Chapter Text
Mydeimos was on his way to the market when he saw three children playing with harpoons. Ordinarily, he would not stop for that – in Kremnos Deep, children play-fighting was a common sight. But these three of were holding real, sharp weapons, and none of them were wearing armour.
It was, quite obviously, time to intervene.
Mydeimos stopped, tucking his tail underneath himself to keep from floating any further down the street. Around him, the people swimming along the concourse swerved to give him space, several of them offering an apologetic bow or a salute as they passed him by. Mydeimos ignored them, diving below the crowd before making his way up to the alcove carved into the cliff wall, where the children were playing. For a moment, he observed them.
They were two girls and a boy, none of them older than ten. Their tails, still stubby, were hooked onto a stone railing in a typical childish way to keep themselves from drifting off. The harpoons they held were taller than them; as Mydeimos watched, one of the girls clutched hers too close to the bottom, making the blade sway dangerously close to another girl’s stomach.
Alright, I should really step in.
“You are holding it wrong,” Mydeimos told the girl, folding his arms.
That was a mistake; as the girl startled, the harpoon’s blade went soaring towards the boy’s throat. With a flick of his tail, Mydei shot forward, grabbing the weapon before it could do actual damage.
“Y-your highness…!” the girl whose weapon he was clutching looked mortified as he plucked the harpoon from her grip. The other two kids straightened out, holding their own harpoons at attention – or, as close to attention as little children could manage. Mydeimos would never admit it out loud, but the sight was quite precocious.
“Crown prince!” the boy and the girl called.
Mydeimos could sense the currents behind him stirring, people coming to a stop to watch what was unfolding. He restrained himself from flicking his tail in annoyance and approached the girl whose harpoon he’d taken.
“Extend your hand,” he said. As she did so, eyes wide, he handed her the harpoon and adjusted her grip. “This is how you hold your weapon. Here… and here.”
“Y-yes, your highness!”
Mydeimos turned his attention to the other two, who were trying to mimic the girl’s grip. He rolled his eyes and assisted them, too.
“Where did you get these?” he asked. The kids looked over each other.
“We… found them?” the boy ventured. The other girl nodded eagerly. Mydeimos rolled his eyes. Very well. It wasn’t his job to police what happened with military equipment – though he would have words with the people whose job it was.
“And where are your caretakers?” he asked instead.
“W-we’re from t-the Schola,” the stuttering girl replied. Mydeimos sighed with understanding.
Most Kremnoans were soldiers; those who could not care for their children – whether willingly or not – sent them to be raised by the Schola. With Kremnos now fighting a war on two fronts, the number of Schola children had increased dramatically. While Mydeimos, as the king’s sole son, never experienced the Schola life, he could imagine how overworked the caretakers were.
“Very well,” he declared to the three wide-eyed children, then grabbed the boy’s harpoon. “If you wish to learn how to wield a weapon properly, watch carefully.”
The kids gasped, their attention entirely focused on Mydeimos now. As he started his lecture, he became keenly aware that a small crowd was forming behind him, eager to observe the crown prince playing with children. It was unavoidable, he supposed, contenting himself to ignore it in favour of his three little students.
“The first rule of wielding a harpoon is to maintain a steady grip,” he began his lecture. “Your weapon is your life; if you lose your hold on it…”
***
And so here Mydeimos was, a full quint later, his plan to visit to the market long abandoned. The children were tuckered out, exhausted from their impromptu training. They clung to the spines of his tail like little remoras as he swam along the city’s main concourse to bring them back to the Schola.
To his sides, sharp cliffs rose far above him, forming the narrow canyon of Kremnos Deep. The two walls were filled with openings, homes and workshops carved into stone, framed by garlands of bioluminescent coral and algae glowing in neon colours – blues, greens, pinks. Below Mydeimos, a stream of lava flowed along the bottom of the canyon, a stone grate separating it from the city. The water wafting up from it was pleasantly warm, bringing many Kremnoans near the grate to bask in the heat as they went about their day.
The glow from both the lava and the luminescent sea life was not enough to properly light up Kremnos; two hundred metres below the surface, it couldn’t truly defeat the pervasive darkness of deep sea. But it didn’t have to – Mydeimos, and all other merfolk, could see perfectly fine even in pitch black.
Though he was no longer followed by a crowd of onlookers interested in the impromptu lesson, quite a few people still took notice of him, and the children clinging to his tail, as he passed by. Thankfully, they knew better than to comment on this where he could hear them; most simply smiled.
