Rhode held her golden trident flat across both palms and offered it to the Atlantean court. "I want to end the war with the surface," she said. "I came to ask for your blessing." The nobles stared at the sunstone gems in her trident and said nothing. She was Poseidon's daughter, married to the sun god, able to boil the sea with a thought. For the first time in her life, that frightened a room instead of warming it. A merman near the front spoke. His family had drowned surface ships for three hundred years. "You want peace with the men who speared our kin," he said. "That is not peace. That is treason." The word passed down the rows like a cold current. Rhode felt the smiles she had spent her whole life earning drop away. Two dancers broke from the back wall and swam fast between the columns. Their flowing finery streamed behind them, blue and purple and silver. They were not performing. They came to warn her. "They are calling for the guard," the taller one whispered. "They mean to brand you before the Queen returns." A school of bright fish scattered through the hall, spooked by the rising voices. Rhode's heart pounded. She could burn them. She could prove how dangerous she was and lose them forever. Instead she lowered the trident to the mosaic floor and let the gems dim. "You lost brothers to the surface," she said to the old merman. "So did I. I lost the chance to know a sea without this fight." Her voice did not shake. "Brand me a traitor if you want. I will still swim up and offer my hand to them. Alone, if I must." The doors opened. Triton drifted in, late, a goblet still in one hand. The nobles went quiet, because the heir had finally bothered to appear. He looked at the trident on the floor, then at his sister surrounded by angry faces. "So," Triton said. "You're the traitor now. Good. Takes the heat off me, I guess." He set the goblet on a column and did not pick it back up. "My sister wants to try something new. Peace. I've watched her fix every bad mood in this city since we were kids. If she says the surface can be fixed—" He stopped, corrected himself. "I won't bet against her. And I'm the heir. So mind how loud you say that word." The old merman's jaw tightened, but he lowered his eyes. The whispers died. Rhode looked at her brother, stunned that he had chosen her over his own comfort. "Thank you," she said quietly. "Don't," Triton said. "Mother hears about this by morning. She'll want to know why her daughter's planning a truce with our oldest enemy. And she won't send dancers to warn you." He turned for the door. "Better have your answer ready."

Triton's warning stayed with Rhode all night. By morning their mother would demand answers, and Rhode had only her conviction. Conviction had not swayed the court. It would not sway the Queen. She needed proof that peace with the surface was possible. So she left the palace before dawn and swam up toward the light, her golden trident gripped tight. She surfaced near a crowded beach. The water stung her eyes. Oil slicked the surface. Plastic drifted past her face. Below her, fish darted around a sunken net, trapped and thrashing. This was what her people hated. This was the wound. If she wanted the court to believe, she had to bring back something more than words. Rhode cut the net loose with the edge of her trident. She freed the fish one by one. Then she heard a small cry from the shallows. A surface child had fallen from a dock and could not swim. No one on the beach had seen. Rhode did not think. She boiled a current under the child and lifted him gently to the sand. The child stared at her crown shaped like the sun. He did not scream. He reached out and touched a strand of her dark hair. "Are you a mermaid?" he asked. Rhode smiled. For the first time since the court turned on her, a face looked at her without fear. She pressed a small pearl from her trident into his palm. Then she dove. She returned to the palace as the water brightened. Triton waited in the great hall, among the gilded columns and glowing blue accents. He was not drinking. That alone frightened her. "Where were you?" he said. "Mother's awake. She's asking." "I went up," Rhode said. "I saw what we did and what they did. A child was drowning. I saved him. He wasn't afraid of me, Triton. He thanked me." Triton rubbed his jaw. "That's your proof? One kid on a beach?" He paused, corrected himself. "No. That's not nothing. That's more than the nobles have given either of us." He drifted closer. "But it won't be enough for her. She lost brothers to those people. She'll want a treaty. A plan. Not a story about a boy." "Then I'll tell her the story anyway," Rhode said. "And I'll tell her I'm going back." A guard entered and bowed low. The Queen summoned them both. Triton looked at his sister. "I'll stand with you," he said. "Again. But understand what you did. You surfaced. You touched one of them. If Mother decides that's treason, there's no taking it back." Rhode lifted her trident. The sunstone gems glowed warm. She had no treaty. She had a freed child and a pearl in a human hand. It was proof of nothing the court wanted. It was proof enough for her. She swam toward the throne room, and her brother followed.