They ran until the glowing path faded into ordinary sand.
Kael collapsed to his knees, chest heaving.
His lungs burned.
His legs screamed.
But his hand — the one Dorian had held — still tingled with warmth long after Dorian let go.
Dorian stood over him, barely winded.
Annoying.
“We made good distance,” Dorian said, scanning the horizon.
“The path ended about a mile offshore. That means the throne is somewhere beneath the waves.”
Kael looked at the sea.
Calm today.
Deceptively blue.
It was hard to believe a lost civilization slept under all that water.
“How do we reach it?” he asked.
“We can’t breathe underwater.”
Dorian smirked.
“Finally, a question I actually want to answer.” He pulled something from inside his coat — a small leather pouch, worn smooth with age.
He untied the cord and tipped the contents into his palm.
A single scale.
It was the size of Kael’s thumbnail, iridescent, shifting colors in the morning light — green, blue, silver, gold.
It hummed faintly against Dorian’s skin.
“What is that?” Kael breathed.
“Scale of a Drowned One,” Dorian said.
“Or so the legend goes. Your mother gave it to me five years ago. She said if I ever found someone who could read the map, this scale would let them breathe beneath the waves.”
Kael stared at it.
“Just one?”
“Just one.” Dorian’s expression flickered.
“Which means only one of us can go down.”
The weight of those words settled between them.
Kael looked at Dorian.
Dorian looked at the scale.
“I’ll go,” Kael said.
Dorian’s head snapped up.
“No.”
“I read the map. My mother trusted me. This is my journey —”
“Your mother also told me to keep you alive,” Dorian cut in, voice sharp.
“I’m not letting you swim down to a dead civilization with no backup and no guarantee you’ll come back up.”
“Then come with me.”
“I can’t. The scale only works for one person.”
“Then we find another way.”
Dorian ran a hand through his hair, frustrated.
“There is no other way. The Drowned didn’t build their throne for crowds. They built it for truth — one truth, one seeker, one chance.”
Kael stood.
His legs still shook, but he forced himself steady.
“Then it has to be me.”
Dorian stepped closer.
His gray eyes were dark, conflicted.
“You don’t even know what you’re walking into. The throne could be a trap. The scale could be a lie. The Drowned have been dead for three hundred years — no one actually knows what’s down there.”
“Then I’ll find out.”
“And if you die?”
Kael’s throat tightened.
“Then I die knowing I tried. Instead of spending the rest of my life wondering what if.”
Dorian stared at him.
The wind blew between them, cold and salty.
Then Dorian cursed under his breath — something low and rough — and grabbed Kael by the front of his tunic.
“I didn’t travel four days with a stubborn scholar just to watch him drown,” Dorian said, voice barely above a growl.
“So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to take the scale. You’re going to go down, find the throne, and come back up. And if you don’t come back up —” His grip tightened.
“I will find a way to follow you. Even if I have to hold my breath until my lungs burst.”
Kael’s heart hammered.
Dorian’s face was inches from his.
Close enough to see the flecks of gold in his gray eyes.
Close enough to feel his breath — warm, uneven, real.
“Why?” Kael whispered.
Dorian’s jaw tightened.
He didn’t answer.
He just let go, stepped back, and pressed the scale into Kael’s palm.
“Don’t make me regret this,” he said quietly.
They waited until nightfall.
Dorian said the Drowned were creatures of moonlight — that their magic was weaker under the sun, stronger when the stars reflected off the water.
They sat on the beach as the sky darkened.
Dorian built a small fire, more for comfort than warmth.
Kael turned the scale over and over in his fingers, feeling it hum.
“Dorian,” Kael said finally.
“Hmm.”
“Back in the cave. You said Leander was the reason you stopped trusting pretty faces.”
Dorian’s expression didn’t change.
“I remember what I said.”
Kael took a breath.
“Do you still? Not trust them, I mean.”
Dorian was silent for a long moment.
The fire popped.
A wave crashed somewhere in the dark.
“I’m starting to think,” Dorian said slowly, “that I was wrong about a lot of things.”
Kael looked at him.
Dorian wasn’t looking at the fire.
He was looking at Kael.
The air between them felt different.
Heavier.
Charged.
Kael opened his mouth to speak —
And a horn sounded in the distance.
Dorian was on his feet in an instant, sword drawn.
His body went rigid, every line of him suddenly hard and dangerous.
“What is it?” Kael whispered.
“Empire soldiers,” Dorian said, voice low.
“They found us.”
Kael’s blood turned to ice.
He heard it then — hoofbeats.
Dozens of them.
Torches flickering on the ridge above the beach.
Voices shouting orders.
Dorian grabbed Kael’s arm and pulled him toward the water.
“Go,” he said.
“Take the scale. Go now.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll hold them off.”
“Are you insane? There must be twenty of them —”
“Twenty-two,” Dorian corrected.
“I counted.” He smiled — sharp, reckless, beautiful in the firelight.
“I’ve had worse odds.”
Kael couldn’t move.
His feet were rooted to the sand.
The horn sounded again, closer now.
Dorian cupped Kael’s face in his hands.
The touch was electric.
“Listen to me,” Dorian said, voice fierce and quiet.
“You are the only one who can raise that throne. Not me. Not your mother. You. So you’re going to swim down, find it, and come back. And when you come back —” His thumb brushed Kael’s cheekbone.
“I’ll be here. I promise.”
Kael’s eyes burned.
“Dorian —”
“Go.”
The first soldiers appeared at the top of the ridge, torches blazing.
Dorian turned away from Kael.
Drew his sword.
Stepped between the beach and the empire.
Kael ran.
He ran into the cold black water, the scale clutched in his fist, Dorian’s name on his lips.
The waves crashed against his chest, his shoulders, his face.
He couldn’t see.
He couldn’t breathe.
He just kept swimming.
Behind him, steel met steel.
Dorian’s voice rang out — a laugh, a challenge, a battle cry.
Kael went under.
The sea closed over his head.
And the scale began to burn.