Chapter 1

The leviathan called to him.

The kraken knew his name.

The depths of the sea were part of him and Daios was part of it. But at some point, recently, he'd lost that connection. He'd felt it snap and sever in a wild moment of freedom where he had thought he was saving others. Now, the sea had left him alone.

And Daios had never been alone like this before.

He floundered. Tossed and rejected by the currents that had once always pushed him through the sea with unnatural speed. He had been the favored son, the largest of his hatchling group, and the one who was supposed to honor them all. Though he would never be a leader—his rage had always run too hot for that—he would be the wave that stood between them and all danger.

That was his purpose. Yet, he had failed them. He had led his people to certain death, and he could not forget that.

"Your mind is with us, brother?" Maketes called out, the yellow flash of his fin spearing through the water to his right. "You know we need you all here for this."

Maketes had been the only brother to stay close to him in the aftermath of... all of it. Even though he probably shouldn't have. Maketes had been the one who still saw something worthwhile in the bleeding, broken form that Daios had been left with. Even when he'd been enraged. Even when he'd promised to destroy the only thing his blood brother had found dear.

These memories threatened to overwhelm him. He'd suffered through them swelling in his mind multiple times before, and now he knew the warning signs before it was going to happen.

His hearts shifted in his body, one moving to his throat and the other dropping beneath his stomach. They both beat so hard that it was difficult to think beyond the thudding that never seemed to end. It was all he could focus on. All he could think about.

And then the memories came.

"We're here to find the girl, remember?" Maketes's voice filtered through the palpitations and ragged breaths. "We're here to find the General's daughter. She told us what the girl looks like, and where in the city she usually is."

He remembered.

How could he forget? It was the only task they had trusted him with since he had... since everything had happened.

Again, his hearts thundered, pushing through his mind and forcing him to think of the achromos again. The humans, as Mira called them. They were creatures that had no place in this ocean and the monsters he had fought against since he was nothing more than a boy. They'd taken apart this ocean, poisoned it, spread and multiplied in their numbers until he wasn't even sure they could be beaten.

They came at his people with weapons so powerful, even the fathoms below couldn't fight against them. He should know. He'd seen them firsthand.

His head started to spin. His vision skewed to the side and he couldn't quite see where he was anymore. There was... something ahead of him. Something that he probably needed to brace himself for. They were close to the city, weren't they?

Alpha, Mira had called it. And his brother's human mate would know. The golden city of light where only the most important of her kind lived. This was the city that he needed to infiltrate, and he was the only one mad enough to do it.

The only one they could spare.

He reached for a stone in front of him, intending to brace himself against it just for a few moments. The currents were suddenly wild around his body, tossing him around, and all he wanted was a moment of peace for just this one second.

He reached and missed. Because there wasn't an arm there anymore. It had been taken from him just like all the lives of the people he had led.

Everything warped around him. The stone shifted, wobbling as though it wasn't solid anymore. He could hardly feel the cool touch of the ocean on his skin. It was all wrong. And then he heard it. The loud booming noise of shots being fired at him. He tried to twist out of the way, but that only turned his attention to the nightmares that followed him.

He could see pieces of his own people floating in the distance. A limp body, the torso sinking faster than the tail, so graceful it was almost as beautiful as it was heartbreaking.

Then a flash of light, and there were more of them. Blood soaking the water, filling his gills with that metallic taste. And he was ashamed to admit he almost enjoyed the taste. He always had. Daios was a warrior. He had battled his entire life and the taste of blood in the water always made him fight harder, yet this was the blood of his people.

His fault.

All those bodies, floating there, never to swim or breathe again. They were his fault. He had done this.

And suddenly he could feel the pain in his arm again. The sting of saltwater burning through the useless stump that marked him as other for the rest of his life. He was unworthy of being their shield.

He was unworthy of being anything at all.

A weight struck his side, shoving him against the stone and pinning him down. For a moment, Daios thought he had been attacked again. He fought back. His writhing tail coiled around whoever dared to touch him, pulling the other closer and squeezing hard enough that he heard the pained wheeze from whoever was foolish enough to think him weak. Even at this moment, he was not weak.

He was a powerful warrior and he would kill all who stood in his way. Because all he could see were bodies floating in the distance.

And it was his fault. He was the nightmare that had come to his people and promised hope. But all he'd given them was death.

"Daios." The wheeze came from within his grip. "You're losing it again."

Losing it? He wasn't losing anything other than the people who had relied on him to keep them safe. And his arm. By all the gods of the ocean, he could still feel it. It still felt like he could flex his fingers and reach out for something, but he couldn't. It wasn't there.

Squeezing tighter, he froze when whoever was within his tail's grip slapped against his scales. "Daios. We have to get out of the way or the achromos will see us."

Everything snapped back into focus. Suddenly, he could see where they were again. The ocean cleared of flashing lights and screams that came from his mind only. They were not at Beta, where he had lost so many of his loved ones. They were in front of Alpha and he had put them in another compromising situation.

Looking down his heaving chest, he could see that he'd coiled his tail around Maketes. Red lights flashed up and down his scales, all the way from his massive fluke to his chest. Warning lights for nothing to get close to him. His brother was wrapped completely up in his tail, shockingly, but Daios forgot that his yellow finned brother was so much smaller.

Maketes tapped against his side again, his claws scratching harmlessly against Daios's much larger scales. "Let me go."

He did.

Daios didn't know what to say, though. He'd never been good with words, and an apology stuck on his tongue because it didn't seem like it was enough. He'd attacked his closest friend, without reason, because he'd lost the knowledge of where they were. What was he supposed to say in a situation like this?

