Next Steps

The Prime's light faded to ember-glow, leaving Aldric and Lysara in the ancient chamber. He felt lighter now that the Prime presence had disappeared. The weight of destiny pressed against his shoulders, but his empty stomach pressed harder.

"I'm Aldric." He tapped his chest, hoping the gesture might bridge their language gap.

Lysara's scales rippled silver-blue. She mimicked his gesture, her own name sliding past her lips in musical tones he couldn't hope to replicate.

His next attempt at the old tongue stumbled out. "Habes cibum?"

She tilted her head, scales shifting to puzzled purple. Right. He curved his hand to his mouth, pantomiming eating. Her scales blazed sunrise-gold as understanding dawned.

Lysara padded to Temus's shrine, her feet silent on the marble. The prayer she whispered carried notes of harvest-song, of windswept fields. Light bloomed in her palms, solidifying into what looked like fresh bread and fruit.

She bounded back, offering him half with a fluid grace that made his own movements feel clumsy. Their fingers brushed during the exchange. Her scales flickered for just a moment.

Aldric stared at the food in his hand, then at the shrine. Sir Danton had never mentioned one could pray to guardians other than their own. But then, there were many things his master hadn't lived long enough to teach him or maybe it was knowledge lost to time.

The divine-blessed food vanished in three bites. Aldric's stomach growled for more, days of hunger barely touched by the small portion.

Lysara extended her share, scales shimmering with concern.

He shook his head. "No, keep it." The gesture seemed universal enough.

The marble floor cooled his legs as he settled cross-legged. It was time to sort out this language barrier. He pointed to himself. "Aldric." Then to her. "Lysara."

Her scales flickered blue-green. "Aldric." His name sounded different in her voice, musical notes rather than simple syllables.

"Gratias," he managed, mangling the pronunciation.

Lysara's laugh echoed off the shrine walls, pure as temple bells. Her scales danced with rainbow mirth.

"Gra-ti-as," she corrected, each syllable precise.

"Gratias," he tried again.

Her scales brightened. "Melior."

They traded words back and forth. Each time he butchered the ancient tongue, her scales would shift to new patterns.

He tapped the floor. "Ground."

"Terra." Her pronunciation flowed like water.

He pointed up. "Ceiling."

"Tectum." She mimicked his pointing, then touched her chest. "Ego."

The words came easier than they should have. Perhaps the Prime's blessing lingered, or maybe the old tongue remembered its way to human lips.

"You're a better teacher than Brother Marcus." The common tongue earned him another head-tilt. He mimed writing on parchment, then sleeping.

Her scales rippled with fresh amusement.

Their words flowed easier now, a halting dance between the old tongue and the new. Aldric pointed to different parts of the shrine room, collecting terms like precious stones. He explained that the blessing he had received allowed him to understand the old language.

"Could …show…temple?" he stumbled over the ancient words, but could still communicate.

Lysara's scales dimmed. She led him up the worn steps into ruins painted silver by moonlight.

"The dormitories stood here." Her scales shifted to deep blue as she traced a crumbling wall. "Hundreds lived within these halls."

Wind whistled through empty archways where master craftsmen once carved prayers into stone.

"The training yards spread beneath that broken dome." Her voice caught. "My people practised their arts there, before—" Her scales darkened to midnight.

Aldric's boots crunched over fallen marble. Each step revealed new scars of an ancient battle. Scorched stone. Melted metal. The bones of a once-great sanctuary picked clean by time.

"You lived here?"

"When the world was whole." She touched a fallen column, scales rippling with memories. "When the Prime still walked these halls."

More ruins stretched ahead. A collapsed library. A shattered refectory. The ghosts of glory days buried under rubble and vines.

His stomach knotted. They couldn't stay here – these ruins offered no shelter, no defence. But Millbrook would have fallen to the Karnaxians by now. His home wasn't home anymore.

His stomach knotted. He gestured at the ruins, searching for the right words. "Not... safe. No..." He mimed sleeping, then shook his head.

Lysara nodded, understanding despite his broken speech.

"Millbrook..." He pointed east, then made a slashing motion. "Karnax... take."

He tapped his chest, then hers. "We... need..." The last word escaped him, so he mimed walls with his hands.

Lysara's scales shifted to steel-grey determination. Her response came slow, careful, choosing words she knew he'd understand. "I know a place. If it still stands."

