“Melisse and Lena are completely depleted,” Cassius said. “And our wives are getting nowhere bloody near this mess until we have a better handle on what we’re dealing with.”

“We return to Sky Bay,” Mars grunted. “Now. We send men to collect these bodies, take them to their realms where they will join the veil. And then we plan at the Citadel.”

“Mars—” True started.

Mars locked his gaze with his friend. “I do not like to leave them here as they are either, True. But the longer we are away, the more afeared our queens will become. I will not be here any longer than I must before I return to my Silence to show her I am all right. We will send men to take care of them. Now let us leave this…fucking…place.”

Jorie jerked up his chin to his men.

They approached.

Arms were linked.

Tridents were thrown.

And they embedded themselves in the courtyard of the Sky Citadel.

The Mouth of Triton, Fifteen Miles Down the Coast from Nautilus

MAR-EL

His orbs were glowing so brightly, their light had to reach the top of the vortex.

He remembered the creation of this vortex.

In his fury, he had cast her to the depths of the sea, and when she did not emerge, his grief was so strong, he had driven himself into the earth.

And he did this not knowing he would never climb out of this hole.

He lifted his hand to the orbs, seeing his fingers gnarled, his knuckles grotesquely swollen, his nail a long claw, the bed of it black with dirt.

Ah, so much lost.

And not simply the glory of what he once was.

He touched the orbs and closed his eyes.

“Our children,” he whispered. “Our naughty children, my love. They are awake.”

Her voice was weak when it came to him, not weak as in she was not strong, weak because she was very far away.

But he heard it.

He heard it for the first time in over four thousand years.

I told you the stone would not hold.

He could not stop his smile, even if these decisions he had made—the one to create them, and the one to banish them—were the ones that drove them apart.

Drove him to flinging her to her cave.

Drove him to his hole.

And the mistakes he had made, the loss of her had slowly drained his power over millennia.

“I should have listened to you.”

I know you were proud of them. I know you felt their work was needed. But we lost control so quickly. And they were so very destructive, my darling.

“Yes,” he murmured. He opened his eyes and looked at his orbs. “And you were right, we should have eliminated them before our powers grew too weak.”

She did not reply, and he worried he had lost her again and the wait to hear her beloved voice would be another four thousand years.