Three centuries had slipped away, and the kingdoms on land and beneath the waves had new rulers shaping their destinies. Gerardo’s legacy was etched deeply into the hearts of the seapeople, his name whispered in reverence across the five oceans and recorded in the annals of history on land. His first son, Jaskaran, born of Mira, ascended the throne after marrying Renée, a naiad whose beauty was shadowed by a sorrow—she could bear no children of her own. Together, Jaskaran and Renée adopted a young mermaid named Nadia, welcoming her into their lives with a grand ceremony that sealed her status as imperial by blood. With this, Nadia became the sole heir to the underwater empire’s throne.But joy soon turned to quiet dread. Nadia fell gravely ill, her once-bright eyes dimming with each passing day. Renée refused to leave her daughter’s side, cradling her gently as hope slowly withered in her heart. Though the emperor and empress summoned the realm’s most skilled healers, Renée’s gaze neve

Rein wasted no time preparing for another adventure outside the Maja Forest. She rode a blackbird to her little alcove in a tree, the small hole where she’d studied and slept for the past three centuries. Leaves which bore her desperate notes were scattered about her floor, mixed with piles of clothes as disheveled as the blankets on her walnut capsule bed. She dashed across her flat to her wardrobe where she snatched up her satchel, and packed only the bare necessities with haste.Rein had never fully recovered from the day when the infamous Emperor Mentir tore her wings from her back. The memory clung to her like a scar that refused to fade, one cruel moment which stretched across lifetimes. Since then, she had survived only by consuming the delicate petals of the burdania flower, a rare bloom known to keep wingless pixies tethered to life. But the burdania grew only in the Maja Forest, and fate, with its usual irony, had rooted her survival in the very place she once fled in bittern

The cabin door swung open as the two pirates who had taken Rein captive returned with the captain striding in behind them, just in time to see the glass jar teetering on the edge of the desk. The captain lunged forward, catching it mere inches from the floor.“What did ya do?” the captain scolded as he brought himself back to his feet.“We left the jar on the desk so it wouldn’t roll like that, Cap’n,” the first pirate said. “She musta did that herself.”The second pirate observed Rein closely. “She don’t look so good.”“You fools!” The captain removed the lid. “She’s suffocating ‘cause ya put the lid on the jar!” He poured the limp pixie into his hand and set the jar on his desk. “Return to yer posts, ya bottle-heads.”“Aye, Cap’n,” they both replied, shamefully.The captain laid Rein on his desk and waited for her to regain her strength. “Can ya hear me, Little Pixie?” he asked.Rein’s head buzzed in sync with her fuzzy vision. She glanced around in search for the owner of the voice

Rein jumped back with a yelp, shrinking deeper into the trinket box. She couldn’t bring herself to look the captain in the eye as he gazed down at her with an expression on his face she couldn’t read.“There ya are, Little Pixie.”Rein had no words. The idea of begging flickered through her mind, but she pushed it aside. It would buy her nothing. Captain Tzatara said nothing either. He simply extended his hand—broad, calloused, and smelling faintly of steel and old leather. Rein stared at it, then up at him, then back again. Her pulse thudded in her ears. Finally, she reminded herself that it might be wise to cooperate. Gritting her teeth, she stepped forward.“Now, ya know I have to punish ya for that,” Captain Tzatara said as he carried Rein back to his desk.Rein hated how he spoke to her like a child—how his tone implied that he didn’t want to punish her. He played as though he was the nice guy, and it was all she could do not to scream how she wasn’t the simpleton he thought her t

The silence which followed the thundering burst seemed to last for hours, and the three trespassers almost decided to continue forward until they heard emphatic, synchronized marching. The footsteps echoed about the lair and grew fuller, louder, as though they increased in numbers. The girls and the mysterious man watched from their hiding spots as an army emerged from the far end of the city, glinting silver beneath the low light. Armor clinked in harmony with the march, each soldier moving with strict discipline: men and women both, faces unreadable beneath helms, their ranks vast.They split like a flood around a stone, each unit diverging into side streets and alleys, sweeping through every corner and crevasse. Then, as one, they halted. The air held its breath. A voice boomed, deep and commanding. It rolled over the city like a stormwind, echoing through the bones of the buildings. He was chanting. No—drilling them. The soldiers repeated his cadence, the synchronized reply of a fo