Aldric wasn't sure how much he could trust her knowledge or how long it had been since she last saw the outside world, but he had no other options.

He watched as Lysara gathered her belongings—a gnarled staff and a waterskin that had survived ages untouched. His legs ached for rest, his stomach for more than divine morsels.

She pointed southeast.

"Far?" asked Aldric

Her scales flickered as she considered the question. "Sol..." She traced an arc in the air with her finger.

Half a day's walk. He hoped.

The forest swallowed them. Lysara moved like water between the trees, pausing to pluck bright berries and pale fruits. She held each find to her nose before offering it to him.

"Safe?" His tongue still struggled with her language.

Her scales shimmered golden-green. "Mother's gifts."

The food filled his belly, but a new scent filled his nose. Sharp. Strange. It grew stronger with each step until it stung his throat.

Lysara's scales brightened. "The sea."

"Sea?"

She beckoned him forward, quickening her pace. The trees thinned. A roar built in his ears, like a thousand waterfalls.

The forest ended. The world ended.

Blue stretched forever. Waves tall as castle walls crashed against weathered cliffs. White birds wheeled overhead. The water reached toward the horizon until it kissed the sky.

"Ocean," Aldric whispered.

"Ocean," Lysara echoed in the common tongue, her first attempt at the word. To Aldric, the songlike quality of her voice made it sound as majestic as it looked.

He sank to his knees. All the rivers of his homeland could fit into this vast blue expanse a hundred times over. The salt spray kissed his lips. The endless motion hypnotized him.

Lysara watched him, her scales shifting like rippling water. She was captivated by his awe.

Lysara sank into the sand beside him, her scales shifting to the deep blue of the waves before them.

Aldric exhaled, rubbing the grit from his palms. "What now?" he asked. "Where .. go..next?"

"Wait," she gestured at the horizon.

The ocean's rhythm matched their breathing. Salt crusted on Aldric's lips. A gull wheeled overhead, its cry lost in the crash of waves.

Time stretched. The sun dipped lower, staining the sky with streaks of gold and crimson. The tide pulled at the shore, whispering secrets as it ebbed and flowed.

Aldric was starting to worry. "For how long?"

Lysara didn't answer immediately. Her gaze remained fixed on the horizon, her hand drawing absently in the sand. The moment held something sacred. Aldric could tell her mind was elsewhere.

Then, the sea split.

Waters parted like curtains drawn aside, revealing a figure striding through the gap. Sunlight glinted off a trident, its polished prongs catching the dying light. green-scaled armour clung to the man's form, seawater streaming from its ridges. At his throat, gills pulsed—not in struggle, but in harmony, drawing breath from both air and sea.

Lysara sprang up. Her nose twitched as she circled the newcomer, scales flickering through shades of investigation.

The man's laugh boomed across the beach, deep and rolling like the tide. " Oh, a lightborn. Smell away, girl. You'll find no corruption here." His old tongue flowed like waves against the shore.

Lysara inhaled deeply. "Clean" her scales flickered, then settled to a calm azure. She dropped to her knees and pressed her forehead to the ground. "Gratitude, blessed one."

Aldric, still kneeling in the sand, pointed at the man's throat. "You… not human?"

The stranger's gills fluttered as he chuckled. "Sharp eye, lad. I was born as human as you, but Nerith's blessing marks her faithful. The Sea Queen's gifts let us walk her domain." He planted his trident in the sand, its weight sinking into the damp earth.

"I am Keras, Voice of the Depths."

Aldric hesitated, still working through the meaning. "Keras…" The name felt foreign in his mouth. "Priest?"

Keras's grin revealed teeth, sharp as a shark's but not unnatural. "Among other things."

"This is no place for a conversation." Keras glanced at the darkening waters above. "We need to return to Vadore before nightfall."

He turned, and the ocean parted once more. Three hundred metres from the shore, an underwater city materialised through the wall of water. Invisible barriers held back the sea, defying nature itself. Aldric's jaw dropped at the sight.

Lysara and Keras were already moving ahead, their footsteps echoing across the exposed seafloor. Aldric jogged to catch up, his eyes drinking in the alien architecture. Buildings rose like frozen waves, their surfaces gleaming with the iridescent sheen of mother-of-pearl.

