So many people had sacrificed something to get him to where he was now—some had sacrificed everything, some he didn’t even know existed. He had to succeed, for them as much as for everyone still living in the Veil. He couldn’t let them all have died in vain. The thought was heavy on his chest at first; but he thought of his father, and the picture he had of his parents, and the weight of it eased a little. He thought of Kade, and it eased a little more.
Between the three of them, they decided to rest another day or two before Florian and Rune would take up their training in earnest. He would need to get comfortable staying shifted forlonger and longer, so Rune anticipated they wouldn’t be ready to go after the Arrow in the ocean for at least a month, maybe more. It felt like a long time to wait, but Florian knew better than to argue with her—besides, her opinion on the matter was sure to be far more accurate than his own.
So after their days of rest, Rune was still a little sore, but she refused any additional healing from Florian and insisted on training with him. This left Koji with long swathes of time alone in the kraken village, but it didn’t seem to bother him. He could easily keep busy exploring the island, he said, and was making acquaintances with several residents. Once they’d gotten used to him, the villagers kept him occupied, and he began to help with the daily fishing and chores around the village.
Florian practiced holding his shifted form for longer and longer. The first few days, he and Rune just swam aimlessly around the island, able to explore quite far since the Blight couldn’t reach that deep. After that, though, Rune told him she would show him around the underwater village.
“Are you sure it’s alright?” he asked with uncertainty, standing with his ankles in the water as Rune waded out into the ocean.
“Yeah,” she said simply. After a beat, she turned back to grin at him. “I mean, I’m sure Torsten will still be grumpy about it, but we’ve proven ourselves now. He has no reason to keep you out of this part of the kingdom. You’re hardly a stranger anymore, huh?”
Florian smiled nervously in response. That was true—while Koji was definitely making more friends between the two of them, they had still been in the village long enough for most residents to warm up to Florian. They would greet him when they crossed paths and some of the more curious of them—especially children—would even ask about his mission or the Winter Court. Most people around the village on the ground recognized him on sight, even if they’d never spoken.
So when they shifted, Rune led them around the cliff to the underwater village. It stretched much further out and went far deeper than Florian expected; from where they turned around the bend at the cliff, he could see the village didn’t start until there was a similar drop-off further into the water. The structures here were simple and seemed to be made of stone, though many were covered in barnacles or coral; they were sprawling and huge, which only made sense considering how large their bodies were. The village spread out well beyond Florian’s line of sight, but he could see the shadowy forms of a few krakens moving nearby. It looked like underwater plants were being cultivated here: different kinds of kelp and seaweed in neat rows that swayed with the current.
“Wow,” Florian thought, more to himself than to Rune, but she still chuckled as she swam past him.
“Cool, isn’t it?” she said, gesturing with a tentacle for him to follow. “C’mon. I’ll show you around.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon swimming down the main thoroughfare of the underwater village, Rune showing him various buildings and gardens. It really was very much like the above-ground village, just significantly larger. They passed several other krakens as they swam—not quite as many as were above in the village, but more than Florian would have expected. Several looked at him curiously from a distance, and Florian guessed they spent most of their time underwater, so they hadn’t actually seen him until now. Still, they would wave or even call out greetings, evidently as curious about him as he was about them. Luckily, they didn’t run into Torsten.
They spent the next several days wandering the underwater village, as Rune had Florian practice holding his shifted form for longer and longer. They had been shifted in four-hour blocks previously, but now were spending at least six hours underwater and increasing that time gradually. It was tiring, butnot as difficult as Florian had feared—still, there was a world of difference between six hours and an entire day, so they had a lot of training to do.
Rune didn’t seem in a hurry, though. When Florian brought it up, she would just answer that they would take all the time they needed before heading out to the Arrow. There was no rush. While Florian agreed there was no real hurry, he also wondered how much of Rune’s confidence was bravado. If her parents had died seeking out this Arrow, surely she must feel some trepidation in taking on the same task? He knew he did, at least.
