"And I am no puppet," I continue. "I wear no suffocating pearl dust. My colors burn. I am Vaelis. I am the bait you threw away in the dark. I am a signal, and I refuse to hide."
I look over the crowd. Familiar faces from my past stare back. The people who trained me, the people who dressed me, and the people who abandoned me.
"Taren!" I call out.
Taren hovers in the front row of the infantry phalanx. His iron spear dips low, his young face pale under his helm.
"You held ground on the ridge," I say, my voice ringing with hard authority. "You heard the Commander's panicked order. 'Leave the Red.' You watched the Vanguard pull the line back and leave me for the swarm."
Taren flinches as if struck by a blade. He checks Soryn, then returns his wide, guilty expression to my face. He lowers his spear.
"Jareth," I call out.
A veteran guard near the front flinches, his scarred knuckles white on the shaft of his spear. I lock my gaze onto him, cutting through the chaos. "You watched this very Basalt-Kin take me into the deep. Tell them the truth, soldier. Did he bite me? Or did he catch me in his arms? Did he bare his teeth, or did he shed tears?"
Uneasy murmurs ripple through the military ranks stationed below the podium.
The soldiers exchange nervous glances, the polished color of their scales dull with dawning horror. The carefully constructed narrative of my grand martyrdom, a story they were fed to fuel their righteous anger, cracks and splinters under the crushing weight of my living, breathing presence.
They know the Vanguard abandoned me to the deep.
I turn, my breath catching in my throat as I watch Kael swim to my side. He takes my outstretched hand, his rough scarred fingers engulfing mine, and the contact sends a jolt not just through my skin, but straight to the core of my being.
He faces the crowd with me, a solid, terrifying presence at my shoulder. His newfound voice is a weapon I wield, but he is the shield. He is the unbreakable foundation of this entire, desperate stand.
In that moment, facing down an army, with my hand held fast in his, I am not afraid at all.
I am invincible.
"The Basalt-kin," Kael roars, his gravelly voice vibrating the marble beneath our fins. "The crabs, the eels, the broken refuse of your city. The Reef banished us from the light. Now you attempt to steal the scrap of survival we carved from the dark."
His dark eyes scan across the crowd, a dominant predator claiming his territory.
"Tell me, Vaels, what buys your loyalty? This broken tyrant fed you poisoned honor. He fabricated the rumors of Basalt-Kin hunts in the Reef after the Mourning Tide. He manufactured the brutal martyrdom of the Prince standing at my side."
Kael stops, locking his dark eyes on the Royal Guard.
"I demand an answer. Who holds the true title of monster?"
Hesitation continues to spread like a stain through the pristine formation of soldiers.
Soryn's pale eyes widen with a sudden, animal panic. His control over the Reef, a lifetime's work of subtle manipulations and outright lies, slips through his fingers.
He slams a spindly fist against the podium console, the sharp crack traveling across the plaza.
"Treason!" he shrieks, his voice a thin, reedy thing in the face of Kael's thunderous authority. "Guards, I've heard enough! Kill the monster! Kill their puppet!Fire!"
The heavy infantry, the common Vaels, falter. Their harpoons remain lowered, their wide eyes moving from their screaming Elder to their returned prince.
Their training is warring with their conscience. It demands the protection of the royal bloodline, not a public execution of a Red Prince.
The Royal Guard, Soryn's fanatical elite encircling the podium, offers no such hesitation. Coin and privilege have bought their loyalty, and their ornate, golden masks are impassive as they raise their heavy harpoon cannons, the glowing tips taking aim directly at our rusted shell.
"Shields!" I scream, propelling my body in front of the open doorway to protect Mira.
Kael moves faster.
He swims in front of me, a living shield of muscle, and the sight of it steals the air from my lungs.
