The feast carried on, currents tight with tension but not without progress. Marco and Nerios traded words like measured blows, not in battle but in diplomacy. And slowly—just slowly—the sharp edge of Nerios’s voice dulled into something closer to consideration.

  For the first time, Sapphire allowed herself a hopeful smile. Even Caspian, though still cold, remained silent, watching.

  But Calder’s jaw was clenched tight, his knuckles white around his goblet. His gaze burned across the table, locked on Marco and his father. With each passing word of cautious agreement, the darkness swimming in his eyes grew deeper, tendrils of shadow curling into the water like smoke.

  Finally, he slammed his goblet down. The sound rang through the chamber like a war drum.

  “Enough!” Calder roared, his voice trembling with fury. All eyes snapped to him as the dark energy flared, swirling around his shoulders like a storm. His pupils were pools of black, and the veins in his arms glowed faintly with sickly light.

  “You sit here breaking bread with the sons of Gerald? The same Gerald who slaughtered our people and stole our kingdom’s strength? And now you would honor them—prop up him—as if he could ever be our savior?” He pointed a trembling hand at Marco, hatred dripping from every word.

  “Do you not see? He is not peace! He is poison! And you—” he turned, glaring at his father, voice cracking, “—you are so desperate to believe in hope that you would let our enemy’s blood into our halls, into our future! You shame Mother’s memory with this weakness!”

  Gasps rippled through the court. Caspian tried to grab Calder’s arm, but the dark current surged, knocking him back.

  “Coralyth will never bow to the land!” Calder shouted, eyes wild. “I would sooner burn it all than watch us chained to Gerald’s spawn!”

  The water itself seemed to scream as a pulse of black energy burst from him—

  And then, the walls shuddered.

  From the abyss outside, a deafening CRACK tore through the palace as an enormous shadow loomed beyond the glowing coral windows. Tentacles, thick as towers, smashed through the walls, scattering guards and splintering the reef-arches.

  A kraken, its eyes glowing the same sickly hue as Calder’s corruption, crashed into the hall, its roar rattling the very bones of the palace.

  The feast had become a battlefield.

  The kraken’s tentacles tore through the hall like the wrath of the abyss, each strike shattering coral pillars and scattering shards of glowing reef. Guards rushed forward with tridents raised, only to be swept aside like minnows caught in a storm.

  One massive tendril smashed into the ceiling, sending a rain of coral and shell crashing down. Caspian shoved Sapphire out of the way—but the rubble buried him, knocking him unconscious beneath a mound of broken reef. Sapphire screamed his name, but the current carried her away from him.

  “Marco!”

  Calder’s voice was ragged, consumed by the black tide. His body twisted with the corruption as he launched himself across the hall. Dark energy trailed him like a comet as he crashed into Marco, the two of them bursting through a wall of coral with a deafening crack. They vanished into the currents outside, tumbling into the open sea.

  “Marco!” Colby roared, his flame-hilt flaring weakly in his grip. He tried to ignite the full blade, but the water smothered it, the fire sputtering out into nothing. Fury and desperation clenched his chest.

  A tentacle tore through the dining table, scattering dishes like shrapnel. Colby whirled, spotting a fallen guard—motionless, his trident shattered, but a sword of blackened pearl still clutched in his hand.

  Colby seized it, yanking it free as he planted himself in the center of the chaos. The blade was heavy, unfamiliar, but solid. His father’s words echoed in his mind: Lead with both power and control.

  He spun toward his brothers. Atlas stood with his blades drawn, wind coiling around him, ready to charge headlong into the fight. Jax was already pulling knives from hidden sheaths, his smirk thin and dangerous.

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  “No!” Colby barked, his voice like thunder through the currents. “Get the King and Sapphire out of here! Now!”

  Atlas’s jaw clenched. “Colby—”

  “Do it!” Colby snapped, fire in his eyes even without flame in his blade. “I’ll hold the monster!”

  The words cut through. Atlas cursed under his breath, but he and Jax moved fast, rushing to Nerios’s side. The king, shaken but unbowed, shoved Sapphire behind him, but her eyes locked on Colby in horror.

  The hall groaned as the kraken forced its massive body further inside, its tentacles coiling like the arms of a god of war. Its eyes glowed sickly, locked on Colby now as the lone figure standing in its path.

  Pearl blade in hand, fire burning in his veins though not in the water, Colby set his feet, the weight of his brothers’ safety and the survival of two kingdoms pressing on his shoulders.

  He raised the weapon, currents swirling around him. “Then come, beast.”

  Colby surged forward, the blackened pearl sword gripped tightly in his hands. He roared as he lunged, striking with all the force he could muster. But the kraken’s armored hide was tougher than stone—the blade barely left a scratch.

