Retaliation did not look like anger.
It looked like precision.
Rhen realized that too late—standing at the basin as the first reports filtered in, clean and unsettling in their clarity. No surges. No screaming water. No dramatic challenge to the buffer.
Instead, the dominant faction struck around it.
"Outer currents destabilizing," an engineer called. "Not in the buffer—adjacent."
Nymera stirred weakly on the infirmary bed as the city's hum shifted. Her eyes snapped open. "They're starving the edges."
Rhen's jaw tightened. "They're testing neutrality by making it expensive."
Skelda slammed a fist against the stone map. "Fishing lanes collapsing. Thermal gradients breaking apart. This won't kill people today—but in weeks?"
"Months," Nymera whispered. "Slow enough to look like weather."
The dominant faction had learned the language of restraint—and twisted it.
The city council convened within the hour.
Arguments flared immediately.
"This violates neutrality!"
"It's outside the buffer!"
"They're punishing us for protecting the other faction!"
Rhen stood at the center, feeling the judgment inside him stretch thin—not cracking, but strained by scale.
"They're not violating our boundary," he said quietly. "They're redefining the battlefield."
Nymera was carried in on a chair, pale but upright, refusing the blankets offered to her. Her presence alone stilled the room.
"This is the cost," she said. "Of standing between forces that don't believe in between."
A human steward snapped, "Then we withdraw the buffer."
"And let the deep tear itself apart?" Nymera asked calmly. "You think the surface survives that?"
Silence followed.
Skelda exhaled. "What are our options?"
Rhen closed his eyes, letting the judgment settle—not into futures, but into principles.
"We can't retaliate," he said. "That makes us a side."
"We can't ignore it," Nymera added. "That makes us complicit."
"So we absorb," Skelda said grimly.
"Yes," Rhen replied. "But we choose how."
The response was unglamorous.
Trade routes were rerouted. Rations tightened. Engineers began long, grinding work to stabilize altered currents—not by force, but by patience and redundancy. The city shared its models openly with neighboring regions, inviting cooperation instead of hoarding solutions.
Pain spread evenly.
No one was spared.
Nymera watched it all from the infirmary balcony, her face carved with guilt. "They're hurting because of me."
Rhen shook his head. "They're hurting because someone decided hurting others was cheaper than stopping."
She closed her eyes. "That doesn't make it easier."
"No," he agreed. "But it keeps it honest."
The dominant faction spoke at last.
Not with threat.
With logic.
Your neutrality protects inefficiency, the current conveyed. Release the buffer, and the deep stabilizes faster.
Nymera's fingers curled around the railing. "They're offering peace at the cost of extermination."
Rhen replied evenly, "We decline optimization that requires erasure."
A pause.
Then the cost will continue.
"Yes," Rhen said. "It already is."
The water withdrew—cold, deliberate.
"They're waiting for us to blink," Skelda muttered.
Nymera looked at Rhen. "What if they never do?"
Rhen didn't lie. "Then we become proof."
The first loss came quietly.
A coastal village announced relocation—voluntary, orderly, heartbreaking. Their currents were no longer reliable. They thanked the city publicly and left anyway.
Nymera wept when she heard.
Rhen felt something in him harden—not into cruelty, but into resolve sharpened by grief.
"They're counting on this," Nymera said hoarsely. "On people blaming neutrality."
"And some will," Rhen replied. "That doesn't make them wrong. Just human."
That night, the restrained faction sent a message—hesitant, ashamed.
We cannot remain indefinitely, it conveyed. Your cost becomes ours.
Nymera closed her eyes. "They're offering to leave. To remove the reason for retaliation."
Rhen felt the weight press again. "And condemn themselves."
Skelda whispered, "Or regroup."
The city faced the choice together this time.
Rhen spoke first. "If neutrality only exists when it's convenient, it isn't neutrality."
Nymera nodded slowly. "And if protection only lasts until it's expensive, it isn't protection."
The answer was clear.
The buffer would remain.
At dawn, the dominant faction escalated—not with force, but with withdrawal. Currents pulled back from entire regions, leaving voids that destabilized climate and trade alike.
The city reeled.
Nymera collapsed again—this time from exhaustion, not power. Rhen carried her, jaw clenched against the knowledge that they were winning nothing and losing slowly.
As he laid her down, she caught his sleeve weakly. "Promise me… if I fall again… you won't let them turn this into justification."
He pressed his forehead to hers. "I promise."
Outside, the basin lay calm—terrifyingly so.
The city had chosen to stand between.
Now it would learn what standing cost when no one applauded, when the harm came in inches instead of waves.
Far beneath the fjords, the dominant faction recalculated again—no longer asking whether neutrality could be broken.
But how long it could be endured.