Under a sky scattered with clouds and flying beasts, Isola found herself hurtling towards her parents with an urgency she hadn't known she possessed.
As if mirrored in a dance, they too, moved forward, splashes of saltwater trailing behind them.
They all stopped abruptly, just at the edge of where land met the sea, where their two worlds collided.
"My child," Moraxor began, his voice etched with worry, only to be cut off as they both tried to speak at the same time. A hint of a smile traced his lips as Isola motioned her father to proceed.
"I..," he began, taking a deep breath, "I trust you are well? They haven't been... harsh with you?" His gaze swept over her, seeking any signs of distress or harm.
Isola met her father's anxious gaze with a soft, reassuring smile, "No, father. They've been treating me better than I expected," She also wanted to say how the two-faced consort does like to get on her nerves but she didn't want her father to misunderstand and get worried.
Moraxor's eyes widened, the lines of worry around them softening, "Really?" His voice was tinged with surprise and doubt, but her expression told him that it was indeed true and made him feel somewhat unburdened.
The fact that his daughter still has so much concern and love for him and their people despite making her life miserable made his eyes glisten and his heart heavy, letting him yet again realize how lucky he was to have her as his daughter. But this only made him even more determined to not let go of his final chance to make things right.
"How have you been, father? How are our people doing?" Isola asked with her lips firmly pressed together. Even if only a night had passed, she was worried.
Moraxor let out a soft sigh as he said with a complicated look, "Our general Vraxor is still healing after almost dying in battle, though the rest of us have been doing better than expected. But…we don't know how long this will last or what plans they have for us. Their queen is already here, and we might get an idea after I talk with her."
Isola nodded with a wince, praying for things to be alright. She then turned her attention towards her mother as she asked, "Mother…How have you been faring?"
Narissara, who had been silent all this while, merely nodded her head in response, "You don't have to worry about me, child," she said in her usual cold voice, before she turned on her heel and made her way back towards the sea, leaving a wake of awkward silence behind her.
Moraxor cleared his throat, breaking the silence, "Give her some time, Isola. This... this is new for all of us. We're just trying to adjust after losing our kingdom, mourning our dead, and preparing for the worst," His voice was soft, a hint of melancholy threading his words as he watched his wife disappear into the waves.
Isola nodded softly but then a troubled shadow cast on her usual calm demeanor as she noticed that the baby Kraken had still not showed up.
She felt it should have come out to see her upon sensing her presence.
She was just about to voice her concerns when,
"Moraxor, where is the baby Kraken?" Asher preempted her, coming up behind her to address Moraxor.
At this, Moraxor's visage darkened, a wrinkle of unease appearing on his stoic facade, "I meant to tell you both... Since you left... it's been acting odd," he replied, his gaze fleeting over the shimmering waves as if he was trying to seek out something within the sea.
Isola's eyes blinked, her worry lines deepening. It was Asher, though, who asked the looming question, "What happened?"
Drawing a deep breath, Moraxor began explaining their plight, "After you two left and the sun had set, it suddenly came out of the sea and became restless and agitated, refusing to submerge and rest as it should. It just kept crying for you two, and we tried to reach you both. But our messages had been unceremoniously halted, dismissed as unimportant. With no other choice, we tried to persuade the baby to return to the comforting depth of the sea, to no avail."
Isola's eyes had a pained look hearing how that poor thing must have been in distress for some reason, and she wasn't there to comfort it.
"Where is it now?" Asher asked with a narrowed gaze.
Moraxor sighed as he revealed, "When the sun rose, it disappeared back into the sea. Since it didn't come out for so long, we decided to go in there and see if it was alright. But it seems it is highly upset and is hiding from us."
Isola, hearing this, her brows knotted in consternation.
Asher had a look of disbelief as he questioned, "How hard can it be to find such a huge baby?"
Moraxor merely scoffed softly in response with a hint of pride, "You are underestimating the capabilities of a Kraken even if its a newborn. Its innate bloodline memories would allow it to traverse the deep seas with an adeptness of the collective knowledge of its ancestors. It knows places which even we don't."
Isola, on the other hand, was lost in her thoughts, her guilt painting a sorrowful picture on her face.
The thought of the baby Kraken feeling upset and abandoned by her and Asher tugged at her heartstrings. Unwilling to let it suffer any longer, she voiced her decision, "I will coax it to come back."
Asher felt that Isola would handle this situation.
He then turned towards Moraxor, his voice resolute, "My wife is waiting, Moraxor," he stated, the implication of his words hanging heavily between them, "It's time we talked about some things of great interest," He felt he had to be present in this meeting since he could miss up on any important stuff.
