POV: Sera
For one endless second, the world was silent except for the roar.
The mountain of water blotted out everything. It towered above the palace, a nightmare made real, a wall of liquid darkness about to smash them all into dust. Sera's Tidecaller soul screamed in unison with the tortured sea. This was wrong. This was an abomination. Water was life, movement, flow not this suspended, hateful blade hanging over them all.
Then the sound came back, and it was chaos.
The roar of the water was drowned out by the screams of hundreds of werewolves. The shockwave of displaced air hit first, a hot, wet wind that tore tapestries from walls and sent tables laden with food and drink crashing over. Crystal shattered. The marble floor trembled.
"NOW!" Garrett bellowed, his voice not panicked, but full of fierce command. His grip on Sera's arm was iron, dragging her off-balance as he lunged not for the main exit, which was already a screaming, shoving bottleneck, but for a small, arched servants' door to the left of the throne platform.
His green-eyed accomplices sprang into action. The severe woman by the pillar drew a slender, coral-like dagger from her gown. The false guard by the doors unsheathed a sword that glowed with the same sickly green light. They weren't trying to escape. They were herding driving the panicking crowd away from the side passages, toward the main doors, creating a clear path for Garrett.
Sera dug her heels in, pulling against him with all her strength. "Let me GO!"
"You're coming with me!" he snarled, his face a mask of furious intent. The human disguise was crumbling. The scales around his temples were more pronounced, and his eyes held that unstable green glow. "This is what it was all for! You're the key, Sera! The final piece!"
Key. The word he'd used about Lila. A new, colder terror cut through her panic. He didn't just want to control her. He needed her magic for whatever this was.
She looked back, over her shoulder. The wall of water was beginning its catastrophic fall, slow and inevitable as a collapsing glacier. At the throne, King Kadrin had finally risen to his feet. He stood before the Silver Throne, a statue of a king, his guards forming a desperate, shrinking circle around him. He wasn't looking at the apocalyptic wave. His head was tilted, as if listening to a faint, distant sound. His silver eyes swept the chaos and for a heartbeat, they locked with Sera's across the screaming, running distance.
In that flat, empty gaze, she saw no fear. No anger. Just… assessment.
Then Garrett yanked her so hard her shoulder screamed in protest. She stumbled, and the connection broke.
"Don't look at him!" Garrett spat. "He's a ghost. A hollow shell. He can't help you. The old world ends tonight, and a new one rises from the Deep! And you, my stubborn mate, will help it rise or you will drown with the rest of them!"
He was insane. Or worse, he was telling a terrible truth.
Sera stopped fighting his pull. Instead, she let herself go limp, forcing him to bear her full dead weight for a single, stumbling step. It was enough. His balance faltered, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second.
It was all she needed.
Sera didn't call for a wave or a geyser. She was too panicked for fine control. She simply reached out with the core of her Tidecaller power the part that said I am of the water, and it answers me and focused on the spilled wine and broken punch bowls at their feet.
The scattered pools of liquid erupted. Not in a blast, but in a sudden, slick sheet of ice that flash-froze across the marble between them and the servant's door.
Garrett's expensive leather shoe hit the ice first. His leg shot out from under him. With a shocked curse, he fell backwards, his hand tearing free from her arm.
Sera scrambled away, slipping herself but managing to stay upright. She didn't run for the main doors. That way was a death trap of trampling feet and the oncoming deluge. She didn't run for the servant's door that was Garrett's planned route, and his allies were already converging on it.
There was only one place in the entire hall that wasn't in total, screaming motion.
The throne platform.
It was an island in the storm. The King's guards had formed a tight, defensive half-circle at the base of the steps, weapons drawn toward the chaos, protecting their monarch's back. The King himself had turned to face the ocean windows, his back to the room, as if studying the mechanics of the doom rushing toward him.
He was the still, cold center of the hurricane.
