic," Edward corrected. "I have legs. Legs that are not built for falling off cliffs."
"You'll be fine," Nestor said, slapping him on the back hard enough to make him stumble. "You survived far worse than this."
Salacia folded her arms. "I am not jumping."
Nestor shrugged. "Edward, throw her."
"What?" she screeched.
Edward cracked his knuckles. "With pleasure."
Before the argument could escalate—and it was about to—Ari and Mila burst through the trees, disheveled, irritated, and mid-argument.
"…I'm saying you should have told me," Mila snapped.
"And I'm saying you were too busy almost dying to hear it," Ari fired back.
Behind them came Bonnie (the pirate), dragging a now horse-sized baby dragon who absolutely refused to walk in a straight line.
"She grew again," Bonnie panted. "She won't stop growing when she's scared."
Ari patted the dragon's snout. The creature promptly tried to climb onto him.
"No," he groaned. "No, no, not right now—"
But she was already wrapping her glowing body around him like a giant scaly scarf.
Volmira and Soileen emerged seconds later, both looking shell-shocked, soot-stained, and barely holding it together. Soileen clutched her remaining daughter. Volmira held nothing but the shreds of her composure.
They all converged at the rim.
Mila looked over the edge and exhaled sharply. "Great. We're jumping."
Edward pointed. "Tell that to her."
Salacia glared at the crater like it personally offended her. "I am not descending into a giant hole in the earth like some kind of—"
She paused, searching for an insult.
"—mole."
Nestor clapped his hands once. "Enough. Everyone in."
"How?" Bonnie asked. "Do we hold hands? Climb? Pray?"
"Jump," Mila said. "You jump. And you trust Ari and me to slow your fall."
Edward squinted. "No offense, but last time Ari tried to 'slow' something he made the water boil."
Ari rolled his eyes. "That was intentional. And also necessary."
"I disagree."
"You weren't dying," Ari said. "You were merely uncomfortable."
Edward stared at him. "You boiled the ocean around me, Ari."
Ari shrugged.
Salacia pointed dramatically at the crater. "I refuse!"
Nestor finally lost patience.
He picked her up—bridal style.
She shrieked, kicking wildly. "PUT ME DOWN YOU LOWBORN TIDE-FACED—!"
Nestor stepped to the edge and hopped.
They vanished into the mist.
Everyone froze.
Edward swallowed. "…Well. Shit."
Mila stepped forward. "Who's next?"
The dragon nudged Ari forward.
Ari sighed. "Alright, alright—I'm going!"
He took Mila's hand.
They leapt.
Bonnie and the dragon followed, the pirate screaming, "I DID NOT AGREE TO THIIIIIS—"
Finally, Edward looked at Soileen and Volmira.
"You ready?" he asked.
Soileen nodded grimly. Volmira nodded once, eyes hollow.
Edward sighed.
"Fuck me."
And he jumped.
***
Mist coiled at the bottom of the Rotunda like breath from a sleeping beast. The whole group had scattered across the crater's inner ledges—soaked, bruised, disoriented, very much alive. Above them, the roar of the villagers thundered along the rim, torches flickering like a crown of fire.
Ari pressed a hand to the wall, listening.
"They're spreading. Searching. We don't have much time."
Mila scanned the gathered faces: Edward clutching Soileen's child, Volmira pale and trembling, Bonnie murmuring encouragement to the dragon now coiled like an oversized cat around Ari's shoulders. Nestor sat with his hands braced on his knees, pretending this was all perfectly normal.
And Salacia—Salacia stood apart, hair dripping, arms crossed, glaring at everyone like they were barnacles stuck to her heel.
"We need a plan," Mila said.
She turned to Ari. "Your idea from earlier. About emotions."
Ari blinked. "Mila—"
"If I absorb the chaos from the entire mob," she continued, "their rage will drop. The fear. The frenzy. They'll disperse."
Edward rubbed a thumb against his jaw. "You can do that?"
"Yes," Mila said. "But not without a power source."
Salacia snorted. "Here we go."
Mila ignored her. "I can draw from the planet core. It's how we train at home. But Valorian isn't Tripolis—if I siphon too deeply, the mantle will destabilize."
"By destabilize," Salacia said sweetly, "she means explode."
Mila didn't deny it.
"And you think that's a good idea?" Edward demanded. "The whole planet could fracture!"
"I know," Mila snapped. "Which is why I'll draw from Ari instead."
Salacia rounded on her so fast the mist shuddered. "Are you insane?" she hissed. "Gods cannot draw power from one another."
Mila lifted her chin. "Then they've never tried."
"They have," Salacia barked. "And they died for it."
Ari's face went still.
Salacia continued, voice rising: "Celestials carry incompatible signatures. Your power is anchored in negative charge, entropy, tethered to the planet beneath your feet. His light is nuclear—radiant, expansive. If you try to siphon from him, your energies will clash. Either you'll turn him to ash—"
Ari flinched.
"—or you'll tear yourself apart. Likely both."
They stared each other down, chaos simmering between them.
Nestor coughed. "Ladies. Gentlemen. Celestial… things. Perhaps—"
"Stay out of this," Salacia and Mila snapped simultaneously.
Edward, arms crossed, surveyed the madness.
"Alright," he muttered. "Enough of the suicidal proposals."
Everyone looked at him.
Edward pointed to the towering crater walls.
"We're not attacking," he said. "We defend."
Ari frowned. "Defend how?"
"Mila draining herself won't help," Edward said. "And neither will you glowing like a lantern until your veins boil."
He gestured upward. "Look at this crater. It's deep. It's secluded. If they think we're not here, they'll give up."
Mila looked dubious. "How are they supposed to think that?"
Edward glanced at the Queen.
