Thalric Deepcurrent's Arc

Chapter 11 of 11

The hall fell quiet around him, but Thalric did not lower the crown. One light still moved at the far end of the chamber. A single panel pulsed slow and steady, set high in the wall behind a row of coral-choked pillars. The rest of the hall lay dark and empty. That one light had not gone out with the others. He swam toward it. The pillars rose around him like the bones of an old monument, their stone wrapped in pale coral that had grown here since before his grandfather's exile. Between them stood a low throne carved with pearls and seastars, dusted with silt. Someone had once sat watch in this place. Someone of his blood. The pulsing panel hung above the throne. It was shaped like a closed eye, and behind its glow Thalric could feel something pressing back. Not stolen power. Something else. Something the Deepcurrents had put here on purpose and locked away. He lifted the crown to the panel. The light flared, recognized him, and split open down the middle. Behind it lay a small alcove, and inside the alcove rested a single iron gate, hand-sized, scorched and twisted by some old acid burn. A warning, not a treasure. Beside it lay a coral lantern that flickered awake the moment the seal broke, its amber glow filling the alcove. Thalric took the burned gate in his lower hands. He understood, then, why his bloodline had sealed it away. The thing his family had guarded was not only the crown. It was the proof of what the council had once tried to destroy, and failed. The lantern's light told him the seal had been waiting for a Deepcurrent to return. Far above, through the channels he had followed down, he heard the first echo of voices. The council's agents had found the empty tower. They were coming. Thalric tucked the burned gate against the crown and turned toward the dark passage out. The hall behind him went fully dark at last.