Lila's voice echoed in her memory, not laughing now, but earnest, teaching her from one of their musty old law books: "The Sanctuary of the Throne. It's the oldest law, Sera. Older than packs, older than the mate bond. If you reach the throne and claim it, the crown's protection is absolute for one lunar cycle. No one can touch you. Not even him."
It wasn't a plan. It was the desperate, final reflex of a cornered animal.
Sera ran.
She darted through the chaos, a small figure weaving between panicked nobles and overturned furniture. A man in a ripped velvet coat shoved past her, knocking her sideways. She fell to one knee, a sharp pain shooting through her leg. She looked up.
Garrett was back on his feet. He was no longer pretending. His form shimmered, a watery distortion around his edges. His eyes were two blazing emerald lanterns in the dim, chaotic light. He saw her, and he began moving, not with the clumsy desperation of the crowd, but with a predator's lethal grace, his green-eyed allies clearing a path for him.
He was coming for her.
Sera pushed herself up and ran, a sob of fear and effort tearing from her throat. The throne platform was only twenty yards away. It felt like twenty miles.
"GUARDS! STOP HER!" a voice roared. It was the Captain of the Guard, a massive wolf with a scar down his cheek, standing at the foot of the throne steps. He pointed his sword at her, his face a mask of fury. He saw a threat rushing the King in the middle of an attack.
Two guards broke from the defensive line and moved to intercept her, their spears leveled.
This was it. She would be cut down by the King's own protectors, or Garrett would reach her. Either way, it was over.
Something broke inside Sera. Not fear, but fury. A year of grief, of silence, of being trapped and lied to and chained to a monster, exploded out of her in a silent, magical scream.
She threw her hands out, not at the guards, but at the two great marble fountains flanking the throne platform. They were meant for decoration, not for war. But the water within them was still water. And it heard her.
With a thunderous crack, the sculpted marble basins shattered. Not from the outside, but from within, as the water inside them expanded violently, exploding outward. The water didn't spray. It coalesced into two thick, roaring serpents of liquid force that shot across the space between the fountains and the throne steps, then curved in on themselves, meeting in a crashing, swirling wall.
A wall of water, six feet high and churning like a rapid, now stood between Sera and the guards.
They skidded to a halt, staring in shock at the magical barrier. The Captain snarled, "Tidecaller witch!"
Sera didn't hesitate. She ran straight for her own watery wall. As she reached it, she swept a hand downward, and a tunnel opened in the torrent, just wide enough for her to dart through. The moment she was clear, she let it collapse behind her with a roar.
She was at the base of the silver-daised steps. The remaining guards, including the furious Captain, were on the other side of her churning water barrier. Garrett was somewhere behind her in the crowd, held back for now by the chaos and her makeshift moat.
She was alone on the King's side of the water.
Her legs shook as she climbed the first step. Then the second. The Silver Throne loomed above her, cold and imposing. And the King…
King Kadrin had turned from the window. He now stood beside his throne, watching her ascent. He showed no alarm at her magic, no anger at her intrusion. His head was tilted again, those empty silver eyes tracking her as if she were a curious insect. He had watched his hall be destroyed, an impossible wave approach, and now a stranger invade his personal space, and his expression was one of mild, detached interest.
It was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen.
Sera reached the top of the platform. She stood before the Silver Throne, breathing in ragged, painful gasps. She was face-to-face with the High King of the Tidemark Kingdom. Up close, the emptiness in him was a vacuum that threatened to suck the air from her lungs. He was tall, powerfully built, and he felt… old. Not in a wrinkled way, but in a mountain-way, a deep-sea-trench-way. Immeasurably ancient and utterly still.
Behind her, she heard Garrett's voice, furious and close, shouting at her water barrier. She was out of time.
The ancient words Lila taught her rose to her lips. They felt too small, too quiet, for this cataclysm.
She didn't sit on the throne. Not yet. She dropped to her knees before it, her head bowed, not in submission, but because she didn't have the strength to hold it up anymore.