  A massive tentacle slammed down, the current nearly crushing him. Colby twisted aside, narrowly dodging as another tentacle whipped toward him. He rolled through the water, movements sharp and desperate, the beast’s strikes shaking the entire palace with each blow.

  The kraken’s glowing eyes tracked him relentlessly, every dodge pushing Colby closer to exhaustion. His flame could not ignite fully in the depths. He was fighting with nothing but steel, will, and his father’s words burning in his chest.

  Outside the shattered walls of the palace, Marco and Calder tumbled through the water, colliding against coral arches and scattering schools of glowing fish. Marco pushed Calder back, kicking free from the dark tendrils that wrapped around his brother’s arms.

  “Calder, stop!” Marco shouted, his voice strained but firm. “This isn’t you! Whatever darkness you’ve touched—it’s twisting you! Fight it!”

  But Calder’s face was a mask of hate, his eyes consumed by black whirlpools. Shadows coiled around his limbs like chains, feeding his fury.

  “You think you can save us?!” Calder snarled, his voice distorted by the corruption. “You are the same as your father! A thief, a liar, a destroyer! I’ll drown you before I let Coralyth kneel to Gerald’s spawn!”

  He lunged, a spear of shadow forming in his hands, driving it toward Marco’s chest. Marco barely deflected with a shield of rushing water, the force rattling through his bones.

  “Calder, listen to me!” Marco tried again, his voice breaking. “You’re being used! Whatever you summoned—it’s eating you alive!”

  But Calder’s scream drowned out reason, his corrupted energy boiling the currents around them.

  Marco’s eyes flickered, memories flashing through him even as he fought.

  Earlier that day, in a quiet corridor, Colby had pulled him aside. His voice was low, urgent.

  “I found something, Marco. In Calder and Caspian’s chambers. Books—scrolls—records of summoning sea beasts. Not stories. Instructions. And they’re… corrupted. Those monsters aren’t tamed—they consume.”

  Marco’s brow had furrowed. “Consume?”

  Colby had nodded grimly, his hand tightening around the flame-hilt that refused to ignite in the depths. “The darkness they wield… it seeps into the summoner. Twists them. The more they call, the less they stay themselves. If Calder’s been using it—”

  The memory fractured back into the present: Calder’s blackened eyes, his twisted face, the shadow boiling from his skin as he bore down on Marco with the strength of the abyss.

  Outside the palace walls, the water churned like a storm as Calder pressed his assault. Even before the corruption, he had been a skilled fighter—faster than Marco, stronger, trained since birth in the ways of the tide. Now, with the dark energy burning through his veins, he was relentless.

  Marco raised walls of water, curved shields that bent Calder’s strikes aside, but they cracked under the force of each blow. A spear of shadow cut across Marco’s shoulder, sending a bloom of red drifting into the current. His body jolted from the impact, his arms trembling as he tried to steady himself.

  “You can’t stop me!” Calder snarled, shadows coiling around his form like a living armor. “You were never meant to be part of Coralyth—never meant to be our savior!”

  Marco staggered back, clutching his wound. His vision blurred—until a faint whisper stirred in the current around him. The same voice that had first called him to the sea, soft and urgent, brushing against his mind.

  Not with strength… with the tide.

  Marco’s eyes widened, breath ragged, as the voice pulsed through him.

  Inside the shattered hall, Colby reeled from another blow. A tentacle had caught his side, sending him slamming into a pillar of coral. His ribs ached, blood drifting in the water, but he forced himself up, sword in hand.

  The kraken loomed above, its massive body squeezing through the palace, crushing stone and reef alike. Its tentacles lashed wildly, striking faster than Colby could counter. He dodged, rolled, cut where he could, but every movement drained him further.

  I can’t keep this up… not alone.

  Then—two blurs shot into the chaos. Atlas stormed in first, Stormtalons flashing as he cut into a tentacle, wind currents exploding around him to push the beast back. Jax followed, knives gleaming, striking deep into softer joints where the kraken’s hide thinned.

  “Thought I said don’t get involved,” Colby called, his smirk returning even as he narrowly ducked a strike.

  Atlas grinned fiercely. “Yeah, well—didn’t sound fun without us.”

  Colby exhaled, relief mingling with determination. He lifted the pearl blade again, this time tighter, more focused. Heat began to build in his grip, faint at first, then stronger—his fire struggling, straining against the suffocating sea.

  The blade shimmered, faint red glowing through its black pearl sheen. It wasn’t flame, not yet—but it was heat, and it was working.

  Colby narrowed his eyes at the beast towering over them. “If I can’t burn you… then I’ll split you.”