Salacia raised an eyebrow. "Absolutely not."
Edward ignored her. "Cap the crater."
She frowned. "Pull moisture from the earth," Edward said. "Summon water overhead. A lid. A false lake. To anyone above us, this place should look like a beautiful, undisturbed pond."
Salacia stared at him. The contempt slowly shifted into something like intrigue.
Mila stepped forward. "Can you do it?"
Salacia twirled a strand of kelp-like hair.
"Of course I can do it. The question is whether I should bother."
Nestor pinched her arm. "Salacia. Now."
She hissed. With a sigh, she reached up and pulled the silver comb from her hair.
As soon as it left her braid, the comb elongated, metal twisting, reshaping—transforming into a trident crackling with deep-sea magic.
Mist recoiled.
Salacia lifted the weapon and slammed its butt into the ground.
Water answered.
Moisture tore itself from the cracked stone walls. Beads formed, then streams, then torrents, spiraling upward in shimmering arcs. The Rotunda pulsed with blue light as she summoned every droplet sleeping within Valorian's bedrock.
The sound was a thousand whispered storms.
Above them, the sky darkened.
A disc of water formed, rippling, opaque.
A perfect illusion of a tranquil lake.
Edward let out a low breath. "Bloody brilliant."
Salacia smirked, lifting her chin. "I know."
Ari turned to Mila, touching her arm lightly.
"We didn't need to hurt anyone."
Mila swallowed, relief breaking across her tired features. "No," she whispered. "We didn't."
They watched the watery ceiling settle into place, the shouts of the mob muffled, distant. The first trio of the mob that separated from the main group looked at their reflections in the 'lake' and moved on.
***
Who said romance was dead?
The Rotunda—an ancient crater carved by a meteor older than any of us—was now sealed beneath a shimmering lid of lakewater Salacia had conjured overhead. Light filtered down in wavering ribbons, painting everything in drowning-blue hues.
I snuggled closer to him on the moss-soft ground, breathing in the warmth of his power as if it were incense meant only for me. Bonnie—the dragon—dozed at his feet, already larger than she had been just a day ago. Every hour she grew felt like my war gaining momentum.
You didn't start the war, I reminded myself.
Not on the mornings when I woke with Rosum's dying expression still superimposed on Lord Father's red serpentine pupils. Not when Edward's gravel-voiced certainty rang in my ears:
He wants to get rid of you all.
He wanted to sink his fangs into the center of everything good in us—our capacity for love—and drain it until it curdled. No more devotion. No more tenderness. No more softness.
Across the Rotunda, Salacia stretched out naked on a bed of moss where nothing else grew, only velvet green clinging to the crater floor like some primordial carpet meant for queens. She basked shamelessly in the filtered sunlight, legs sprawled, skin slick with condensation from the false lake overhead.
Ari crossed his arms.
I considered kicking her in her brand-new shins, but I restrained myself. "Once you're done sunbathing," I said, "could you maybe join the war council? Or is that asking too much, Your Majesty?"
She dragged one oceany hand through the moss and sighed as if my voice were a pesky ripple disturbing her serenity.
"Let me enjoy my freedom," she replied. "I dreamed of this day longer than you've been alive."
Ari rose, scooping Bonnie into his arms, and pressed a kiss to my cheek before drifting where Soileen and Edward huddled. He was hopelessly, catastrophically soft for me. And for a moment I hated that our father had poisoned even that.
"You're getting cozy, aren't you?" Salacia teased. "No need for shame."
"I don't feel shame," I said simply.
She laughed, eyes closed, sun drunk.
"Your creator is a master of deceit. If you want to kill him, you'd better get good at lying. Murder, much like lies, requires finesse."
"He can't set foot on Tripolis and you know why. And you're going to tell me, Queenie."
Her smile tilted. "My sad, old, lonely husband forbade him from ever setting foot here. But every deal…" Her fingers traced idle circles on her thigh. "…has a loophole."
I took the shawl from my shoulders and tossed it over her hips—not out of modesty but strategy. She used her body as a weapon, every exposed inch another attempt to pull focus. I refused to let her distract me with tits and smugness.
In the sea she had been monstrous, a thing of barnacles and bone. Here, in the filtered lake-light, she was beautiful—dangerously so. Skin like poured cream. Eyes shifting green-gold like kelp catching sunlight. Hair a red-gold tangle eerily reminiscent of Bonnie's.
It was as though touching soil had resurrected a version of herself Neptune had stolen.
"You don't control the continent," I reminded her. "So while he can't set foot on Valorian, he can possess a soul. Slip into the boots of someone who can."
"Basically." She stretched her arms overhead, lazy as a lioness. "You grasp the essentials well."
"Aren't you afraid of him anymore?" I asked quietly.
"Of course I am." Her answer came without hesitation. "But I wouldn't give up these legs even if he raked me across coals wearing them."
Before I could respond, a sharp, guttural cry tore through the Rotunda.
Nestor.
He dropped to his knees so violently the moss tore beneath him. His hands flew to his skull, fingers clawing at his scalp as if something inside were trying to claw back. His whole body arched, trembling.
Edward was on him in an instant—faster than I had ever seen him move.
"Nestor!" Edward grabbed his shoulders, voice cracking. "Hey—hey—look at me—what's happening? Nestor!"
Salacia's head snapped up, eyes narrowing like a predator scenting a secret.
Nestor screamed again—raw, animal, as if his soul were being strangled from the inside.
Then, abruptly, it stopped.
He sagged forward, limp in Edward's arms, panting hard.
"I'm fine," he rasped. "It's passed."
Edward held him a moment longer, jaw tight, hands trembling.
Salacia watched them both with a knowing smile that did not reach her eyes.