The descent from the Spire into the submerged subterranean slips of Sol-Aurelia was like stepping down the gullet of a dying leviathan.
Carved through a half-mile of solid black volcanic basalt, the grand spiral ramp ended in an immense cavern flooded by the sea. Green-tinged phosphor lamps flickered along dripping stone docks where the ancient engineering of the Solar Dominion lay bare. Here, the royal pleasure barges had been stripped of their silks; only heavy industrial salvage craft remained, smelling of pitch, whale oil, and chilled brine.
In the center of the deep-water basin, resting upon submerged wooden cradles, was theObsidian Nautilus—an imperial deep-trench submergible sixty paces from snout to propeller.
Its hull was formed from overlapping plates of petrified volcanic glass bonded with cold-iron bands, designed centuries ago to withstand the tectonic crushing force of the abyssal trenches. At its prow sat a massive, multifaceted observation dome carved from thick, pressure-treated sea-crystal.
"She was built to service the ancient sluices beneath the reef," Talia said, running her hand along the cold, slick hull as the six Void-dancers stowed crates of star-iron harpoons into the ballast lockers. "The pneumatic valves are intact. The air scrubbers run on pressurized sea-sponge alchemical filters. But it has no engines, Gideon. The steam-drives were stripped when Malakor fled."
"We don't need steam," Lyra said softly.
She walked to the edge of the stone quay, looking down into the black water of the flooded dock.
Her violet eye flared.
Beneath the surface, a colossal ribbon of radiant, liquid gold glided through the subterranean intake channel.
The liberated Sun Wyrm surfaced with a gentle hiss of displaced foam. The elder-beast’s massive, horned skull rose level with the dock, water cascading from its golden scales like a thousand molten curtains. It rested its snout gently against Lyra’s boots, letting out a low, vibrating purr that rattled the buckles of her armor.
I will carry you into the dark, the beast’s thoughts resonated through Lyra’s spirit, warm as summer wine. The children cry in the deep. The iron chains cut their gills.
Lyra knelt, resting her bare forehead against the golden horn above the wyrm’s left eye. "We are coming for them."
She looked back over her shoulder at Gideon.
The warlord was already strapping on a heavy deep-dive harness made of boiled sea-leather, reinforced with thick steel rings at his chest and shoulders. Across his back, secured in watertight seals of treated seal-gut, rested his twin star-iron claymores. His jaw was set like quarried slate, his amber eyes tracking every movement in the shadowed cavern with unyielding vigilance.
"And Cinder?" Gideon asked, gesturing toward the opening above where the volcanic war-drake circled the twilight sky of the archipelago.
"A drake cannot dive two thousand leagues into the abyss, warlord," Lyra replied, rising to her feet. "The pressure would crush his lungs. Cinder holds the skies above the trench. If any of Vane’s surface ironclads attempt to escape toward the open sea, he burns their rudders."
Gideon stepped up to her, his massive hands reaching out to check the cinch of her own dive harness. His thick fingers were steady, efficient, tightening the straps across her ribs and thighs until the fit was snug, yet allowing full freedom for her blade-work.
When he finished, his hands lingered on her hips, pulling her flush against the solid wall of his chest.
The silver-red cord anchored between their hearts flared with intoxicating, protective heat, chasing the cold dampness of the cavern from her skin.
"Listen to me, little bird," Gideon rumbled, his voice dropping into that dark, possessive register that made her blood sing. "We go into the black water. You stay within reach of my arm. If the hull buckles, if the glass cracks... you don't fight the ocean. You hold onto me. Understand?"
Lyra looked up into his scarred face, her hand rising to cup his rough jaw, her thumb tracing the pale ridge of the scar through his eyebrow.
"You really think you can out-swim two thousand leagues of water, Gideon?" she murmured, a faint, feral smile touching her lips.
"I won't have to," he growled, leaning down until his lips brushed hers in a hard, searing kiss that tasted of iron, salt, and absolute devotion. "I'll drag the ocean down with me before I let it take you."
Lyra’s breath hitched at the raw, terrifying certainty in his voice. She deepened the kiss for a single, breathless heartbeat, letting the warmth of his soul flood her veins, before stepping back toward the open hatch of the submergible.
"Mount the harnesses," Lyra ordered the Ember guard. "We dive."
Ten minutes later, the heavy iron hatch of the Obsidian Nautilus sealed shut with a series of mechanical thuds that echoed like cell doors locking in the dark.
The ballast tanks flooded with a deafening roar of rushing water.
Outside the thick sea-crystal observation dome, the green phosphor lights of the dock vanished, replaced by the dark, swirling depths of the outer lagoon.
Then, two colossal golden fins swept past the dome.
The Sun Wyrm took the heavy tow-cable of braided cold iron in its jaws, its titanic coils flexing as it dove. The submergible surged forward with terrifying, silent acceleration, cutting through the coral passage toward the open drop-off of the Trench of the Weeping Stars.
Inside the cabin, the only light came from a single, softly glowing star-iron brazier in the center of the iron floor and the celestial violet glow of Lyra’s left eye.
Talia stood at the pressure depth-gauge, tapping the brass dial with her finger. "Five hundred fathoms... eight hundred... one thousand."
The temperature inside the iron hull plummeted. Frost began to feather across the interior rivets. The hull groaned—a slow, terrifying screech of metal compressing under billions of tons of abyssal weight.
Through the forward crystal, the open sea was a fathomless, pitch-black void.
And then, down in the blackness, two leagues below, a sickly light appeared.
It wasn't the clean, radiant gold of the Sun Wyrm.
It was an oily, flickering crimson—like an open slaughterhouse burning beneath the sea.
Lyra leaned against the curved crystal of the dome, her breath fogging the glass.
Her inner sight ripped through the dark water.
What she saw turned her blood to ice.
Stationed along the lip of an abyssal rift were twenty massive ironclad dreadnoughts, their hulls tethered together by colossal iron girders, forming a circular, floating underwater refinery.
In the center of the ring of ships hung a massive, mechanical cage of barbed cold-iron.
Trapped inside the cage, their golden fins shredded, their gills weeping trails of luminescent blood into the black water, were three young Sun Wyrms—scarcely fifty feet long, crying out in high, ultrasonic shrieks of pure agony.
The three wyrmlings were chained by their snouts to a massive, colossal drill-head of black meteoric iron that was boring directly into the ocean floor, into the glowing, violet-black fissure of the Mother-Cradle.
Standing upon the pressurized bridge of the central flagship, clearly visible through its illuminated observation deck, was a towering male in full deep-sea plate of dark, tarnished silver, holding a heavy command-cane tipped with an electric prod.
Admiral Vane.
"Look at the rift," Talia whispered, her voice trembling.
Beneath the drill-head, the ocean floor was pulsing.
A massive, subterranean heartbeat—slow, ancient, and terrifyingly vast—reverberated through the water, vibrating the hull of the Nautilus until the rivets shrieked.
The Mother-Cradle was waking up.
And from the glowing violet fissure, a tendril of pure, liquid shadow was beginning to rise.
Gideon stepped up beside Lyra, the seal-gut wrap falling away from his claymores, the star-iron blades igniting with cold, violet starlight that mirrored the rift below.
"We don't have time to dock," Gideon growled, his amber eyes locked onto the flagship.
Lyra reached down, her small fingers closing around the hilt of her antler knife.
"Open the dive-hatch," Lyra commanded, her violet eye blazing with incandescent fury. "We're taking the flagship from the outside."