Before he realized it, Florian and Koji had been in the kraken kingdom for three weeks, and still Florian had heard nothing from Kade. He kept as busy as he could, because when he had time to think about it, he thought he might go mad. He missed Kade so much. Was he alright? Was he safe? When would he come back?
Florian often felt right on the edge of asking Rune how he could contact the wolf kingdom, just to see what was going on; but he knew Kade wanted space to deal with everything. So, begrudgingly, he filled his days as best as possible and tried to convince himself that Kade was fine.
But when he did have the time to dwell on things, he found himself wondering again and again if this time apart would be the end of their relationship. Though it often felt like they had been together for far longer, it had only been a few months since they had first met; and now they had been apart for almost a month. Would the time they had spent together be enough? Florian hoped so, but the longer he went without word from Kade or the wolf kingdom, the more doubt crept in.
Time passed, mostly uneventful, until Florian could easily spend an eight-hour day underwater. One day, after he and Rune had spent the morning in the underwater village and were preparing to go explore deeper in the ocean, Rune suddenlyturned her attention to the other side of the wide pathway that they were swimming down. Florian looked, and he could make out another kraken approaching from the other side of the village. The other kraken stopped once they saw Rune was looking at them, though, then made a few motions with its tentacles.
Florian had learned that while the telepathy of the krakens was more sophisticated than the communication methods of the dragons or wolves, it was still limited in its radius—only about a hundred yards or so. To communicate with others further off, but still within sight, the krakens had developed a sign language which Florian was trying to learn. But with eight appendages it was quite complicated, so he only had a few words down and didn’t recognize any that the other kraken was signing to Rune, except for “man.” After a moment, Rune signed something back that Florian didn’t catch, then turned to him.
“We’re ending early today,” she said, starting to swim away without explanation. “Follow me. Let’s go up at the beach.”
“The beach?” Florian repeated, confused. “But we went down in the village.”
Rune paused, looking back over at him. He was getting better at reading the expressions on other kraken’s faces now that he’d spent so much time as one, so he could recognize the mischievous way Rune’s eye narrowed at him.
“It’s a surprise,” she replied simply, and started to swim on. “You coming or not?”
With an internal groan, Florian followed her. Not that he had another option—it was that or hang out awkwardly in the village on his own. They headed toward the edge of the village pressed against the wall of the cliff that encircled it, following the curve that led to the secluded, rocky beach.
On days they planned to spend in the underwater part of the kingdom, they would just descend from the larger beach withinthe village; but on days spent in the wild waters, they still often used the small rocky beach to dive into the chilly morning tide. They had never gone down in the village and come back up on the other beach, though, and for a moment Florian worried if something bad had happened. Maybe someone injured themselves, or invaders were attacking the village? But then why would they leave instead of going to help?
“What’s going on?” he asked, unable to contain the question. But Rune didn’t even glance back at him as she replied,
“I told you it’s a surprise.”
He obviously wasn’t going to get anything else out of her, so with an annoyed huff, he continued to follow as they rounded the bend and started heading up into shallower waters.
Rune breached the surface first, but pushed her tentacles against Florian to keep him from coming up alongside her. “Hold on.”
He froze, worrying all over again that something bad had happened. “What is it?”
But her tone was teasing, almost cheerful, as she replied, “Come up slow and look toward the beach.”
Confused, Florian slowly moved around to her side and carefully rose up so one of his eyes was up and out of the water. Having his eyes so far apart had been difficult to get used to. In motion it felt more natural, but if he was looking at something specific, he often had to close the eye that wasn’t focusing to get a better look. His vision was still a little blurry from the sea water, but as the beach came into focus, he could see two figures standing on the shore.
One was Koji, standing just out of reach of the tide and pointing toward them with a smile. The other was a few steps behind him, taller, with short-cropped dark hair and familiar orange eyes—
Florian’s heart froze. “Kade?”
