Chapter 12 · Die Under the Tide

The sea didn't just open. It screamed.

Marcus felt it in his teeth first, then his ribs, then every bone he had. The tuning fork in Cassian's hand rang with a frequency that shouldn't exist, and the water around them answered. The kelp city shuddered. Walls of braided fiber twisted and the current reversed itself, pulling everything toward the center of the plaza where Cassian stood holding that damn fork like a conductor's baton.

Ayla grabbed Marcus's wrist. Her fingers were ice-cold even through the water.

"He's waking the Tide Mouth," she said. Her voice came through the resonance channels Orin had rigged, crackling with static. "If it opens all the way—"

"I know." Marcus knew. He'd seen the glyph-maps in the archive tower. The city wasn't built on the seafloor. It was built over something's throat.

Cassian turned. His smile was the worst part. Not cruel. Just tired.

"You should've taken Orin's deal," Cassian said. "Could've walked away. Gone home. Let me handle the messy part."

"By drowning a city."

"By fixing the anchor." Cassian's knuckles were white around the fork. "You think this world wants to keep spinning? It's been begging to collapse for two hundred years.