CHAPTER 70: THE RISING TIDE

The chamber of the Elven Synod stood at the heart of Selanor, its crystal spires buried deep within the roots of an ancient leyline.

Light shimmered from suspended lanterns, drawn not from fire but from threads of raw essence braided and shaped by ritual.

The assembled magi sat in a crescent of tiered seats, robed in colors denoting lineage and priesthood, their faces sharp, their voices sharper still.

Normally the chamber carried the reverent hush of liturgy. Tonight it was an echoing cage of whispers.

The spies had returned from afar.

What they carried was not treasure, not artifacts, but knowledge more dire than any weapon.

Caedrion Ferrondel, conqueror of Emberhold, scourge of Ignarion, had vanished from Dawnhaven not long after his triumph.

Vanished, and reappeared not in any realm of men but in the coils of her.

Thalassaria Virelleth, Queen of Submareth. Sovereign of the Shivering Sea.

High Magister Elorath stood grim at the dais, his hands spread upon the crystal lectern as he repeated the intelligence.

"Our eyes confirm it. The naga queen parades him in her hall. She calls him consort. King. Husband. She coils about him as if he were treasure dredged from the depths."

A hiss rippled through the assembly.

Some slammed their staves, others covered their mouths as if the words themselves might poison them.

Magister Serelyth was the first to rise. His voice, thin with age, quavered as it carried.

"Do you not see? The serpent witch ensnares him. She toys with him as one does with a child. If he remains beneath her sway, her armies and his genius may join. If that comes to pass, the balance of this age collapses."

At that, Priestess Veyra spat a bitter laugh.

"Collapses? It has already collapsed. Ignarion is ash. Emberhold burns. The Crucible’s flame guttered like a dying torch. And you think Dawnhaven’s lord must now be ensnared to pose a threat? He already is one."

The chamber erupted into overlapping voices, some fearful, some furious.

Elorath raised his staff once, its crystal tip ringing like a bell. Silence fell, if reluctantly.

He gestured to the tiers. "Speak then. Let the Synod’s mind be laid bare. The time for whispers is done."

The Conservatives spoke first: ancient priests with robes the color of frost, their hair silvered to near white.

They muttered of tradition, of pride, of refusing to bend knee to any mortal, human or naga. To them, Caedrion was merely another tyrant dressed in steel.

"Better to strike and die with dignity," one barked, "than to cower in fear of a nullborn’s spawn."

The Pragmatists countered. Magister Ylathien, his features sharp as glass, leaned forward.

"Strike? And die, yes. You saw what became of Ignarion when they scoffed at industry. Do you think our wards stronger than their barrier? Our armies larger than their spellswords? No. The humans wield thunder now. Dawnhaven’s lord broke a dynasty older than our own memory, and he did it in months. To strike him is suicide."

Then came the Radicals, a small but loud cohort who had long argued for breaking old taboos. One among them, Magus Relthas, his eyes gleaming with dangerous light, stood and proclaimed:

"If Caedrion is ensnared by the Queen of the Deep, then should we not attempt such a seduction of our own? Why not bind the man to us? Has any here considered it? Instead of fearing him, claim him!"

The silence that followed was heavy as stone.

Elorath’s eyes narrowed. The chamber turned as one to glare at Relthas, their gazes knives of contempt.

Even the radicals who had whispered of breaking with old dogma now looked away in disgust.

Finally, Arch-Priest Thalruin, eldest of them all, croaked,

"Have you lost what little sense you ever had? You would compete with the Sea Queen in madness? You would court the affection of a warlord already in her coils? The naga drown suitors for less."

Relthas bristled. "Better to risk than to sit idle, waiting for her spawn to crawl onto land—"

"Silence," Elorath thundered.

"You shame this Synod with folly. If you wish to hurl yourself into the sea, then by all means leap. But do not stain these chambers with your lunacy."

Relthas sat, his face burning, but no one offered him a word of defense.

With the fool silenced, the debate turned grim.

One voice after another argued contingencies. Wards against abyssal incursions.

Stockpiles of food should the seas turn hostile and choke trade.

Plans to relocate enclaves deeper inland, abandoning ports they had once ruled.

Priestess Veyra again spoke, her tone brittle but practical.

"The naga queen already stifled rebellion among her own. Do you think her courtiers dare act against her now that she flaunts a human consort? No. She will crush dissent beneath the waves, and in doing so free her hands for war. If Caedrion remains with her, we must expect their powers to intertwine. We must expect the impossible."

"And what of him?" asked Magister Calen. His eyes were haunted, his voice low.

