He watched her get a hold on herself, something she did much faster than he.

“I fear you’re in danger,” she said far more quietly.

“If they wished me dead, I would have met that fate outside Dunlyn.”

She was now confused. “Then why are they here?”

“I do not know, and as I said, I do not care. I won’t be drawn into whatever is happening across the Triton Sea. It is not my life. My world. My home. And it never again will be.”

“Do you think they’ll just go away?”

“I think, when they wish their presence to be known, and their message to be delivered, they will do it.”

“But they don’t wish you harm.” She made a statement that was a question.

“Harm comes in many forms, my warrior,” he replied. “And whatever their business, them coming from there will cause me harm.”

“Chu,” she whispered.

“I survived assassins, mouse, I’ll survive whatever this is.”

She did not look convinced, but she didn’t say more.

“Have you ever fucked aboard a ship?” he asked.

Her face changed, and not to what it normally did when he would utter such words.

To obstinacy.

His woman was anxious.

“We are nearly there,” she remarked.

“And?” he asked.

She shook her head, “It won’t work, Chu, you will not turn my mind from my worries.”

“Care to wager?”

She studied him.

He moved to her.

She did not wager.

Which was well and good.

For she would have lost.

Queen Ha-Lah

Queen’s Study, Keel Castle, Nautilus

MAR-EL

“You feel sure of this,” Farah asked Ry where they all sat about, pouring over the tomes they had confiscated from Go’Doan, as well as the ones Ry had brought to Sky Bay, all of which covered the makeshift table that Tint, Bond, Ore and Nis had set up in my study.

“Before they were captured in the stones, they cursed the gods who created them, and…” Ry lifted the armless spectacles to his eyes, but even so, he squinted over the volume before him and read from it, “and vowed vengeance with no mercy that they would wreak destruction across the lands and to the peoples the gods had also created, before they sought the gods and consumed them, taking their all-powerfulness within themselves and replacing the makers so all would worship them or know tyranny.”

“And you are certain the gods who created them are Triton and Medusa?” I queried.

Ry shoved aside the book in front of him and reached for another beyond that, which was opened to a pertinent page.

I had earlier read from that book myself.

It was entitled, THE CREATORS: TRITON AND HIS QUEEN.