Three months is a long thing when the sea has plans.
Thalassaria walked the rim of her observatory, a ring of black shell and glass sunk below the churn of the tide.
She counted the days as one counts heartbeats.
The ruins left behind by the Eidolons, that slumbered beneath the sea were mapped in her mind like constellations.
For 10,000 years she had failed to breach a single entrance, but she knew all their locations.
Caedrion had bought his freedom for six months, under the promise of preparing. For her, for them, for their crowning moment.
When they finally explored the depths and discovered the ancient secrets long forgotten by mortal races.
It was the waiting that tasted worst.
Not the patient, imperial waiting of a queen arranging treaties, but the eager, childish waiting of someone staking everything on the click of a single hour.
She lifted her hand and imagined Caedrion stepping from the marble doors, a promise in his hands.