As Mydeimos approached the Schola, he swam up to see a small group of children floating around, their tails clinging to the railings. A teacher among them – a woman in blue-black robe and with bags under her eyes – took note of him and paused whatever she was doing, her mouth agape as she saw the three kids clinging sleepily to his tail.
“Crown prince…!” the woman gasped, coiling her tail inwards in supplication. Mydeimos nodded, gently prying one of the girls off the spine of his tail.
“I hope they did not cause you worry,” he said. As the woman shook her head, awed, he added, “they got ahold of real weapons somehow. I would implore you to investigate this, should you have the time.”
The woman nodded rapidly, gently bringing her tail over and letting the girl grab onto it. As Mydeimos moved all three children to her, she opened her mouth, seemingly to speak – then stopped, her eyes widening with worry as she looked at something above Mydeimos. Just then, he felt the current of someone stopping behind him.
He sighed and turned around, resisting the urge to coil up his tail in displeasure as he looked up to find his father glaring down at him.
“This is unbecoming,” Eurypon scoffed.
At times, Mydeimos despised how similar the two of them looked. Both had reddish hair, golden eyes, and broad-shouldered build. For both of them, the tail that started below their waist was dark red in colour, long as an eel’s, with spines running along the back and sides, ending in a shark-like fin.
But that was, admittedly, where the similarities ended. Where Mydeimos was clean-shaven, Eurypon had cultivated a short, angular beard; where Mydei wore a half-open robe that hung loosely off one of his shoulders and revealed his tattoos, Eurypon had taken to wearing an armoured breastplate. Mydei supposed this was difference enough to distinguish between them.
Even if he did sometimes consider dyeing his hair.
He glowered at his father, not bothering with an answer. Eurypon rolled his eyes, then spun around and started swimming away, seemingly disgusted at the company his son was keeping. Mydeimos glanced back at the Schola caretaker and gave the spooked woman a polite nod, then followed after Eurypon.
He did not particularly want to chase after his father, let alone engage in conversation, but Eurypon would not seek him out in public like this if there wasn’t a serious conversation to be had. Kremnos was at war; Mydeimos was not at liberty to complain.
“You are the Crown Prince,” Eurypon declared, apparently at liberty to complain, as Mydeimos swam up to join him. “It is beneath you to be playing with children.”
Mydeimos rolled his eyes.
“Is there a reason you were looking for me?” he asked instead. Eurypon side-eyed him with a scoff.
“Not here,” he said and kicked off, cutting through the water towards the palace. Mydeimos growled quietly and followed after him.
The Kremnoan royal palace was located at the very end of the canyon, where the cliffs parted to open into a vast caldera of a long-dormant volcano. A stone outcropping rose from the centre like a surface island, the volcanic rock carved into columns and walls. Vast chains hung in the water above, anchoring the palace to the cliffs around it to prevent it from ever falling over. Both Eurypon and Mydeimos swam higher, away from the lava; here, it was hot enough to boil if one got too close to it.
The two of them went past the guards, Mydeimos offering the women brief nods, and into one of the many openings in the walls. The corridor beyond had pots of bioluminescent seagrass at regular intervals, handpicked to match the colour of lava outside. After a moment, Mydeimos realized he was being led into the Map Room. He narrowed his eyes. What is happening, exactly?
A guard let them inside, then closed the door behind them. Mydeimos stopped there, watching as Eurypon floated towards the table in the centre. Upon it, carved with exacting detail, was the map of the coastal shelf the Kremnos Deep was carved into.
Closer to where Mydeimos floated, the ground level rose, until a harsh, carved line marked the sea’s edge. Surface, said the text etched into the terrain beyond it. It was perfectly flat – the merfolk cared not for the geography of the land they would never get to explore – save for a small, protruding ring labelled Okhema. Mydeimos unthinkingly placed his hand atop it. Almost three weeks since I’ve last seen him…
He shook his head, scolding himself internally for thinking about him when he had to focus on his father. Fortunately, Eurypon was currently fiddling with something in the drawer underneath the map; Mydeimos took the opportunity to observe the table further.
Past Kremnos, closer to Eurypon’s side of the map, the seafloor continued. There were a few marked garrisons and ruined cities dotted here and there before the ground dropped down a cliff, into a flat plain that formed the table’s edge. Blackwater, said the text there.
