From a distance, it looked serene almost reverent. Towers of coralstone rose from the sea like pale ribs, fused with steel reinforcements and translucent walkways that caught the light and bent it into soft blues and greens. Water flowed everywhere not just beneath the city, but through it. Channels ran alongside streets. Glass tunnels cut directly through the ocean, fish gliding past at eye level like living murals.
Felicity stood at the edge of the upper causeway, fingers curled lightly around the rail, eyes wide. "It's beautiful," she murmured.
Victor made a low sound of agreement behind her, one arm already half extended in a way that looked casual to anyone else and unmistakably territorial to every male within a hundred meters. Voss stood on her other side, posture relaxed, eyes sharp, mind already mapping angles, exits, elevation changes. Too many people. Too many men. They felt her before they saw her.
The city had a pulse, and the pulse shifted the moment Felicity stepped fully into it. Heads turned. Conversations slowed. The air tasted different, thicker, charged. She didn't notice at first not until Victor's hand landed on the small of her back, firm but gentle. "Stay between us," he said quietly. She nodded, trusting, and kept walking.
The attention escalated fast. Mercenaries leaned on spears, pretending not to stare. Dockworkers paused mid-haul. Even Tidehaven soldiers men bearing Pia's crest followed her with eyes that lingered too long, calculating, covetous. One stepped closer than the rest. Tall. Broad. Confident in the way of someone who'd never been corrected. Victor corrected him.
The man barely had time to open his mouth before Victor's aura snapped outward, heat and cold folding together into something sharp enough to sting the lungs. The man stumbled back as if struck, boots scraping stone, eyes blown wide.
"Not yours," Victor said calmly. The message rippled. A second man tried anyway a hand lifting, a smile forming.
Voss didn't even look at him. A flick of intent, a pressure like a thought placed directly behind the eyes. The man flinched, turned abruptly, and left at a near jog, pale and sweating. Felicity blinked. "You don't have to—" "We do," Voss replied gently. Victor squeezed her waist once, reassuring. "You don't see it yet. That's good. Stay that way."
They guided her deeper into the city, past markets suspended over water, past residences carved into reefstone, past training yards where Tidehaven's elite drilled with brutal precision. Above them, schools of fish moved in synchronized patterns that made Felicity smile despite everything.
Someone was watching them from the higher terraces. Pia stood with her officers, trident resting against her shoulder, eyes narrowed. "She's softer than I expected," one of her men muttered.
"And more dangerous," another replied. "Look at how the Snow team moves around her." Pia's jaw tightened. "They won't be able to keep her forever," she said coldly. "No one ever does."
Below, Felicity's new home waited. It was tucked into a quieter quadrant of Tidehaven, away from the docks and the main barracks. The entrance was a wide arch of reinforced glass and coralsteel, water flowing in slow streams along its sides. Inside, the space opened into something that made Felicity stop short. "Oh." The home was… warm. Not in temperature but in feeling.
Polished stone floors softened by woven rugs. Walls inset with glowing crystal panels that mimicked sunlight filtering through water. Built-in seating wrapped around a low central table. Shelves already stocked with supplies. A kitchen nook with unfamiliar appliances but familiar intent. Private quarters branched off to the side. Sleeping rooms. Storage. A bathing chamber fed by filtered seawater that steamed gently.
"This is ours?" she asked, almost afraid.
"For now," Victor said. "Defensible. Two exits. One vertical shaft. Pressure-rated walls."
Voss nodded. "Shielding woven into the structure. Not enough against a full assault. Enough to buy time."
Felicity walked slowly, touching everything. The fabric. The stone. The smooth glass of the windows that looked out into the sea itself. A fish drifted past, eye level, curious. She laughed softly. "I've never lived anywhere like this."
Victor watched her like the room revolved around her orbit. "You deserve worse places less." She turned, smiling at him, and something in the air eased just a fraction.
Far above, Pia's men continued to watch.
"She settles in fast," one said. "If we wait, it'll be harder."
Pia's fingers tightened on her trident. "Then we don't wait."
The Snow team didn't stay long enough to get comfortable.
Orders came down before the sun cycle shifted. Escort mission.
Trade caravan moving between Tidehaven and a neighboring base inland. Supplies. Weapons. Information. High value, high risk. Snow team assignment confirmed.
