Chapter 6 - The Rising Tide
The heavy iron doors at the end of the archive corridor blew inward with the force of a hurricane-strength gale, shattering their oak hinges into a million jagged splinters.
A wall of roaring, foaming seawater surged down the stone corridor like a liquid avalanche, carrying seaweed, broken timber, and the suffocating scent of the deep ocean.
Dorian spun around, his arrogant smile vanishing as he drew his silver-hilted broadsword from its scabbard. "What madness is this?!"
Two royal guards who had rushed down the corridor in panic were swept off their feet by the rushing surf, tumbling helplessly into the dark water. And behind them, riding the crest of the subterranean flood like an avenging goddess of the abyss, came Nerissa.
She could not walk, but the water carried her with terrifying speed. Her silver-blue hair whipped wildly around her pale, bloodless face, and her eyes—burning with a furious, violet-gold radiance—were fixed entirely on Prince Dorian.
"You!" Dorian snarled, raising his sword as the water rose to his waist. "You should have rotted at the bottom of the Wailing Coves!"
Nerissa let out a sound—not a human voice, but a high, piercing harmonic shriek that shattered every glass lantern in the archive, plunging the vast chamber into darkness illuminated only by the crimson pulsing of the pearl at Elara’s throat and the faint, phosphorescent glow of Nerissa’s scales.
Elara fell to her knees against the stone reading desk, clutching her chest as the agony of the pearl’s pull tore through her veins. The stone floor beneath them began to crack, water bubbling up from ancient subterranean channels as the entire foundations of Aethelgard Castle groaned under the pressure of the rising sea.
"Take it back!" Elara gasped, her vision swimming with crimson spots. "Nerissa... take it back!"
Nerissa lunged forward, her powerful tail slamming against the stone floor with the force of a battering ram, sending a wave of water crashing over Dorian’s knees and knocking him off balance.
Dorian swung his broadsword in a vicious arc, aiming for Nerissa’s throat, but the blade struck the stone desk with a shower of sparks as Nerissa darted beneath the water with impossible speed.
"Coward!" Dorian roared, wiping sea-foam from his eyes as he slashed wildly at the dark water swirling around his waist. "You are nothing without your heart! And when I crush it, your entire kingdom goes down with you!"
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He raised his hand toward Elara, chanting the final, binding word of the ancient spell.
The crimson pearl burst through the lace of Elara’s gown, tearing free from the silver chain and hovering in the air between them, spinning wildly as it screamed with a sound that tore at the fabric of reality itself.