So instead of talking, he just grunted. A deep sound, but one that he hoped portrayed that he wasn't in his right mind. That he wouldn't have done it if he had realized where they were.

Maketes darted away from him, his tail flashing a few times in agitation. Even his gills had flared around his ribs, likely to get more air into his body after being squeezed so tightly.

"Ridiculous," Maketes muttered. "They put me with him to watch over him, but how am I supposed to fight against that?"

"You aren't," Daios replied.

"Exactly. You lose your head like you've been doing so often, and what am I supposed to do?"

He stared his brother in the eyes, seeing the concern and the fear in those wide orbs, but he knew there wasn't a good answer. "You stay out of my way."

"That's not an option. What if you decide to turn the ocean red with their blood? What if you get yourself killed?" Maketes smoothed his hands down his rib gills, trying to push them flat and failing miserably. "You want to lose your other arm? That's how you lose your other arm. So keep your head on straight, stop thinking about whatever you were thinking, and let's stay together, yeah?"

He wasn't so sure they could do that. Because the moment he turned his attention away from Maketes, the more he was certain this was not going to be easy.

Alpha spread out before them like a giant bubble. Mira had explained to them what they should expect to see, but he had never thought it would be like this. Beta was spires of buildings, jutting and reaching into the ocean. Alpha had a shield of its own.

The golden city. Every spire and building within that shield was gold. It glimmered with interior lights, shimmering like a tiny world held safe with a glass dome set atop it. Even from this distance, he could see the greenery. Trees, Mira said, although she had never seen one herself. There was some kind of fancy light that allowed plants to grow within it. Dots of people moved freely through the streets, all in a massive dome rather than the thin and hidden corridors they had seen in Beta.

And everywhere around the city was flat. Completely and utterly flat. Destroyed by machines a long time ago, razed to the ground, so that there was no way for anything to swim near the glass walls without being seen. He narrowed his gaze, focusing his attention on the small pillars dotted around that flattened landscape. Even as he watched, a school of fish started toward the dome. One of those pillars came to life, a light within it gathering before it lasered toward the swimming creatures.

They evaporated into a plume of blood.

Maketes let out a low whistle. "That will not be easy to get into."

"It'll be easy enough." Daios settled down on the sand, flattening his body and his tail against the very edge before the ground flattened out. Narrowing his eyes, he waited.

And waited.

Long enough that Maketes dramatically rolled onto his back and stared above them. "Easy enough, you say? Sure feels like we've been here forever."

"We've been here for only a few moments."

"We've been here for hours on end and all you're doing is staring. How do you not move for that long?"

Daios took a deep, steadying breath. "Do you remember how you just said traveling with me is hard?"

Rolling his head to peer in Daios's direction, Maketes replied, "Yes."

"You are hard to do this with. Now, if you could focus your attention on finding the pattern between these pillars, then we can get somewhere. Otherwise, go back and report to Arges that I am here."

"I'm not supposed to leave you alone."

Of course not. Because everyone was afraid he would suddenly believe he was more powerful than he was and try to attack Alpha on his own. As if he was that foolish. He was a warrior with too much bravery, that much he would admit, but he wasn't about to do something that would get him killed.

"Just go," he growled.

"Are you sure you aren't going to?—"

A low, rumbling growl erupted out of his chest. Gills flattened to his form, he glared at his friend until Maketes held up his webbed hands for peace.

"Right," Maketes said. "I'll leave you alone. Just don't go blasting into that city without anyone knowing where you're going or how you got in there, yeah? I'll let the others know that we're here and that we're figuring it out."

His brother disappeared in a swirl of bright gold, nearly matching the city itself before he swam off into the distance. But then Daios could focus on the task at hand.

For all that they didn't trust him, Daios was a seasoned warrior. He knew how to wait. How to have patience. Such things were impossible for Maketes to even consider, because his brother had ever been the trickster. He found joy in every part of life, and never once thought about how difficult it could be if he was wrong.

Daios laid in the sands, unmoving, for days. It took a while for any other fish to test the pillars, but when they did, he could see how long it took to charge up the weapons. There was a pathway through it. He knew there was. He just had to be patient enough to see it.

No true warrior would count days or even think about worrying about how long he had been there. He grabbed a few of the fish that swam past him for food, even an eel that slithered close enough. Slurping down the electric eel had given him a charge of electricity that played down his sides and ran through the crimson gills at the sides of his neck.

Then he saw it.

It all clicked into place. The pattern that would lead him to the destruction of this city and all who lived within it.

With a sudden burst of movement, he shoved himself out of the sand and blasted toward the pillars. There were only seconds while the pillars charged up, but by the time they had, he'd already moved past them. Darting from left to right, he moved through the meager blind spots and the small opportunities where he was allowed a few moments without fear of blistering pain.

A few of the sharp light weapons grazed his shoulder, his spine. One went right through his fluke. But still, he pushed forward. He was the only one crazy enough to do this and the only one they could actually spare if something went wrong.

But he wanted to prove that even if he was broken, he was still worth something. He could still do...

This.

There was a small tube he'd noticed from his great distance. It seemed that some water went in and out of it, a filtration system, perhaps. He'd seen them before in Beta and had destroyed quite a few of them in his time. If he could fit through it—which was a big if—then maybe he could get into the city.

Swimming past the last set of lasers, he shoved himself against the end of the tube. There was a metal grate over it, but that was easy enough to wrench open as a laser struck him. Baring his sharp teeth in a snarl, he wriggled his way into the tunnel and disappeared from the sight of the lasers.

And just like that, he was in.

Turning to look back where he'd come from one last time, Daios tried not to hear the screams of all those he'd left behind following him into the pipes.