Page 29 of Taken
“A trident on the wall is a lovely decoration,” Thorne drawls, “but why can’t you go all Ariel then, Kael? Why the half measures?”
His tone is thin as ash and twice as poisonous.
I feel the old reflex to clap him across the mouth for the insult—the Lord of Fire, always clever, always cruel.
My hand tightens at my side, the temptation of a violent answer bleeding heat into my runes.
“Fuck you, Smoky.”
The words are blunt. They land and ring as the Fire Lord’s growl echoes off the sea stone walls.
Dagan’s chuckle is like a rock shifting.
Alaric’s face is neutral, an unhelpful mask.
“Enough,” Alaric says, louder than necessary, and the chamber echoes with his voice. “My viyella waits for me, and I have no time to fuck around with you lot. Now—is the crown safe?”
We look at each other.
Small motions.
Politics in miniature.
The air tastes like expectation and old soot.
“It is,” I reply, but my tone has the texture of a warning. “For now.”
My worry shows in the way my fingers flex, a line of tension that runs like a tide under my skin.
The realm will acceptfor nowas a thing to hold, but I know the weight of that pause.
The SoulTakers do not keep polite hours.
“We are all under attack, Kael,” Dagan reminds me unnecessarily.
“Yes, but the crown ishere. Safe, but for now?—”
“Tell us what news you have of breaches,” Alaric says.
I nod. He’s right to start there.
“Aloysious,” I order.
My steward is a thin man with skin like dragged parchment and eyes bright as my trident’s point.
He moves with the efficient sorrow of someone who keeps record of all the places grief can be counted.
He produces the ledgers and scrolls I asked for without hesitation.
He speaks, and his voice is the careful meter of a man who has read bad news too often to be dramatic about it.
“North sluice failure at dawn. Blockage suspected, but the mechanisms showed signs of deliberate corrosion.”
He lays a damp scroll across the stone.
“Reef bloom reported off the eastern shoals—black, mucilaginous—a bloom we have never catalogued. Nests of fish have been found dead in nets. Two near-drownings reported by low-station fishermen. Both saved at the last breath. Mer-wardens note currents oscillating where they should run straight.”
The words fall like pebbles into a dark pool.
