The old city did not welcome them.
It waited.
Rhen felt it as soon as they crossed the last shelf of ice and descended into the basin where stone met black water. The air changed—thicker, quieter, carrying the scent of minerals and old storms. Towers leaned toward one another like conspirators. Bridges of ice and petrified coral arched over canals so still they reflected nothing at all.
Northwake's heart.
Abandoned, Skelda had said. But abandonment was a human word. This place felt less empty than unslept—as if it had been holding its breath for a very long time.
Nymera slowed, eyes tracing the ruins. Through the bond, Rhen felt her pulse quicken—not fear, but recognition. The currents beneath the ice moved differently here, layered and careful, like thoughts spoken softly so they wouldn't wake something sleeping nearby.
"This city learned restraint," Nymera murmured. "I can feel it. It was built to bend, not break."
Rhen nodded, though the absence of the wolf left his senses oddly flat. He compensated the way he'd learned since the cavern—by listening harder. By trusting what didn't shout. "It's choosing us," he said. "Or at least… allowing us."
Skelda halted near the edge of a wide plaza, its center sunken into a bowl of stone etched with braided symbols worn smooth by time. She raised a fist, and the small escort behind them—Northwake guards and a pair of merfolk wardens—spread out to secure the perimeter.
"This is as far as we go," Skelda said. "If the city accepts you, it will do so without witnesses."
Nymera turned to her. "You won't stay?"
Skelda shook her head. "This place doesn't like crowds. And it doesn't forgive interference." A pause. "Neither do you."
She clasped Rhen's forearm, then Nymera's wrist—an old Northwake gesture that meant be alive when you can. "If you need us, light the beacons. We'll come as far as the ice allows."
When they were alone, the silence pressed in.
Rhen stepped into the bowl first. The stone was warmer here, faintly humming under his boots. Nymera followed, and the hum changed pitch—two notes finding harmony.
"Okay," Rhen said quietly. "How do we… claim it?"
Nymera knelt and placed both palms on the stone. Her tidefire flickered uncertainly, then steadied. "We don't claim," she said. "We ask."
Rhen joined her, setting his hand beside hers. The bond opened—wide, careful. He offered what he had left: patience, choice, the promise not to force what could be invited.
The city answered.
Not with light or thunder, but with memory.
Rhen's breath caught as images brushed his mind—builders laying foundations with rituals of pause, councils dissolving themselves when power grew too loud, children taught the art of stopping before wanting became taking. The city had fallen not to conquest, but to migration. Its people had left to avoid becoming what they feared.
Nymera gasped softly. "They walked away… on purpose."
The hum deepened. Channels opened in the stone bowl, thin lines filling with a pale glow that flowed outward into the streets like veins awakening.
Rhen felt a tug—not on his strength, but on his attention. The city wasn't draining them. It was asking for stewardship.
"We can do this," he said. "But it won't be easy."
Nymera smiled faintly. "Easy isn't the point."
The glow settled. The bowl cooled. The city exhaled.
They rose together.
By nightfall, the beacons were lit—three tall spires along the basin rim kindled with steady, blue-white flame. Not a summons. A signal.
People came carefully.
First, Northwake scouts—silent, watchful. Then a small group of merfolk, their brine-veils shimmering. Wolves followed, some Moonbound, some wild, all wary. A few humans arrived last, fishermen and traders with frostburned hands and eyes that had seen too much water take too much land.
No banners.
No speeches.
Rhen stood at the edge of the bowl, Nymera beside him. He felt the crowd's uncertainty like static. He also felt the city—present, listening.
"We won't rule you," Nymera said, voice carrying without effort. "We won't bind you to us."
Rhen continued, steady. "This place isn't a fortress. It's a meeting ground. If you come here, you come to talk. To rest. To disagree without killing each other."
A murmur rippled—skeptical, hopeful, afraid.
A Moonbound wolf stepped forward—older, scarred, eyes tired. "And when the Councils come?"
Nymera met his gaze. "Then they'll have to speak too."
A human woman—salt-streaked hair, hands raw—lifted her chin. "And the Deep Ones?"
Rhen didn't lie. "They'll test us again."
Silence.
Then Skelda's voice carried from the rim. "They already are."
The water in the nearest canal darkened, pressure coiling beneath its surface. Not an attack—yet. A probe.
Nymera closed her eyes, feeling the hunger brush against the bond. She didn't push back. She held—the way she'd learned in the ice cavern. The city answered, channels brightening, distributing the strain.
Rhen felt the cost approach—and stop. Redirected. Shared.
The water eased.
A breath went through the crowd.
"They can't feed here," a merfolk warden whispered. "Not like before."
Nymera opened her eyes. "Not without our consent."
That word—consent—settled like a stone dropped into deep water. The ripples went far.
Later, when the city slept in its careful way, Rhen stood alone on a bridge that spanned a canal of black glass. He stared at his reflection—human eyes, tired lines, no wolf's gleam. The absence still ached.
"Still looking for it?" Nymera asked softly, coming to stand beside him.
He nodded. "I keep thinking I'll hear him again."
She slipped her hand into his. "Maybe you will. Maybe you won't."
He exhaled. "I don't know who I am without that voice."
Nymera leaned her head against his shoulder. "You're the one who chose restraint when power begged you to break something. You're the one who negotiated with hunger. You're the one who stayed."
Rhen smiled faintly. "You make it sound noble."
She smiled back. "I make it sound true."
The bond warmed—not flaring, not demanding. Just present.
From the far end of the canal, a ripple moved against the current. Not a Deep One. Smaller. Curious.
Nymera watched it go. "They're learning."
"So are we," Rhen said.
Above them, the beacons burned steady, and the city that had waited finally slept—knowing who held the night.