The heavy pearl doors groaned open once more, and King Caspian entered the Pearl Wing.
He looked like a ruin of his former self. His golden scales were dull, marred by scratches and missing patches where the Leviathan's barbs had struck.
A thick bandage of kelp was wrapped around his torso, stained dark with royal blue blood. He swam with a noticeable hitch, his powerful tail moving stiffly as if every stroke cost him a piece of his soul.
But it wasn't the physical wounds that made him look broken. It was his eyes.
They were wide, frantic, and filled with a terrifying vulnerability. He scanned the room, past the piles of discarded towels, past Kaia standing guard with a wet dagger, past his mother who was wiping purple mana residue from her hands, until they landed on the clam bed.
He froze.
He stopped dead in the water, hovering near the entrance like a stranger intruding on a sacred ritual.