Eurypon emerged from that side of the table holding a few small stone markers, painted to glow neon red. With a flourish, he put one down at a cluster of ruins near the edge of the continental shelf.
“Our scouts,” he said, “have spotted increased presence of Blackwater Tide near Aidonia.”
Mydeimos let out a small grunt, folding his arms.
“I was under the impression we had them focused on Styxia,” he said. “Something must have changed.”
“Obviously,” Eurypon huffed. “That is why we’re talking right now.”
Mydeimos nodded, lost in thought.
He’d been told as a child that once, a century ago, the whole ocean was filled with vibrancy and life, kept flourishing by the boundless Abundance; that merfolk could traverse it safely, venturing even as far as the shores of other continents. But that all ended when a star crashed into the sea. From it sprouted the Blackwater Tide, and in response, the Abundance turned from nurturing to hostile. And so, the deep sea became impossible to traverse.
The Tide itself manifested as a tar-like liquid, drifting through the water and spreading along the seafloor; Kremnoans tore at it, boiled it, carved it out. But that wasn’t enough to deal with the Tide Beasts; creatures corrupted by the Blackwater, once-ordinary sea animals, people, and even a Titan, altered and made hostile to their former allies. Those were the true danger, the vanguard of the Tide itself. They were not particularly cunning, but they were vicious in their determination.
For the last ten years or so, the Kremnoan army had managed to lure them into the maze of tunnels that formed the abandoned city of Styxia, on the very edge of the continental shelf. Mydeimos himself had spent nigh-on six years on the Styxian front, first as a regular soldier, then as a commander. He knew full well how dreadful the fighting there was – and how convenient for the Kremnoans. But if the Tide Beasts were now appearing far to the north, in the ruins of Aidonia…
“Have they wised up to our lures?” Mydeimos asked. “Or are they simply searching for openings?”
Eurypon shrugged.
“The strategoi believe it’s the latter; the Tide poking and prodding to see if it can find any other access point. It’s merely token effort for now, but nevertheless, we must convince it to refocus on Styxia.”
“You intend to send an expeditionary force to Aidonia,” Mydeimos observed. Eurypon nodded.
“A single brigade shall head to the city and eliminate the Tide scouts there,” he said. “I leave it to you to pick one, though I forbid you to use the Kingsguard. The ruins of Aidonia are not as convenient as Styxia’s streets for proper ambushes, but you should be able to make good use of them anyway.”
Mydeimos did not say the obvious: that Aidonia’s ruined state was Eurypon’s own fault. The king had ravaged the city a few years before Mydeimos was born, after the Aidonians refused to pay him tribute. Now, the few survivors lived in Kremnos while their once great city lay in ruins, leaving an opening for the Tide to seep through.
Mydeimos reminded himself that getting into an argument with his father would be unproductive right now, and focused on the second half of his statement.
“You wish for me to lead the expeditionary force,” he said.
“Obviously. Your task will be to ensure that this trickle of scouts doesn’t turn into a current,” Eurypon replied, then glowered at him. “Why so disgruntled?”
“I am concerned about committing an entire brigade to this while Okhemans and their fishing expeditions are still hanging above our heads,” Mydeimos replied. Eurypon let out a mirthless chuckle.
“Why, worried you’ll miss the next visit from your landwalker?”
Mydeimos snarled, glaring up at his father. Eurypon regarded him coolly, arms folded.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he sneered. “You should’ve killed that man when you had the chance instead of engaging in this… extended contest.”
“This ‘extended contest’, as you call it, is happening precisely because I was unable to kill him the first time,” Mydeimos snapped back.
“Surely no son of mine would lose a battle to a landwalker.”
“You are welcome to fight him yourself if you are so confident in your superiority,” Mydeimos replied, though internally, he bristled. Don’t you dare.
Eurypon let out a quiet psh before turning his attention back to the map.
“Enough with this nonsense. We can handle the landwalkers just fine. Select which brigade you’re taking with you; you will be departing for Aidonia next week.”
As much as Mydei wanted to argue again, he nodded. Eurypon had made up his mind, and now it was up to Mydei to ensure the negative consequences of his choices would be kept to a minimum.
“I will be taking Krateros and his Godshields,” he declared, as though he’d ever pick anyone else. “Now, what exactly do we know about the situation?”
