Thalos cracked one polar-blue eye open, watching Vorthane pry another cluster of clams free.
"More," he said simply, lips curving in a tiny hint of amusement. Because the scholars were doing his work for him. Refining arguments he'd already considered, but in finer detail.
Vorthane glanced up. "She's one girl, sovereign. A Siren, not a garrison."
Scales glittering, Thalos flicked his tail in a lazy nonchalance and shrugged. "More," he said again.
The scarred scholar grunted but resumed his work.
"If we can make a case to show the child expresses primarilyAsteriontraits," Syrathis continued, each word measured and clipped, "then?—”
"Then our sovereign holds the stronger claim." Pelagius' dull pewter scales rippled with greedy satisfaction.
"If itsurvivesthe pregnancy," Syrathis continued carefully, "Caelith Mare has grounds. A claim. The courts would have to acknowledge?—"
"The courts," Thalos drawled, speaking without turning. Flat and amused. "You think Nyxarion will honor court rulings? After winning the Spiral?" he clicked his tongue and moved to pluck a sun clam from the shelf himself, turning it over in his palm. Perfectly shaped. Heavy with nutrients a pregnantVireliicraved.
Cravings only his people indulged in.
And now, one Siren.
He tucked it into the pouch alongside the others and thought of Kore's throat moving as she swallowed.
For a few long moments, silence pooled between them.
Thalos selected another, inspecting it with a shrewd eye before letting it flutter down into the dark.
Imperfect.
Barbles twitching, Syrathis read the quiet with a slow, deliberate shiver that meant the blind scholar was choosing his words with meticulous intention.
And then, "Nyxarion was exiled," he said, and his voice carried no hint of inflection. “For creating a Siren. Breaking the Accord. These are not uncharted waters. Precedent was setlong ago. And there could be an argument made,” he said, head tilting, “to claim the child as reparation. Vorynthar itself is unrecognized territory, despite what he titles himself. The Black Sea holds no sovereign charter under Pelagorn law—no ancestral claim or court sanction."
Thalos's fingers stilled. Glacial blue eyes flicked up to those that were faded and milky.
"Any offspring born outside recognized waters," Syrathis continued, "falls under the jurisdiction of the nearest chartered authority. Which is Caelith Mare." A pause. The barbels swayed. "Nyxarion may have won the Spiral, but such a victory merely grants breeding rights over a bride. And never a Siren. Not territorial sovereignty, nor lineage. Should Caelith Mare lodge formal claims over the child as Thalos' firstborn heir, the offspring is?—"
"Stateless," Vorthane finished, his voice flat with reluctant understanding.
Syrathis tilted his gaunt face toward Thalos. Those clouded amber eyes fixed on nothing and everything all at once. "He can rage and threaten. But if you choose it, Sovereign, your claim is the stronger."
Thalos's mouth curved.
Clever old eel.
He gathered two more clams. Choice morsels with plump, iridescent shells. Then sealed the pouch. Full to bursting. Enough to keep her fed for days.
As if there wasn't ulterior motive in everything he did.
The distinction mattered less each time he descended into the abyss.
Lost in thought, Thalos watched them without seeing. His mind circling far below, where the heart of Vorynthar burned at the bottom of the sea.
His claim on the child had been a blade thrown for sport. Nothing more. A barb designed to lodge in Nyxarion's skull and fester, to keep the Abyssari king circling and snarling and stupid with impotent fury while Thalos calculated his next move.
Paternity was a useful fiction—a political lever.
The kind of elegant cruelty that cost very little to wield, but was exceptionally hard to defend against.
