Xanus stood at the base of his mother's treehouse and counted the days since she had died. Six. In six days the elders had not once said his name for the chief's seat. His mother had led the tribe with a witch's sharp eye and a fast hand, and everyone had known who her son was by the way she looked at him. Now she was gone, and the look was gone with her, and the elders wanted proof he could stand without it. Thoren came up the path with his crystal staff across his shoulder. He stopped beside Xanus and looked up at the layered leaves and yellow flowers of the grove house. "They met again last night," he said. "Still no name. They want a chief who has done something, not a chief who was born to one." "Then I do something," Xanus said. He kept his eyes on the door his mother would not come through again. "Tell me what." "The merfolk," Thoren said. "Years of bad blood, spears in the shallows, drowned hunters. Bring the tribe a treaty with the lake king and the elders can't keep silent." He tapped the staff once against the ground. "I can put water breathing on us both. We dive at the deep end and walk to his gates." Xanus turned to him. "You've been down there." "I have." Thoren's jaw shifted. "I was with Nereus for a year. I ended it. He may throw us out before we finish the first sentence. That's the cost, and you should know it before we step in the water." He did not add to it. They walked to the lake through wet ferns. Thoren set his palm on Xanus's chest and spoke three words, and Xanus felt his throat cool. They went under. The lake floor sloped down past pale weeds into blue dark, and at the bottom stood a castle of dark rock and living coral, its towers lit by teal crystals. Merfolk guards crossed spears at the gate. Thoren spoke a name. The spears lifted. Nereus met them in the entrance hall with a trident in one hand. He looked at Thoren first, a long look, then at Xanus. Xanus spoke before the silence could set. He named his mother. He named the drowned on both sides. He asked for a season of peace and a shared claim on the eastern shallows. Nereus did not answer at once. He turned the trident in his palm and watched Xanus's face, not Thoren's. "One season," he said. "You come back yourself to renew it. Alone." He set the trident's butt against the stone. "If you want to speak to me in private I would not object. Without my ex lover of course.”

Xanus turned to Thoren in the entrance hall and said what needed saying. Go up. Tell the elders the treaty is set. He kept his voice low so the guards would not read it. Thoren studied him a moment, then nodded once and pushed off the stone floor toward the surface. His crystal staff trailed a thin line of light behind him. When the water above stilled, Xanus turned back to the merman with the trident. The water breathing Thoren had laid on him still held. He had hours. He meant to use them. Nereus led him through the coral halls and into a smaller room lit by teal crystals set in the walls. They sat on a stone bench. Xanus spoke first, because silence felt like a test he did not want to fail. He talked about the drowned hunters, and about the children on the shore who watched the water and would not swim. He said he wanted a peace that outlasted him. Nereus listened without moving. When Xanus finished, Nereus said he had not expected a warrior to speak of peace with that much heat. He said it plainly, the way he said everything. Then he was quiet for a long time. Xanus asked about the leaf he saw pinned to a shelf behind them, a dry brown thing out of place in a room full of water. Nereus said he had taken it from the surface as a boy. He did not explain more. They spoke of their guardians, of hunts, of the shallows both tribes claimed. Hours passed. The crystals dimmed and brightened with some tide Xanus could not feel. Nereus set the trident across his knees and said merfolk fell in love fast. He said it as a fact, not a warning. Then he offered marriage. One binding, two peoples, no more spears in the shallows. Xanus felt the water press against his chest. He thought of the elders counting days and refusing to name him. He thought of the man who had walked away without a word. He looked at Nereus, at the blue hair drifting, at the steady yellow eyes, and he found he wanted to say yes for more than the tribe. He said yes. Nereus took his hand and pressed a thumb against the pulse in his wrist. It is done between us, Nereus said. Now we tell the ones above. Xanus pushed off the bench toward the surface with a husband waiting below and no idea how to walk into the grove and tell the elders he had traded a season of peace for a life.