Page 54

This is a disaster. I thought I was prepared for facing the monster threatening Saltweather, but I was not prepared for this.

The Great Hall shakes again, and this time a banquet chair slides several feet across the stone.

Outside the reinforced glass, Sigurd and Lotan are difficult to distinguish for more than a few seconds at a time. Gray silt has swallowed most of the trench since Sigurd dragged the leviathan through the outer doors.

Every collision sends another cloud rolling across the windows. I catch a glimpse of Lotan’s plated tail, then the spread of Sigurd’s tentacles closing around him. Then, they both disappear into the murk.

The fight has already changed.

Lotan still twists and strikes whenever Sigurd gives him room, but those openings are becoming rarer. Sigurd keeps forcing him back against the ocean floor, using his greater weight and the reach of his tentacles to close every escape. He is no longer trying to drive Lotan away from the fortress or force him to surrender.

He is trying to kill him.

Behind me, the Great Hall has broken into frightened clusters. The merfolk delegates have retreated from the windows, speaking over one another. Members of the household staff secure tables and anything else that might fall. Bastian stands near the sealed entrance, directing two attendants toward the emergency passages. I push through the crowd until I reach him.

“Can we still use one of the airlocks? Can we go outside?”

“The secondary lock is operational. The main system sealed after they breached it.” His scarred face tightens when another impact reaches us through the floor. “Miss Priest, if you are considering intervening yourself, I strongly advise against it.”

“If I stay in here, Sigurd is going to commit murder.”

Bastian looks toward the trench instead of answering. That is answer enough.

I start toward the secondary chamber, but the sight of Solveig on the raised dais stops me. She hasn’t moved since Sigurd took Lotan outside. Both hands rest over the head of her obsidian cane, and from a distance she looks as composed as ever. Up close, the tension in her shoulders tells a different story.

“Móðir, you have to stop him. Please. You can’t let this happen.”

Solveig turns her head toward me and shakes her head. “Lotan challenged Sigurd’s claim in front of every clan represented in this hall. He offered to take you from him and made the dispute public. Sigurd answered that challenge himself.”

“By dragging him through an airlock.”

“Yes.” Her fingers tighten around the cane, though her voice remains controlled. “If I order Sigurd to stop now, I tell every house watching that his authority exists only while I permit it. Lotan understood the risk when he challenged another creature’s claim before his people.”

The explanation doesn’t make abyssal politics any less insane. But it tells me why Solveig has been standing here instead of intervening. She could order Sigurd back. Doing it now would publicly strip him of the authority Lotan challenged in the first place.

Another impact rolls through the fortress. Solveig barely reacts, but for the first time since I met her, I can see fear beneath all that rigid control.

That decides it.

I leave the dais and head for the secondary airlock.

My pressure suit is still standing beside the chamber where I left it after our walk. I pull the heavy material down and immediately remember exactly how complicated the thing is. Ysra had needed several minutes to fasten and check every seal before I went outside. When we returned, Sigurd had helped me release the clasps and lift the helmet because half of them were nearly impossible to reach on my own.

With enough time, I could probably struggle into it by myself. It’s time I don’t have.

Through the narrow window in the airlock door, the water clears just enough for me to see Sigurd force Lotan back against the trench floor. The leviathan thrashes, but Sigurd’s grip only tightens.

“He wasn’t supposed to attack him.”

Maren’s voice reaches me from behind.

I turn with the suit still gathered in my hands. Maren is standing a few yards away. None of her usual polished confidence remains. She seems unable to look away from the trench. And suddenly, I understand.

Lotan arrived knowing the claiming ritual had failed. He knew it hadn’t bound me completely. He understood exactly how to turn that weakness into an offer Sigurd couldn’t hear without seeing it as a challenge.

I had been so focused on the bargain that I never stopped to wonder how he knew any of it.

She looks over and finds me staring at her. “You told him what happened at Mt. Qaf,” I murmur.