Chapter 120: The councils panic
The chamber smelled faintly of salt and ash.
It wasn’t supposed to.
The Hall of Dominion was a fortress of marble and brass, a monument to the Council’s wealth and control. The air here was always cool, scented faintly of imported spices, its windows angled to catch the morning light in gold. But today, as the delegates gathered, there was a heaviness — a dampness clinging to the walls like the aftertaste of a storm.
At the head of the crescent table, Archon Veyrus slammed a report onto the polished wood. The scroll unrolled across half the table’s length, splattering droplets of seawater across the grain.
"Explain this." His voice was measured, but each word had the weight of an anchor.
The man kneeling before him did not look up. His uniform, once pristine in Council blue, was shredded and blackened, the gold thread scorched. One arm was bound in a hastily knotted sling.
"We... we set the trap as ordered," the officer began, his voice hoarse. "Six vents, chained to the seabed. The fleet in crescent formation, ready to—"
"Spare us the preamble," Councilor Mirayne cut in, her jeweled fingers tapping impatiently. "Tell us why the trap failed."
The officer swallowed hard. "Because... because he freed them."
Silence.
Not disbelief — something worse. The Council had already suspected the truth. Now it was confirmed.
---
"He freed the vents?" Veyrus leaned forward, his expression unreadable.
"Yes, Archon. One after another. The heat didn’t weaken him — it strengthened him. Every chain he broke only made the currents stronger. The sea itself began to fight us."
Murmurs spread through the chamber, sharp and uneasy.
"That’s impossible," Councilor Jhorvek snapped. "Those vents were designed to boil an entire fleet alive."
"They did boil us alive," the officer said, the words cracking. "Just... not him."
---
Mirayne’s gaze was ice. "Casualties?"
The officer hesitated.
"Speak."
"Eighty percent losses. The rest scattered. Most of the ironclads are gone. The volcanic scaffolding destroyed. The... creatures of the deep are stirring in numbers we’ve never recorded before."
The murmurs became open uproar.
"Eighty percent—"
"Do you know the cost of those ships?"
"We’ve lost years of vent control—"
Veyrus raised a hand, and the chamber fell silent again.
---
"Describe him."
The officer’s eyes darted toward the floor. "He moved like the ocean itself. The currents bent around him. Our guns... we couldn’t track him. The water boiled but never touched him. The... the beasts obeyed his will. Serpents, whales, manta — things we’ve only seen in myths."
"And his name?" Veyrus asked quietly.
"Poseidon."
The name struck the room like a stone in still water.
---
At the far end of the table, Councilor Drevar — oldest of them all, his beard like frost — finally spoke. "The last time that name was used in truth, the seas swallowed empires."
"This is no old myth," Jhorvek said sharply. "This is a man. Men can be killed."
Mirayne’s lips thinned. "And what, exactly, do you suggest? Another fleet? We’ve just lost our strongest naval arm in a single engagement. The western ports are exposed. The eastern colonies will hear of this by week’s end."
"Then we hire killers," Jhorvek snarled. "Send the Leviathan Guild. Assassins, saboteurs —"
"Against a god of the sea?" Drevar’s voice was like gravel. "If he can feel the blood of his enemies in the water, those assassins will not live to draw their blades."
---
Veyrus said nothing for a long time. He simply studied the officer, as though weighing whether the man before him was lying — or worse, telling the truth.
Finally, he asked, "Where is he now?"
The officer’s throat worked. "Heading east, Archon. Toward the capital waters."
The temperature in the chamber seemed to drop.
"Then we have days at most," Veyrus said. "Perhaps less, if he rides the deep currents."
---
A servant entered quietly, carrying a sealed crystal. She placed it before Veyrus with a bow, then retreated without a word.
He broke the seal, and the crystal flared — projecting an image of the surviving fleet’s scryer. Her face was pale, framed by the smoke of her ruined ship.
"Archon," she said, her voice trembling but clear. "We attempted to follow at range, but the currents tore us apart. I can only tell you what I saw before the mists claimed us."
"Speak," Veyrus ordered.
"He stood at the prow," the scryer said. "The sea was calm under him — only under him. Around him, vents raged, steam rose, ships sank. And behind him..." She hesitated, swallowing. "Behind him swam shadows. Dozens. Hundreds. Some larger than the ships themselves. I do not believe they will stop at our fleet."
The image flickered and died.
---
The chamber was utterly still.
Finally, Mirayne said, "If he reaches the capital waters, the tides will breach our outer walls in hours. The trade piers, the docks, the lower wards — all gone. He doesn’t need to land an army. The sea is his army."
"We could invoke the Ember Accord," Jhorvek said. "Summon the Firebound Legions from the mainland—"
"They would burn the docks themselves before letting him take them," Drevar said. "And the cost in lives—"
"Enough." Veyrus’s voice cut through them like a blade.
---
He stood, the golden chain of his office glinting in the dim light.
"Understand this: our enemy is not merely a man. He is the embodiment of the ocean’s will. We have relied too long on our control of the vents, our mastery of trade, our fleets. Those tools will not save us now."
"Then what will?" Mirayne asked.
Veyrus looked out the window — past the marble arches, toward the distant glimmer of the capital bay.
"We will need the Trident Seal."
The words dropped into the room like a slab of stone into deep water.
"You can’t mean—" Drevar began, but Veyrus silenced him with a glance.
"I do. It is the only relic forged to bind the sea’s will. The only thing that might hold him. Find it. Unlock it. And prepare every ward and barrier the Archives can recall."
"And if it fails?" Mirayne asked softly.
Veyrus’s gaze hardened. "Then we drown."
---
Orders rippled out from the chamber like waves from a stone’s impact. Messengers sprinted through the marble halls. Scribes began pulling old scrolls from dust-choked archives. The vault-keepers whispered to one another as they unlocked doors that had not been touched in centuries.
And in the harbors below, the surviving ships limped into port — battered, half-sunk, their crews hollow-eyed. Word spread quickly, as word always did: the fleet was gone. The vents were lost. And the sea now belonged to Poseidon.
---
Far from the capital, in the quiet dark of the ocean floor, something else stirred.
The breaking of the chains had not gone unnoticed. In the deepest trenches, beyond even Poseidon’s current reach, ancient eyes opened — eyes that had slept for ages, waiting for the ocean’s call to be whole again.
The Council feared Poseidon.
They had not yet realized that he might only be the first wave.