"Is he prisoner, or willing? Does it matter? If he learns her secrets, if he commands both Architect and Abyss..." He trailed off, but the implication curdled every stomach.

The word was not spoken, but all thought it: Eidolon.

At last, Elorath spoke again, voice steady, commanding.

"We cannot match them openly. Not now. Not while we still bleed from our own arrogance. But neither can we hide and pray the storm passes. The naga queen is ancient. The human warlord is young. Time is not our ally, it is theirs."

He turned to the scribes.

"Begin preparations. Triple the wards along our coasts. Fortify the leyline spires. An train every hand capable of weaving a spell. If war comes, all will be needed."

"And if war does not come?" asked one uncertainly.

Elorath’s gaze burned. "Then we will be ready for the day it does."

As the Synod dispersed, whispers followed in their wake. Some muttered of assassination, others of appeasement.

Most simply shook their heads, dazed by fear of what they had heard.

Elorath lingered in the emptying chamber, staring into the leyline crystal above. Its light shimmered faintly, like a dying star.

He whispered, not for others but for himself:

"A human crowned beneath the sea. A queen mad with love. And a world that quakes with every breath they share. How long before the storm breaks upon us all?"

The echo lingered long after he left, as though the crystal itself had taken his dread into its depths.

When the Synod’s voices finally dimmed, and the chamber of crystal emptied into the night, Elorath remained alone.

The lanterns still glowed faintly, their threads of essence flickering like candleflames in the dark.

Yet he did not move. His hands were braced upon the lectern, knuckles white, his gaze fixed on the polished floor.

Fear clung to him. Not the open panic of his fellow magi, nor the shrill cries of those who saw doom at every shadow.

His was the quiet, suffocating fear of one who knows the storm cannot be stopped, only weathered.

He whispered to himself, as though the crystal walls might answer:

"Caedrion Ferrondel.... A human magus of a dying house... And yet the sea bends to him through her love. The tide swells against us. Alone, we cannot withstand it."

The words tasted like ash.

For centuries the Synod had preserved a silence older than any law, a silence concerning their cousins, the dark elves.

Once kin, now heretics, exiled in ages past for their rejection of the High Doctrine.

They had turned from the light and embraced the shadows of their own making.

The schism had been violent, final. Contact had been forbidden under penalty of death.

Yet Elorath knew the truth, the truth every High Magister carried like a brand upon their soul: the connection had never fully broken.

Each generation, the leader of the Synod was entrusted with a relic.

A means. Not to use, not to acknowledge, but to guard. For if ever the world darkened beyond endurance, the last resort would be to call upon their forsaken kin.

For millennia no one had dared.

Elorath’s hand trembled as he reached into his robes, drawing forth the small box of jet-black stone.

Its surface was etched with faint runes that no priest in Selanor dared to read.

A single clasp of silver, tarnished with age, sealed it shut.

His breath came heavy.

"If I open this, I break every oath I have sworn. I shatter the covenant of our fathers. But if I do not..."

He saw the naga queen’s coils, the human warlord’s cannon-fire, the crackling ruin of Ignarion. He saw the tide swallowing them all. "...then our line will break regardless."

He sank to one knee before the relic, as though in prayer.

For long minutes he remained there, torn between fear and necessity. The chamber was silent but for his breath.

Finally, with a sound like a groan of earth, he unclasped the box.

Inside lay a shard of obsidian, no larger than a dagger’s hilt. Its surface shimmered faintly with violet light, as though a star pulsed within its heart.

The moment it touched the air, the lanterns dimmed, the crystal walls groaned, and Elorath’s skin crawled with a sensation like unseen fingers brushing his mind.

"Their key," he whispered. "Their bridge."

It was said the Iltharim had fled beyond all maps, carving a realm out of shadow and forgotten caverns where no light reached.

No one knew where. Not even Elorath. But this shard was their answer, a tether forged in that long-ago sundering.

He set the shard upon the lectern, spreading his hands in the old gesture of invocation, one so ancient his fingers stumbled through the motions.

The runes shimmered. The shard pulsed once, twice, then flared.

A voice, faint and echoing, stirred in the crystal chamber.

Not words, not yet, but awareness. A door creaking open on the far side of eternity.

Elorath’s breath hitched. For the first time in centuries, the High Magister of Selanor reached into the void between peoples.

"Iltharim," he whispered, his voice hoarse, his will steady despite the terror boiling in his veins. "The tide rises. Alone, we will drown. Together... perhaps we may yet stand. Will you hear me?"

The shard pulsed again.

And for a heartbeat, he thought he heard an answer.