***
Mydeimos’s stomach panged with hunger as he finally departed the Map Room, his head buzzing with information. Right; he never did end up getting that lunch. As he swam through the palace, he considered whether or not the fishcake shop he’d been frequenting of late would still be open by this quint, but… probably no. Most people were already going to sleep by now.
The palace, too, was winding down its operations for the day; Mydeimos passed by two clerks carrying stacks of stone slates as he swam by, and guards stationed at regular intervals, but otherwise, the corridors were empty. Intent on making his way to the palace kitchen, he swam through the Statues Hall – and paused by a familiar figure near the exit.
His mother’s statue, carved from smooth pale stone, was life-sized, almost as tall as Mydeimos had grown to be. Her tail wrapped around a long spear, one hand held a harpoon, and the other clutched a slate. As he did every time he passed by this room, Mydei eyed her features, committing them to memory as he tried to imagine the exact shade of her skin, her hair, her tail.
Ordinarily, Kremnoan royals would be buried in coffins of volcanic glass, to be visited and admired by their loved ones. Except, Queen Gorgo’s body was never found. The statue was the closest Mydeimos could come to visiting his mother’s grave, and after twelve years, he was beginning to forget what she looked like in colour.
Except the eyes. Everyone always told Mydeimos he had Gorgo’s eyes.
At least the statue was incredibly true to life. Mydeimos could see every detail of her fierce expression, each fold of her clothes, each strand of the hair bound under her helmet. The sole exception was the slate in her hand, the text on it mere scribbles. It was a deliberate omission, Mydeimos knew as much. After all, to be true to his mother’s life, the slate would have to contain witchcraft runes, and no sculptor would dare carve that.
For as long as merfolk lived in Kremnos Deep, they had a Sea Witch. Gorgo had served in the role before her passing, and then Mydeimos’s friend took over, at far too young an age.
I should visit her soon, Mydeimos thought to himself as he nodded towards the statue and continued on his way. Bring her new books, too. His stomach growled. I can think about it once I’ve eaten.
He never made it to the kitchen. Almost as soon as he entered another corridor, a man with long hair and an officer’s armour found him – or rater, nearly barrelled into him. Mydei swung out of the way, raising an eyebrow.
“Hephaestion? What’s the hurry?”
“Mydeimos, just the man I’ve been looking for!” His subordinate and friend smoothed the non-existent crease on his armour and leaned in with a conspiratorial smirk. “You wanted to be informed whenever the landwalkers launched a raid. Well, they’ve got two ships sailing above our heads as we speak, barrelling straight towards our shoals.”
Mydeimos could feel excitement beginning to coil in his gut, tingling down his arms. He fought down a smile.
“Is that so?” he asked. Hephaestion chuckled.
“Yes, and yes, they are led by their princeling.”
“Excellent. Will you join me, then?” Mydeimos asked, fighting off a grin. Hephaestion shook his head.
“The Kingsguard are already on it, so I can’t butt in, but if you hurry, you should still be able to catch up to them.”
Damn it. The Kingsguard were father’s staunchest loyalists; they would do their damnedest to kill him.
“I shall be off, then,” Mydeimos replied, as calmly as he could manage, his tail trembling with the desire to move. “Thanks.”
Hephaestion waved him off without another word. Mydeimos darted out of the palace, feeling a grin tug at his lips.
He was here.
***
They had first met six months ago. The Okheman landwalkers – humans, they called themselves and themselves alone, as though merfolk did not have equal right to the name – had been sending out expeditions to Kremnoan waters for some time by then, trying to plunder Kremnoan fish shoals. Initially, Kremnoans didn’t mind the little bit of thievery. But then, the Okhemans grew bolder, sending out larger fleets, as though unaware they were stealing. In response, Kremnos began to sink their ships, the landwalkers responded by sending warriors alongside fishermen, and thus, the second frontline of Kremnos Deep’s eternal war was opened.
Mydeimos would assist in those occasional clashes whenever he found himself in Kremnos, displeased with the idea of sending soldiers to battle and not going himself. Alas, those battles had been by and large dull affairs, the landwalkers barely managing to put up a resistance when he caught them. The biggest problem was making sure the Okheman losses were kept to a minimum; Mydeimos didn’t see the need to murder the landwalkers when scaring them worked just fine.
And so, that day six months ago, Mydeimos sailed to the surface with bored determination to get the matter over and done with as soon as physically possible. With one last push of his tail, he shot out of the water, leaping at the nearest human to grab them and drag them into the sea-
Only for his gauntlets to slam into the blade of a massive sword.
