The reef had changed.
Not in its structure, but in its silence, in the way the currents hesitated before brushing the coral shelves. You could feel it in the eyes of the nursery workers, in the press of fins against water, as if everyone was trying to move without disturbing the threads of tension stretched across the reef. Hatching season had arrived, and with it came more than joy. There was fear. There was uncertainty. And there was the growing awareness that this cycle's traditions would not pass as quietly as those before.
I stood near the tidepath ridge, staring down into the shallow pools that dotted the jungle-covered island. Even from here, I could make out the shimmer of egg clusters, bluish, translucent, pulsing gently in the filtered light. Hatchlings stirred inside them, twitching as the call to swim grew stronger. Their first journey was imminent.
The landmass itself was steaming under heavy mist, its vines and moss-draped boulders sweltering in the midday heat. Trees bulged with bloated fruit pods, and amphibians chirped from the underbrush, their croaks resonating through the tide-hollowed rocks. All of it was kept in balance by one presence, the Demi-God.
He rested atop a pillar of shellstone and vine, barely visible to the untrained eye unless you knew where to look. A frog-like form, massive, still, eternally watching. His limbs blended with the wet stones, and his skin shimmered in hues of green and black. He did not stir. He didn't need to. The water itself bent around his will. Mist curled gently from the tidepools, thick with mana, and flowed outward in steady waves that kept every pool fresh, every egg safe. He was the guardian of birth, the one being no Nactuai would dare offend.
Even the Exiles.
I'd been thinking about them more often lately. Not with the scorn I used to feel, not with the fear I was taught to carry. But with curiosity. With questions. Because someone had seen them, darting along the edges of the hatching trails. Some said they watched the eggs hatch from afar. Others claimed they stole the weakest hatchlings. The stories changed depending on who you asked. But I was beginning to wonder, what if some were just watching because they had children of their own? Children born outside the reef's order.
"You're late," came Yera's voice, sharp but not angry.
I turned and nodded, falling into step beside her. She carried a short spear today, a simple coral weapon shaped more for guidance than violence. "The hatchlings are already stirring," she said. "You'll be guiding one of the pods through the first swim."
My pulse quickened. That was no small task.
"You trust me with that?"
"You've been on trench patrol with Ashekan," she replied, "and you survived. That means something."
I didn't answer. We reached the staging reef, a crescent of coral archways overlooking the tidepools, where a dozen Watchers and caretakers were already in formation. Beyond them, mist curled away from the pools, revealing the first twitching movements of new life.
The eggs split open with soft, wet sounds, and the hatchlings emerged, small, silvery, scale-slicked, and blinking against the brightness of the shallow sea. They were beautiful. Fragile. Vital. Each one shimmered with the faintest hint of internal light, their bodies already carrying the dormant trace of mana that marked them as reefborn.
We lined up.
Each Watcher was assigned a pod. Mine had six hatchlings, smaller than the others, two of them already trembling with the effort of moving. I took a long breath and signaled the forward route glyph. The path ahead lit in soft green pulses, marking the route through the shallow reef toward the main city.
"Swim," I whispered, unsure why I spoke aloud.
And they did.
The hatchlings surged forward, erratic and unsure, but driven by instinct. I followed above and behind them, blade at my hip, eyes wide. The journey from the landmass to the reef was dangerous, not because of hostile forces, but because of nature itself. There were reef serpents in the shallows, and dartfin predators, and swarms of bite-leeches that fed on mana-rich blood.
One hatchling faltered.
I dove, caught it, and nudged it back into the pod. It rejoined its siblings with a flick of its tiny tail, pushing harder this time.
The pod made it halfway before we lost one.
A shadow streaked from the kelp. I turned too slow, shouted too late. The hatchling vanished in a swirl of motion and teeth. I didn't see what got it. I just saw the pod scatter, terrified.
I regrouped them quickly, pressing them close with hand signals and tail movement. One cried out, a high, thin screech that pierced the water like a broken shell. I calmed it with a touch, my pulse pounding in my head.
That was the way of things. The reef did not guarantee safety. The Demi-God protected the eggs. The sea did not.