"The structures—what are they made of?" Aldric ran his hand along a wall, smooth and cool beneath his fingers.

"Harvested coral." Keras's voice echoed off the curved surfaces. "Living architecture, grown rather than built."

They wound through streets that spiralled like nautilus shells, past doorways that resembled giant clam mouths and windows like frozen bubbles. Spires twisted towards the water ceiling like reaching tentacles, their surfaces rippling with phosphorescent light.

Keras led them to a massive structure that dominated the city centre. Its surface bore the distinct patterns of a conch shell, ridged and spiralling upward until it disappeared into the watery gloom above.

Inside, Keras turned to face them. "Now, what brings you to our depths?"

"Corruption spreads through the surface lands." Lysara's voice was tight. "We need sanctuary, supplies—time to recover our strength."

"The Mother's barrier?" Keras's fingers twitched.

"Still holds." Lysara nodded. "The Corruption cannot breach it."

The tension drained from Keras's shoulders. "Then sanctuary you shall have, for as long as you need."

Consciousness returned to Aldric in fragments. The last he remembered was being granted sanctuary, he assumed he had passed out from exhaustion. The large circular bed beneath him yielded like water, filled with something soft yet stringy. He blinked, trying to focus.

"Kelp."

Aldric jolted upright. Lysara perched on a coral outcropping, her eyes fixed on him.

"Were you watching me sleep?" he asked in common tongue still waking up.

"Yes." Her scales rippled to a soft azure, catching his attention he still hadn't worked out how the colours worked.

"Now, eat." She gestured to a platter beside the bed. "Then we train."

The spread before him vanished in minutes – sweet fruits he'd never tasted, fish that melted on his tongue, bread that sparkled with salt crystals.

The training arena stretched beneath the dome of water, coral pillars rising like ancient trees. Lysara's staff whistled through the air. A shield and sword clattered at Aldric's feet. Metal flashed. Aldric barely managed to snatch up the shield before her staff cracked against it. The impact shuddered through his bones.

"Your enemies won't wait for you to be ready."

Her movements flowed like water – strike, spin, strike. Each time he thought he'd found an opening, her staff was there, finding gaps in his defence he hadn't known existed.

Confidence had never been an issue—even as a squire, he measured himself against any knight save for Sir Danton. But now, standing here, he felt five years old again, struggling to lift a sword too big for his hands, defending against a Sir Danton who would not go easy on a child.

Hours bled together. His arms burned. Sweat stung his eyes.

"Again."

His sword met empty air. Pain bloomed across his back.

"Again."

She danced around his guard, centuries of combat experience in every step.

"Again."

The floor rushed up to meet him. His chest heaved as he stared at the watery ceiling, muscles screaming. Beside him, Lysara sprawled gracefully, her breath coming quick and shallow.

Her scales had darkened to deep indigo, like storm-tossed seas. A droplet of sweat traced the curve of her neck. Their eyes met, and for a moment, the air crackled with tension.

Lysara looked away first. "You are barely passable. Tomorrow, we work on your footwork."

Moonlight filtered through the water above, casting rippling patterns across Aldric's quarters. His muscles ached, but a good ache – the kind that promised strength to come. He sank onto the kelp bed, its fronds bending beneath his weight.

The holy symbol felt cool against his palm as he drew it from his tunic. Silver gleamed dull in the dim light, scratches and worn edges telling tales of years of faithful service. His thumb traced the familiar curves.

"Master." His voice caught. "You wouldn't believe where I am now. A city under the bloody ocean, of all places." He smiled, though his eyes stung. "Remember how you used to say the world was full of wonders? Reckon you never imagined this one."

The symbol's weight settled in his hands, comforting as an old friend.

"Got my arse handed to me in training today. By a small lady, no less. She moves like... like nothing I've ever seen. Would've loved to see you spar with her."

Shadows danced across the walls. Something luminescent drifted past his window, trailing tendrils of blue light.

"I miss your guidance. Everything's gone mad. Corruption spreading, the world changing." His fingers tightened around the symbol. "I hope... I hope somehow you can hear this. That maybe there's still a connection, even if—"

His voice broke. The symbol pressed against his forehead, cool metal against hot skin.

"I'll make you proud. Promise."

He waited for a reply he knew wouldn't come. Before doing his daily prayers and drifting off to sleep.