His target barely swayed under his blow; Mydeimos barely recovered, landing roughly on the ship’s deck, his tail coiling under him. The sword came at him, and he parried, off-balance – what kind of landwalker could recover so quickly after taking a full-force hit from a merman? His gauntleted claws blocked the hit, slammed the blade aside; his attacker jumped away. Mydeimos did not chase; he took a moment to examine his surprisingly-competent opponent.
Hair white as bone, tousled from their brief clash; eyes blue as the open sky above them. Below them, a gleeful smile that bordered on manic.
“So this is the strength of a sea-dweller!” the stranger laughed, fixing the grip on his sword. “Magnificent! I can see why you’ve been causing our ships such trouble!”
Mydeimos scoffed, clenching his fingers into fists, but he couldn’t help a smile as well. Now this is interesting. Before him, the landwalker spun his massive blade before pointing it at Mydei with a grin.
“I am Phainon of Aedes Elysiae, Prince of Okhema!” he declared. “I challenge you to a duel, sea-dweller!”
Mydeimos’s smile turned into a full-toothed grin. Very well.
“I am the Crown Prince of Kremnos Deep,” he declared. “Defeat me, landwalker, and you shall have the privilege of my name.”
The landwalker – Phainon – laughed at that, though there was no mockery in it, only glee.
“Very well! Bring it on, then, crown prince!”
Mydeimos did not have to be asked twice.
That first, glorious battle between them lasted ten hours. It had no winner – after a swipe of Mydeimos’s tail toppled a mast, Phainon jumped onto it and ran to one of the other ships. Mydeimos was too exhausted to chase after him at this point – though that wasn’t the only reason he didn’t pursue Phainon, or his escaping ships.
For the first time in years, Mydeimos met someone he could not defeat; someone who could, remarkably, fight him as his equal. Enemies like this had to be cherished; cultivated. Mydeimos needed Phainon of Aedes Elysiae, Prince of Okhema, to regain his strength and treat his wounds so that the two of them could clash again.
And oh, clash again they did.
***
Swimming at the front of the spearhead of troops – twenty of them in total, more than enough for the task – Mydeimos could see the silhouettes of two ships above him. It was dark on the surface; perhaps the Okhemans assumed they would not be noticed if they sailed at night. Fools. Do they not realize we can see in the dark?
Mydeimos glanced between the two ships. Which one are you on, landwalker? Bah – the answer was obvious. Phainon would be leading the charge. Mydeimos headed towards the front of the first ship.
“Remember,” he heard the Kingsguard captain call behind him, “the landwalker prince must die!”
Eurypon’s orders. Mydeimos ignored them, as always. He dashed ahead, exhaled all water from his lungs and, with a grin, sprung out of the sea.
Cold air hit him. Mydeimos did not blink; for a heartbeat, he flew through the air, his eyes focused on the ship’s prow, on the man standing there – and on the crossbow the man was holding.
Mydeimos twisted his body just as Phainon pulled the trigger, the bolt just barely missing his hip. He completed the somersault, bringing his tail down hard to slam onto Phainon; Phainon danced away, tossing the crossbow and drawing the sword from his back. Mydeimos landed on the deck with a thump, immediately swirling to parry Phainon’s first strike. Fast – the landwalker was speedy, that ridiculous sword swinging almost as fast as Mydeimos could block it.
The blade met his gauntlet with flash of sparks.
“The crossbow’s a new one, landwalker,” Mydeimos noted, pushing him away. Phainon slid back on the water-slicked deck, a grin on his face.
“Did I surprise you?”
“Almost,” Mydeimos chuckled, pressing his advantage, his tail propelling him forward.
(You sea-dwellers are more snake-like than I expected, Phainon had said during one of their bouts. Mydeimos had no idea what that meant)
“I guess I’ll just need to try harder,” Phainon chuckled as he blocked Mydeimos’s hit.
“So you should,” Mydeimos said, his other hand trying for a jab at Phainon’s chest. “Keep up, landwalker.”
Phainon twisted out of his range again and danced around Mydeimos, trying to strike from the side.
“I wish you would use my name one of these days, you know,” he said. Mydeimos laughed as he spun around.
“Defeat me, and I shall.”
“Just how you’ll tell me your name?” Phainon chuckled as he drove a sword towards Mydeimos’s stomach, just narrowly missing him.