Isola briefly caught his gaze, her eyes reflecting a hint of disappointment. She knew she shouldn't have expected him to show any concern for the poor baby Kraken.
At this, Moraxor nodded, turning to Isola with a reassuring smile, his voice gentle yet firm, "Don't worry," he told her, "The baby Kraken will listen to you."
Soon after, in the humble structure of the Whispering Cove, a building Nereon had once built for Asher's important meetings, three individuals gathered in a clandestine meeting.
It was a hushed echo of regality, the hall that usually buzzed with the collective voices of Asher's vassals now resonating with an intense silence.
Moraxor, Rowena, and Asher found themselves in a symmetrical configuration, Asher at the helm with Rowena and Moraxor facing each other on either side.
Breaking the silence, Moraxor gestured with his hand, a hint of resignation in his voice as he invited Rowena to begin, "What is it that you wish to know, Your Majesty?"
Rowena folded her arms onto the table, leaning forward with her eyes narrowing into slits. Her voice, steady and cautious, cut through the dense quiet, "How did you and your people break the seal that the Ravager had used to banish you all?"
Moraxor shook his head, a gentle movement that stirred the quiet around them, "I wish I knew the answer too," he began, his voice carrying a trace of bewilderment, "But the truth is, we're just as in the dark as you are. One day, one of our scout's simply informed us they'd managed to swim upwards until they saw a sliver of light piercing the ocean's surface. Not even we believed it until I personally made sure of it. But we couldn't dare take risks swimming up lest your people sense our presence."
His eyes glazed over with nostalgia as he added, "I can still remember the celebration we had that day, the outpouring of joy and relief. We thanked the Devils for our deliverance since they must have weakened the seal somehow, even though it hadn't yet been 10,000 years."
Rowena and Asher exchanged a look, a silent conversation transpiring in the brief meeting of their eyes.
However, a curt nod from Asher quelled any lingering doubts, corroborating Moraxor's account. After all, this tale was not new to him. He had heard it from Isola as well.
With a soft hum of contemplation, Rowena acknowledged Moraxor's account before her voice slithered through the silence once more, "Who was it that connected you to the traitors within our borders? How did you get to the Kraken without House Thorne's knowledge?"
Moraxor repeated the gesture of denial, his head shaking in genuine puzzlement, "Again, it is a mystery that escapes my understanding. Cryptic messages were sent to us, detailing where and when to meet these lords. As for me, I dispatched a representative to negotiate with them, to plan how we could infiltrate your kingdom and weaken it from within," he explained, the barest hint of regret edging his voice, "We were desperate for any aid to win the war and didn't bother investigating who was helping us and risk losing our only opportunity to survive."
Rowena's sigh resonated in the stillness, a echo of disappointment that bounced off the walls of the Whispering Cove.
Yet another dead end; Moraxor had no reason to protect the instigator any longer, and so she didn't doubt his words.
Asher's brows furrowed in thought, his gaze unfocused as he mulled over the information, attempting to piece together this perplexing puzzle.
The notion of anyone orchestrating these covert affairs under the very nose of House Thorne seemed preposterous. Could the traitor be within their ranks? He swiftly dismissed the idea. They wouldn't cut off their own legs.
But suddenly, a fleeting image of Rebecca passed through his mind, making his brows raise. This was something he had wondered about earlier but dismissed it since he didn't know if Rebecca was that crazy to go that far.
Still, thinking about it again, he couldn't think of anyone else other than Rebecca.
But what concerned him even more was that she must have had some help for sure to destroy the seal. It surely wasn't the bloody Devils that helped these people.
However, without solid proof, it was just an unsupported conjecture, though he realized that she could be more dangerous than he thought if she was really behind all this.
"How did you and your kind manage to survive for millennia? With your numbers and your strength seemingly strong for a race that had been banished to die, it just seems impossible," Rowena's words bore into the silence, echoing a question that had been gnawing at Asher's mind as well.
Any person's strength was inextricably linked to their quests. And to survive in the Forbidden Waters, one needs to have strength far higher than the average.
Banishment would mean a lack of quests, and consequently, a stunting of their growth. It wouldn't even be a surprise if the Umbralfiends had become extinct within 500 years, yet they survived for a staggering 7,000 years.
The Umbralfiends before them now were evidence to the contrary, their strength evidently not too diminished by their lengthy exile.
Upon hearing her question, Moraxor's eyes became distant before he glanced at the two of them.
