It is a drum.
War drums.
The realization hits me like a physical blow, the air rushing from my dead lungs in a silent gasp. The eels slip from my grasp, their bodies falling slowly down into the silt. I ignore them. I swim rapidly upward, cresting a high ridge of silt to get a much better view of the horizon.
Far to the east, many miles away, the water is clouded with frantic movement. I can't physically see the individual armies, but the disturbance is obvious. The chaotic, violent displacement of thousands of heavily armored bodies clashing together. The very water shudders with the force of it, a distant signal of a battle I can't see.
The Reef has gone to war, as Vaelis had predicted.
The freezing water turns colder than I thought possible.Who fights in the Gray Wastes?The Basalt-Kin would not come this far for the Reef. No tactical advantage.
Unless the Reef army marched down here under a manufactured lie.
My gaze fixes on the distant churning cloud of silt, the water moving with violence.
The terrified confession Vaelis made in the vent field surfaces in my mind.
Vaelis is safe.I force the thought into the crushing silence.
He is a decorated fighter, but also a high-ranking Red Prince of the inner circle. The arrogant Council would never risk their celebrated, beautiful artisan in the meat-grinder of the Gray Wastes. They keep him safely protected in the palace now, far from the slaughter.
I make the logical thought true.
But the relentless rhythm of the war drums gnaws at my gut. I turn from the eastern horizon, snatch my dropped eels, and swim rapidly back to the shell.
When I enter the main chamber, Bolt vibrates with agitation.
"You felt it," he says immediately. "Stupid, noisy, messy war... We must move now. If that fighting spills into the flats, they will strip this shell and melt me down."
I point firmly west.Deeper.
"Yes," Bolt agrees quickly. "Deeper. Batten the hatch, shark. We run."
I pull the heavy kelp curtain shut. The House of Drift lurches forward, grinding painfully against stone as we flee the noise.
I am cleaning the intake valves when the shell violently stops. The sudden halt throws me across the room against the curved wall.
Bolt curses loudly. "Snagged! Something caught the high spire!"
I grab my iron scraper and swim out of the opening into darkness.
We are wedged in a narrow canyon of jagged rock. The shell lodged against a low overhang, something heavy tangled in the drift-nets draped over our roof.
I swim rapidly up to the high spire.
War debris.
Broken iron pikes, their tips bent and twisted. Shredded banners of woven colors, their vibrant patterns now muted by the gray water. It's all snagged and tangled in the shell's upper spire.
I work quickly, my iron scraper slicing through the ropes. Each cut sends vibrations through the water, a faint counterpoint to the distant war drums. The final rope parts with a sharp snap, and the debris falls away, tumbling slowly into the dark canyon below.
I turn to go back inside, my task complete.
But something catches my eye.
Caught tightly on a jagged piece of the shell's calcium spire, flapping listlessly. A piece of torn fabric, delicate and out of place among the crude metal and heavy nets.
I freeze in the water. This is not the heavy, woven canvas of a military war banner. It is fine silk, so thin it's nearly transparent.