“I already said I will,” Mydeimos replied, spinning to face him. “So stop playing around and fight me.”
Phainon laughed at that, the sound bright and cheery, and from then on, there was no more talking – at least, not the kind done with words.
They clashed again and again, Phainon dodging and weaving between the ropes and masts as Mydeimos pressed forward, pushing his advantage. Around them, people ran, trying to escape the two battling princes. Mydeimos gripped an anchor chain and swung it at Phainon; Phainon ducked out of the way, then laughed as he jumped over the chain. The railing behind him exploded; someone screamed.
Sometimes, Mydeimos wondered if Okhemans considered sailing on the same ship as Phainon to be a punishment. Now was not the time to wonder, though; now, Phainon pushed off a railing and went on the offensive. It was Mydeimos’s turn to parry and block, his bones shaking with the strength of the blade striking his gauntlets. He grinned as a particular hit nearly drove him into the railing, ducked down to avoid disembowelment. His heartbeat was thundering in his ears, a drumbeat, a roar of blood and of war, and Phainon’s eyes were glistening gold and Mydeimos felt it, deep in his bones, a command, a roar, kill kill kill kill-
Something was wrong. Mydeimos grit his teeth and refocused, just as Phainon, his eyes wide with mania, slammed a sword into the deck beside him with a roar.
“Landwalker, hold it!”
Phainon blinked, Mydeimos’s tone getting through to him. There was still a glint of mania in his eyes. Mydei could still hear the drumbeat in his ears, the roar of Strife-
In front of the ship, a massive shape breached the surface, spraying everything with water. The boat tilted back; Phainon slipped, barely grabbing onto a mast. Mydeimos gripped the railing as he turned his attention towards the new arrival.
A vast beast had appeared atop the waves; hunched, yet still towering over the ship. It was gangly and angular, barely humanoid in shape. Black water trailed along its bone shell, dripping from the angular helmet, hissing as it met the amber-gold substance filling the gaps in the armour.
The beast raised its head, and Mydeimos heard its roar inside his very mind, the drumbeat growing frantic, more aggressive.
“No,” Phainon whispered from Mydeimos’s side. He was breathing heavily, one hand clutching the mast. “No, isn’t this…?”
“An Avatar of Nikador,” Mydeimos finished for him.
The ship must’ve drifted too close to the open ocean. Now, a shadow of Kremnos’s corrupted Titan had emerged from the Blackwater.
For a moment, the battlefield seemed to fall quiet. Mydeimos glanced over at Phainon; for the first time, he saw a hint of uncertainty in the landwalker’s eyes.
“Nikador themself has joined our battle?” Phainon asked.
Mydeimos scoffed at him.
“What did I say? A Avatar, not the Titan themselves. A rather small one, too.”
“Ah, of course!” Phainon let out a shaky, forced laugh. “Nothing to worry about, then, hahh…”
Mydeimos turned his attention to the Avatar. It raised one of its spindly arms; water chased after it, coalescing into ice in the shape of a spear long enough to match the beast. Mydeimos growled.
“A truce, landwalker. Let us deal with this first, then return to our spar.”
Out the corner of his eye, he saw Phainon take a deep breath.
“Your plan?” he said, his voice back to its usual steadiness.
“Behead it. That is the only way to kill it for good.”
“Got it.” Phainon gripped his blade tighter and gave Mydeimos a quick nod. “Let’s go slay a Titan, then.”
An Avatar, Mydeimos wanted to grumble, but they were out of time – the beast was turning its head towards them.
He leapt off the boat, diving below the surface. He could taste the ashen Blackwater, but only slightly; it was ot yet dense enough to cause corruption. He swam deeper; he could see the Kingsguard around him, fighting the drowning landwalkers, Nikador’s war drum driving them into a frenzy. Mydeimos turned around and propelled himself upwards, building up speed, diving between the shadows of the ship and the Avatar.
With a final push, he leapt out of the water once more.
For a moment, time was as molasses; he could see with perfect clarity Phainon raising the blade above him on the ship’s prow, and the Avatar slamming its palm down upon it. Phainon grunted, his knees buckling; below him, the entire ship tilted forward with a groan-
Time resumed its normal flow; Mydeimos hit the Avatar’s neck. He wrapped his tail around it, his clawed gauntlets tearing into the soft gold of its tissue. The Avatar let out a trumpeting roar, tossing its head back to shake him off, dropping the spear as it reached for its own neck, trying to swat him away. Mydeimos slipped down, gripped a massive hand as it slammed into the neck, clawed at it; golden blood gushed from the wounds, burning as it hit his gauntlets.