"Your Majesty," she gasped, the words torn from the deepest, most wounded part of her soul. "I am Sera Blackwater of the Tidecaller line…" She had to stop, a dry sob choking her. She forced the rest out. "I claim Sanctuary… under the Old Laws. My mate, Garrett Stormridge… murdered my blood kin. My sister. I have no proof the moon will hear… I have nowhere else to run. I beg for the protection of the Crown."
She finished, her forehead nearly touching the cold metal of the dais. The formal words hung in the air, pathetic against the backdrop of shattering windows and the approaching roar of the wave.
Silence descended on the immediate space around the throne. The guards had stopped yelling. Even Garrett had gone quiet.
King Kadrin looked down at her. He didn't speak. He didn't move.
Then, he slowly, deliberately, sat back down on the Silver Throne. He settled into it, his movements precise and economical. He gazed at the top of her bowed head.
"Sera Blackwater," he said. His voice was deep, calm, and carried effortlessly. It was the first time she'd heard him speak up close. It sounded like stones grinding in a deep, dark place. "You have claimed Sanctuary at the moment of my kingdom's apparent destruction. An interesting… tactical choice."
He was analyzing it. Like a puzzle.
Sera dared to look up. His silver eyes were fixed on her, and in their mirrored surface, she saw the reflection of the broken hall, and her own terrified, desperate face.
"Please," she whispered, the last of her strength leaving her.
The King's eyes shifted, looking past her, over her shoulder. "The claimant states that you, Garrett Stormridge, murdered her sister. Do you deny this?"
Sera twisted to look. Garrett stood at the edge of her weakening water barrier, his green glow muted, his face a masterpiece of contrived concern. "Your Majesty! She is hysterical! Grieving! The wave… it has shocked her mind! My poor mate, let me take her somewhere safe"
"Your eyes are green," the King observed, his tone still flat, conversational. "That is not a wolf trait."
Garrett's mask slipped. Fear, real fear, flashed across his face. He struggled to control it. "A… a trick of the light, Your Majesty. The strange magics"
"A lie," the King stated, as if noting the weather. He looked back down at Sera. "You have claimed Sanctuary while touching the throne's dais. The Old Law is invoked. I feel its bindings settle."
He said it so matter-of-factly. I feel it. Did he feel anything at all?
He leaned forward, just slightly. "The law is clear. For thirty days, you are under my protection. All other claims on you are suspended, pending investigation." He raised his voice, a king pronouncing judgment. "Garrett Stormridge, you will be detained for questioning."
Garrett's face contorted with rage. The green glow burst from him, illuminating the faces of the shocked nobles nearby. "You can't! The wave!"
"The wave," King Kadrin interrupted, his voice cutting through the air like a blade, "is a problem for your King. Not for you." He glanced at the Captain of the Guard, who was staring, stunned, from behind the water wall. "Captain Theron. Take him."
It was the moment the spell broke. Garrett snarled, a sound utterly inhuman, and raised a hand crackling with green energy. But before he could act, the King did something.
He didn't shout. He didn't stand. He simply lifted his hand, palm out, toward the colossal, collapsing wave visible through the shattered windows.
And he spoke a single word. A word of such ancient, weary power that the air in the room thickened.
"Enough."
The word wasn't loud, but it vibrated in Sera's bones and in the stone of the palace itself. Outside, the impossible happened. The mile-high wall of water, in the final second of its catastrophic descent, didn't stop… but it shattered. It didn't crash down as a solid mass. It disintegrated into a billion harmless droplets, a thunderous, soaking rain that pattered against the palace exterior and washed over the cliffs. The roaring ceased, replaced by the deafening silence of shock, and the gentle, absurd sound of a heavy downpour. King Kadrin lowered his hand, a faint sheen of sweat on his brow the first sign of effort Sera had seen from him. He looked back at Sera, his head tilting again. "Now," he said, his hollow voice cutting through the dripping quiet. "About this Sanctuary." Sera could only stare, soaked and shivering, as the King who commanded oceans turned his full, empty attention upon her. Behind her, Garrett let out a howl of pure, thwarted fury.