We reached the outskirts of the reef city just as the second pod overtook us. Their guide—a tall Watcher named Relin, nodded to me as he passed, his group larger but less panicked. He hadn't lost any. I hated that I felt like I'd failed.
The hatchlings were collected by nursery hands and taken into the bloom troughs to begin their development cycles. I stayed behind, watching the mist rise over the tidepath. More pods were on the way. More cries, more loss. It was always like this.
I turned, then froze. A figure stood at the edge of the mist, watching. No armor. No insignia. Just a cloak, damp and weighted by the surf. He didn't move, and I didn't draw my weapon. It was an Exile.
We didn't speak. He just stared at the hatchlings being pulled from the water, then slowly backed away into the trees. I let him go.
The tournaments began that night.
It was tradition. After the hatching came celebration, trial, and renewal. The best of each caste's warriors competed in current-weaving duels, blade forms, and shell-hurl accuracy tests. It was as much ritual as it was sport, a chance for the reef to show strength in the face of hardship. The arena was carved from living coral, layered with glowing glyphs, and ringed in echo-shells that amplified the sounds of each impact and strike.
I didn't compete. I wasn't ready. But I watched.
Vonn dominated the arena, his movements precise, his strikes fast but never wasteful. Siala held her own against three initiates in a rotating form challenge. Even Ashekan stepped into the ring once, not to win, but to train. Every blow he threw was a lesson.
I found myself admiring the way they moved, not just as fighters, but as examples. As guides.
Then the reef trembled.
At first, we thought it was part of the echo-shell resonance. Then came the distortion ripple, heavy and sharp, not natural. Watchers snapped into formation. Shellguards moved to block the tournament chamber's entrances.
And then the wall cracked. A blast of pressure tore open the eastern archway, sending glyph-shards spinning and coral splinters ripping through the crowd. Screams followed. An armored figure pulled itself through the debris. More behind it. Not shadowspawn. Not Exiles. These moved with purpose.
Heavy bodies wrapped in stone-metal plates, faces hidden behind angular helms with pulsing glyph-cores at the chest. The invaders had come. And this time, they weren't dead.
Yera's voice cut through the chaos. "Defensive positions!"
I grabbed my blade, flared a recall glyph, and moved into formation. One of the mech-suited figures raised its arm, and a coil of mana-thread unspooled, twisting into a spear of pure force. It launched toward the shellguard wall and shattered it in a single pulse.
"These aren't scouts!" someone shouted. "They're warriors!"
I dove low, weaving between coral struts, circling one of the invaders from the flank. Its movement was slow but calculated. It didn't just swing—it aimed. It anticipated.
I slashed behind its knee joint, found purchase. The limb jerked, then stabilized. The creature inside growled, low and guttural, and turned to face me.
Its mask stared down with no emotion. I saw wires, bone. A faint mana organ mounted externally in a carved shell socket. Stolen. The sight made my stomach turn.
I moved to strike again, but it flared its suit and sent a shockwave through the current, slamming me into the arena wall. My head rang. I couldn't breathe right. My gills stuttered.
Then Ashekan was there, driving his blade into the chest glyph. It cracked. The suit buckled. And the figure inside screamed. It was not a warrior's scream. It was a hungry, broken, desperate sound.
"Back to the ridge!" Yera ordered. "Get the hatchlings clear!"
We fell into retreat formation. Not because we were losing, because we didn't know how many more were coming. And because the cost of staying would be too high. I turned once, just before leaving the arena.
One of the invaders stood over a fallen Watcher, arm raised. A dart-fin swarm burst from the reef wall and struck its mask. Not random. Guided. A shadowspawn ripple? No. Something else. A flicker of water shaped deliberately.
The Demi-God.
Even from this distance, I felt its presence push through the reef. Not violent. But firm. Like a hand pressed to the back of my neck. We escaped, but the reef wasn't safe anymore. Not truly. The hatchlings had swum. The eggs had cracked. And now, the reef would bleed.
I didn't know what tomorrow would bring.
But I knew we would fight.