The Avatar howled, the drumbeat of its voice melding into a single, continuous sound. Mydeimos roared back, leaping over to the beast’s spine, wishing he had a harpoon. He clawed up to the neck again, trying to cut it; the Avatar swung its head down in a sudden motion. Below, past its helmet, Mydeimos could see Phainon taking a few steps back, the ship still righting itself after that blow. Just as the deck tilted upwards, the man ran along it-
And leaped, blade-first, at the Avatar’s head.
Are you insane, landwalker?! Mydeimos gasped as he saw the sword lodge itself into the beast’s jaw, the Avatar immediately swinging its head to the side to detach it. Mydeimos struck out with his tail, caught Phainon; Phainon slid down to the lower neck, gripping a knob of the beast’s spine with his free hand. He was grinning; Mydeimos found himself laughing at his audacity.
The beast was twisting, trying to hit the back of its own neck again. Mydeimos wrapped his tail around the spine, turned back and caught the Avatar’s palm in his hands; he hissed as the force of the slap slammed into him. Beside him, Phainon scrambled up underneath the hand, slipping past him, and stood precariously above the soft gold tissue of the beast’s bared neck. Mydei pushed the Avatar’s hand off.
“Hurry up, landwalker!” he roared, seeing another hand coming.
Phainon did not hesitate; he plunged the sword down into the Avatar’s neck.
The monster roar suddenly cut off as Phainon’s sword guillotined it. The remaining bits of flesh could not hold the neck together; with a snap of ligaments, the head fell into the sea. A heartbeat later, the rest of the body began to follow, whatever force kept the Avatar on the surface failing now that it was dead.
Mydeimos pushed himself off the beast, jumping away before it could hit the water. He surfaced just in time to see the beast’s hands, in a final deathly twitch, slam into the ship, crushing the prow into splinters. Phainon wasn’t there, thank Strife-
Actually, where was Phainon?
Mydeimos watched as the Avatar sank, its golden blood spilling along the oily slick of Blackwater. He dove below the water to look around, to search for a shock of white hair, the silvery sword. I didn’t see you jump off. Where are you?
The Okhemans were drifting on the surface, their legs scrambling in the water. The Kingsguard were picking them off, frantic, still on the attack. Mydei drew a deep breath of water.
“Enough!” he roared. “The enemy is defeated! We return!”
Where are you, landwalker?
The others were turning to look at him; they gave him no salutes or nods, but at least they were no longer killing. The Blackwater was spreading from the sinking Avatar like ink, obscuring them. Without the support of the Tide growth on the seafloor, it would dissipate in a few hours, but for now it was still a danger. They had to leave, now.
“Leave the dross!” the captain shouted, “Find the landwalker prince!”
Mydeimos grit his teeth. There was still no sight of Phainon. I have to find him first.
He looked into the cloud of golden blood and bone shell surrounding the sinking form of the Avatar. And – there, a flash of purest white.
Mydeimos dove down, holding his breath as he slipped into the inky Blackwater, feeling it burn along his skin. He wove between the collapsed mast and the Tide Beast’s arm, and there he was: Phainon, his eyes closed as he sank, trailing bubbles of air. Mydei grabbed him and dove further, navigating the tangle until he emerged below it, then swam away to avoid being crushed.
Phainon was horrifically cold in his grip, but his fingers twitched. Still alive, then. Mydei pressed a hand over his mouth and nose to keep more air from escaping his lungs; landwalkers could not breathe water, he knew that much. He looked around.
The sea around them was saturated with Blackwater - not enough to corrupt, but enough to impede his vision. He could see the silhouettes of his people searching for Phainon.
“Where is he?” someone was shouting. “Find him, and get rid of him!”
Thanks to the Blackwater, they didn’t notice Mydeimos holding the landwalker prince, not yet. But if he swam back up to return Phainon to his people, the Kingsguard would notice. They would realize what Mydeimos was doing.
And Eurypon wanted Phainon dead.
An idea appeared in Mydeimos’s head. Not a good one, admittedly, but he had no better ideas at the moment.
With a kick of his tail, he carried Phainon down into the deep sea.