CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Leviathan Wakes
The final night of the Tidefall Festival arrived with blood-red skies.
The sunset that evening was the most beautiful and most terrible Orion had ever seen. The clouds blazed crimson and purple, as if the sky itself was wounded. Festival-goers gathered to watch, pointing and exclaiming at the spectacular display.
They didn't know it was a warning.
"The binding is failing," Nera said quietly. They stood on the cliffs above the harbor, watching the sky burn. "The Leviathan is pushing against it. It knows the seal won't last much longer."
"How long?"
"Hours. Maybe less."
Orion's hand tightened on his sword hilt. They'd spent the entire day searching for alternatives, consulting every priest and mage in the city, digging through archives and libraries. Nothing. The only way to repair the binding was sacrifice—a willing soul to become the new anchor of life.
And Nera was still thinking about doing it. He could see it in her eyes, in the way she looked at the innocent crowds below, in the weight she carried on her small shoulders.
"Don't," he said.
"I haven't said anything."
"You're thinking it."
"Of course I'm thinking it." She turned to face him, human-sized, her eyes ancient and sad. "Those are people down there. Thousands of them. Families. Children. And I have the power to save them."
"At the cost of your life."
"My life isn't worth more than theirs."
"It is to me."
"That's not—" She stopped, frustrated. "Orion, you don't understand. I'm not just a pixie. I'm not even just a fairy. I'm—"
A rumble cut through her words. Deep beneath them, in the caves below, something massive shifted.
And then the screaming started.
* * *
The harbor exploded.
Not literally—nothing burst into flames or flew apart. But the water itself seemed to surge upward, a wall of dark brine that rose twenty feet before crashing back down. And from beneath it, rising like a nightmare given form, came the Leviathan.
It was vast. That was the first impression—sheer, overwhelming size. A serpentine body covered in scales that gleamed like black oil, each one larger than a man. Eyes that burned with cold intelligence. A mouth filled with teeth like swords. And tentacles—dozens of them, writhing from its body like a mass of hungry serpents.
The creature's roar shattered windows across the harbor district.
"Oh gods," Orion breathed.
"Run," Nera said. "Everyone run!"
But they were too far away. The harbor was packed with festival-goers, and the Leviathan was already moving, its tentacles reaching for the docks, for the crowds, for anything living within reach.
"We have to stop it," Orion said.
"With what? Our winning personalities?"
"With everything we have." He started running toward the harbor, drawing his sword as he went. "Come on!"
"Orion, wait—"
He didn't wait. He couldn't. People were dying—he could hear their screams, see the chaos erupting as the Leviathan tore through the docks. Every second he hesitated was another life lost.
Nera caught up to him within moments, flying at his shoulder. "You can't fight that thing with a sword!"
"Then I'll fight it with my power!"
"You don't know how to control it!"
"I'll figure it out!"
They hit the harbor district at a sprint. The streets were chaos—people running in every direction, screaming, trampling each other in their desperation to escape. Guild guards were trying to maintain order, but they were overwhelmed. And beyond them, visible between the buildings, the Leviathan continued its rampage.
"Orion!" Vex's voice cut through the noise. He and Denna were fighting their way toward them, weapons drawn. "What do we do?"
"Evacuate everyone you can! Get them away from the water!"
"What about you?"
"I'm going to distract it!"
"That's insane!"
"Probably!" Orion pushed past a overturned cart and kept running. "Do it anyway!"
He reached the waterfront just as one of the Leviathan's tentacles swept across the dock, sending debris flying. He dove, rolled, came up swinging—and his blade bounced off the creature's scales without leaving a mark.
The Leviathan's massive head swung toward him. Those burning eyes focused, and Orion felt the weight of its attention—ancient, hungry, amused.
LITTLE MORTAL a voice echoed in his mind, YOU THINK TO CHALLENGE ME?
"I think to stop you," Orion said through gritted teeth.
YOU CANNOT STOP WHAT IS ETERNAL. BUT YOU CAN AMUSE ME WHILE I FEED.