Felicity felt the shift immediately the tightening, the readiness snapping into place.
Victor's demeanor changed, warmth sheathed beneath command. Voss moved to planning without a word, already outlining routes and contingencies in his head.
"You're staying here," Victor told her gently.
Her smile wobbled but held. "I know."
He pressed his forehead briefly to hers, a quiet promise.
Voss rested a hand on her head, just for a second, grounding.
"We'll be back," Voss said. She watched them leave from the window, figures disappearing into Tidehaven's labyrinth.
Behind her, unseen, the city breathed.
And somewhere in its depths, a plan was already in motion.
Victor insisted on taking Luna and Frost with them. "They need exposure," he'd said, tone firm but not unkind. "Real terrain. Real threat vectors. With us."
Felicity had knelt to help Luna adjust her straps, fingers gentle, voice soft.
Frost tried to look brave, chin up, tail flicking with barely contained nerves. "You'll do great," Felicity told them. "And bring me stories."
Luna hugged her legs hard. "Bring you shinies." Victor smiled at that, kissed Felicity's forehead, then stepped back into command.
Voss lingered half a second longer than necessary, eyes searching her face like he wanted to memorize it. Then they were gone.
The door sealed. The water outside resumed its slow, breathing drift.
Only Felicity and Rose remained.
Rose prowled the perimeter restlessly, vines twitching under her skin, unease crawling up her spine. "I don't like this," she muttered. "Too quiet."
Felicity laughed lightly, trying to soothe them both.
"You hate quiet."
"Not this kind." Above them, Pia's men counted the minutes.
They waited until the Snow team's signal was a distant flicker. Then nothing. Tidehaven swallowed them whole. The home's outer defenses disengaged smoothly when the right pattern was pressed into the coralsteel seam. Old code. Old authority. The house didn't resist. Why would it? It belonged to Tidehaven.
Rose barely had time to turn before shadows flooded the room. Steel flashed.
"Don't scream," one man said calmly. "We don't want to hurt you."
Another stepped closer, gaze sliding toward Felicity like a blade. "But we will." Rose's vines surged instinctively.
A third man struck her from behind. The blow was precise, practiced. Rose crumpled without a sound, magic sputtering uselessly against the floor.
Felicity froze.
Hands seized her arms. A cloth pressed to her mouth. Her magic flared instinctively, words trembling on her tongue, power begging to be shaped.
"Easy," one of them murmured. "You're too valuable damaged." For a moment, it almost went worse. Greedy hands lingered too long. A voice laughed low, dark with intent. "We could take turns before"
"No."
The word cut sharp. A man with Tidehaven's crest stepped forward, eyes cold. "She belongs to Pia. Touch her and you answer to her mate.
" Reluctant hands withdrew. Felicity's vision blurred as darkness swallowed her.
The Snow team fought through hell. The escort route had rotted. Zombies surged from collapsed buildings, fast and armored with fused bone. The traders panicked, formation breaking as one nearly got dragged screaming into the rubble.
Victor roared, space tearing open as he swallowed wreckage, bodies, threats whole. "Close ranks!" Voss barked orders, snapping the team back into cohesion.
Luna screamed and unleashed a burst of wild telekinetic force that crushed three undead at once. Frost held the shield line, shaking but unbroken.
They survived by inches. Between fights, Victor gathered anything useful. Food. Weapons. Fabric. Small comforts he didn't comment on. Voss noticed anyway. "She'd like that," Victor said quietly, tucking a bundle into his space. "The soft blankets." Luna nodded solemnly. "For mummy."
They didn't know.
Not yet.
Felicity woke bound, hooded, air dry and wrong. The sea was gone.
She heard arguing.
"You promised her to Pia."
"She was never going to keep her. The trader pays better."
"You'll get us all killed."
The transport lurched forward.
When the hood finally came off, the world was ash. A land burned black and hollow. Skeletal trees clawed at a grey sky. Crumbling stone structures loomed in the distance, sharp and elegant, like the remains of a cathedral built by monsters with taste. Gothic spires. Iron gates. Red glass windows cracked but intact.
A place that drank light. The trader smiled thinly. "Welcome," he said. "You'll fetch a fortune here."
Felicity swallowed.
Far away, a week's journey behind her, the Snow team was still fighting toward home.
And Tidehaven was already lying.