The Drowned Throne's Proxy

The seal was cold against your sternum, a weight that had no business being there. You'd lifted it from the courier's satchel the moment she'd stopped breathing—her gills fluttering, her hand still reaching for the tide-clock that now hung broken on her wrist. It was supposed to be a simple delivery. A ledger, a bribe, a name. But the moment the seal touched your skin, the water itself had shuddered.

Now the throne room of Aurelia stretched before you, a cathedral of coral and bone, and every mer-lord in the court had turned to stare. Their eyes followed you like sharks circling blood. The Queen's own gaze was unreadable, her crown a circlet of living anemones that pulsed with slow, deliberate breaths.

"Archon," she said, and the word hung in the salt-thick water like a hook. "You return to us unannounced."

The seal burned against your chest. Outside the great windows, the fleet had begun to move—a constellation of ancient warships, their glowing hulls shifting like a single, enormous creature waking from a long sleep. They were looking at you. Judging you.

You forced your voice steady. "The sea does not announce its tides, Your Majesty. It simply arrives."

The Queen's smile was a blade wrapped in silk. "Indeed it does."