Page 28 of Taken
Kael
Casteltide
After I use my magic to clean us both up, I leave Phoebe with Amber, her new lady’s maid.
The older Demon is stern but not unkind, with the kind of no-nonsense air that makes her well suited to guiding a stranger through the keep.
She has her orders. Show Phoebe the halls, the kitchens, the heart of Castletide itself—yet do not let her step beyond the sea-stone walls.
“Why can’t I go outside?” Phoebe asks, chin tilted in defiance, though her voice carries more weariness than rebellion.
Amber bows her head slightly before glancing at me, awaiting permission to answer. I sigh.
“Because nothing is as it seems in Nightfall, Telya. I will show you more when my meeting is over. I am sorry—I can’t escape it.”
“Whatever,” she mutters, folding her arms.
The word grates, unfamiliar in my ears, dismissive in a way I can’t quite parse.
I frown, unsettled, not fully understanding her tone yet knowing I lack the time to untangle it now.
Reluctance weighs on me as I turn from her. I do not like leaving her here alone, in this alien place, bound to a fate she does not yet grasp.
But duty presses. The other Lords wait for me.
I step into the corridor and call the current. Magic carries me through the deep-carved veins of the keep until I stand before the tall double doors of the council chamber.
With a thought, they open.
The air within is sharp with brine and the tang of old iron. A place where sound is swallowed, coiled, and never escapes.Private. Protected.
Light filters through the great sea-windows, casting the flagstones in wavering sheets of green.
Relics line the walls—silent witnesses of power once wielded without hesitation.
My father’s helm, crowned in coral. The jagged harpoon that split a leviathan’s heart. And there, in pride of place, rests the trident.
Three prongs rise like a crown of lightning and storm, each point glimmering with the memory of tempests.
Beside it, the chest plate, heavy with scaled inlay, and the woven mer-mail, a net of impossible metal pulled from the trenches where no mortal diver breathes.
They gleam with cold promise, vengeance, and wrath.
I have never worn them. They wait, patient and implacable, for the moment the Lord of Water must shed his mortal guise.
A Titan, some call it. Merman, others whisper. The words do not matter. What matters is the truth—that when the sea claims me, there is no man left. Only the tide.
I have never needed to take that form—until now, perhaps.
The very thought makes the runes along my skin flare hot and anxious.
Alaric sits cross-legged on the raised dais, long limbs folded like a man built to ride the wind. His Dragon bristles beneath his calm.
Dagan’s bulk fills the carved bench opposite, wings wrapped about him like a second shadow.
Thorne lounges on the far side, smoke-scent clinging to his cloak. He always looks like a man who can’t be bothered to be noble and enjoys the irritation it causes.
Their presences are like weather I have learned to read.
