The Solarian Dynasty did not weep. Their sorrow was a dry, blinding heat that cracked the marble of the capital city, Helios, and left the sky a permanent, oppressive gold. Prince Kaelen, the final Heir of the Sun, felt this dryness deepest in his soul. He was twenty-five, born under a relentless summer, and his only true inheritance seemed to be the impossible duty of saving a dying kingdom.His mother, the Sun Queen, had vanished five years prior in a blaze of magic so powerful it was said to have ripped the light right out of the constellation Lyra. The resulting magical famine, known as the Gloom, had slowly throttled Solaria, turning its once vibrant golden fields to dust and starving the great Sunwells that powered their cities.Kaelen stood on the precipice of the kingdom's end—a jagged, black cliff face that marked the border between Solaria's parched, inland deserts and the endless, sapphire expanse of the Azure Sea. His armor, beaten gold and polished steel, felt impossibly heavy in the humid, salt-laced air."The border marker is gone, Your Highness," stated Commander Valerius, his voice grim. The Commander was a man of rock-solid loyalty, but the exhaustion of five fruitless years was etched around his eyes.Kaelen dismounted from his weary Sunstrider horse. The air here was unlike the parched heat of Helios; it was cool, thick, and tasted of iodine and deep water. The land itself bore witness to a catastrophic, recent event. Where a century-old Solarian boundary pillar—engraved with the dynasty's sunburst crest—should have stood, there was only a patch of raw, black glass. The earth looked not merely burned, but scorched by an unnatural, intense cold."It wasn't a fire, Valerius," Kaelen murmured, kneeling down. The obsidian-like material was smooth and unnervingly cold to the touch, even under the high-noon sun. "It was elemental. Look at the edges."The edges of the scorch mark were fringed with crystalline structures that seemed to shimmer with trapped, residual seawater. This was not the work of their enemies from the North or the decaying magic of the Gloom. This was sea-magic. This was the work of the Mer, or, more specifically, the woman who commanded them."The prophecy rings true, then," Valerius sighed, running a hand over his tired face. "The Sea Witch stirs."The Prophecy of the Twin Calamities was the oldest, most feared text in Solaria: When the Sun Fails, the Sea Rises. The Heir of the Sun shall meet the Witch of the Deep, and their clash will bring either the world's dawn or its final drowning.Kaelen stood, brushing the black dust from his gauntlet. "If she means to take what little life we have left, she will do it over my body. This pillar was the last marker protecting the coastal villages. We ride tonight. To the sea-caves."The sea-caves were a labyrinth of submerged caverns rumored to be the last, hidden stronghold of the Merfolk. Solaria and the Merfolk had been in a state of tense, non-hostile separation for a thousand years. The Mer had their dominion below the waves, Solaria its scorched earth above. But this scorch mark was an invasion.That same evening, under a sky that lacked the usual Solarian brightness, a woman of impossible beauty and unsettling power watched Kaelen's party from the mouth of a colossal, black clam shell that served as a throne.This was Lysandra, the last true Sea Witch.She was not the hag of coastal human legends, but something far more deadly: a creature of mesmerizing, cold grace. Her hair, the color of kelp beds and storm clouds, was woven with threads of glowing, electric-blue brine. Her skin held the phosphorescent pale-green tint of deep-sea life, and when she moved, the air around her smelled of salt and ozone. She wore nothing but intricate, silver scale-mail that seemed to ripple like water, and in her hand rested a trident carved from a single shard of abyssal ice.Beside her, her oldest advisor, the crab-like Elder Thalassa, clicked his claws nervously. "The Prince is close, Mistress. He brings fifty of their best riders. And the Sun Blade."Lysandra's eyes, vast and the color of a winter ocean, fixed on the distant pinpricks of light that were Kaelen's torches."Fifty riders are dust against the tide, Thalassa," her voice was a chilling alto, the sound of water rushing over smooth stone. "The Sun Blade, however, is another matter. It is a symbol of everything that has corrupted this world. Their light is a disease that dries up the spirit of the earth.""But the human legends say the blade can cut through any magic, even yours, Mistress," Thalassa warned.Lysandra gave a smile that was all ice and predatory intent. "Then let him bring it. He comes seeking war, believing I destroyed his border. But he doesn't understand. I destroyed his border because it stood on my forgotten covenant. He doesn't know what I need."She rose from her clam-shell throne, her figure casting long, distorted shadows onto the wet cavern walls. A wave of raw, untapped magical energy pulsed from her, causing the nearby pool of water to churn violently."Heir of the Sun," Lysandra whispered to the echoing cavern, the sound carrying a current of pure, raw magic. "You have inherited your father's arrogance, and now, you shall inherit the debt he left behind. If he wishes to fight, I will show him what it means to face the ocean. But if he is wise..."She paused, turning her cold gaze towards the surface."...If he is wise, he will bring me what I truly require. Not war, but the only remaining source of true magic left in his dying world."Kaelen and his men made camp just above the tide line, the restless waves crashing a hundred feet below them. The air was heavy, charged with an invisible force. He didn't sleep. He sat staring at the black ocean, his hands resting on the hilt of the Sun Blade—a longsword that glowed with a faint, steady gold light, the last potent Solarian artifact.He had come to fight, but as he stared into the unsettling vastness of the sea, he felt a deeper terror than facing an enemy army: the fear that he was utterly unprepared for the ancient, elemental power he was about to face. He was the heir of a failing light, marching against the limitless dark depths.What secrets did the Sea Witch hold, and how could he possibly save his kingdom without utterly drowning it?
To be continued