A tentacle lashed toward him. Orion threw himself aside, feeling the wind of its passage, and slashed at the appendage as it passed. This time, his blade bit deeper—but still not deep enough.
He needed more. He needed his power.
"Come on," he muttered, reaching for that strange force inside him. "Come on, come on..."
He felt it stir. That surge of possibility, of will made manifest. But it was sluggish, uncertain—his fear was blocking it, his doubt holding it back.
Another tentacle swept toward him. He dodged, but barely—it clipped his shoulder, sending him sprawling.
The Leviathan loomed over him, its massive jaws opening wide.
And then Nera appeared.
* * *
She descended from the sky like a falling star.
Not pixie-sized. Not even human-sized. She was something else now—something vast and terrible and beautiful. Wings of pure light spread behind her, spanning dozens of feet. Her hair flowed like green fire. Her eyes blazed with power that made the Leviathan's seem like candles next to the sun.
And her voice, when she spoke, was the voice of the earth itself.
"YOU WILL NOT TOUCH HIM."
The Leviathan recoiled. For the first time since rising, it looked uncertain—perhaps even afraid.
WHAT ARE YOU? its voice demanded. YOU ARE NOT MORTAL. YOU ARE NOT LIKE THE PRIESTS WHO BOUND ME.
"I am Neradok." Her voice carried across the harbor, across the city, heard by everyone whether they wanted to hear or not. "Queen of All Fairies. Ruler of the Eternal Court. And you, Leviathan, are in my way."
Orion stared. Queen. She was a queen. The queen. The ruler of the entire fairy realm, hiding as a pixie, married to a human nobody...
Later. He could process this later. Right now, his wife was facing down an ancient horror, and he wasn't going to let her do it alone.
He pushed himself to his feet. The power inside him was responding now—responding to his determination, his refusal to give up, his absolute conviction that they would win.
"Together," he said.
Nera—Neradok—looked down at him. Through all that power, through all that divine radiance, her eyes were still hers. Still the woman who'd saved him in a forest, who'd married him without hesitation, who'd made every day of his life brighter just by being in it.
"Together," she agreed.
They faced the Leviathan.
And they attacked.
* * *
The battle that followed would become legend.
Orion fought like a man possessed—which, in a sense, he was. His power had fully awakened now, flowing through him without resistance. Every strike of his sword carried force beyond what steel should deliver. Every dodge was perfect, guided by instinct that bordered on precognition. He was fighting beyond his limits, beyond what any human should be capable of, and it still wasn't enough.
But Nera—Neradok—was something else entirely.
She wielded light like a weapon, hurling bolts of pure radiance that burned through the Leviathan's scales. She wove barriers of force that deflected its attacks. She sang words of power that made the creature writhe in pain, ancient bindings that it had thought long forgotten.
And still the Leviathan fought on.
It was old. Eternal. It had survived being bound for centuries, and it was not going to fall easily. For every wound they inflicted, it healed. For every attack they blocked, it found another angle. Its tentacles lashed and its jaws snapped and its terrible mind pressed against theirs, trying to break their wills.
YOU CANNOT WIN it roared. I AM ENDLESS. I AM HUNGER ITSELF. I WILL DEVOUR YOU AND YOUR CITY AND EVERYTHING YOU LOVE—
"You talk too much," Orion said, and drove his blade into one of its eyes.
The Leviathan screamed—a sound that shattered the remaining windows in the harbor district. It thrashed, pulling back, and for a moment, they had breathing room.
"The stone anchor," Nera gasped. She was tiring—even her power had limits. "It's still intact. If we can strengthen it—"
"How?"
"The same way the original binding worked. A sacrifice. A willing soul."
"No."
"Orion—"
"I said no." He grabbed her hand—huge now, her fingers the size of his forearm, but he grabbed it anyway. "There has to be another way."
"There isn't. I've been searching since we found the records. Blood and will—that's what the binding requires. And I have plenty of both."
The Leviathan was recovering, its ruined eye already regenerating. They had seconds at most.
"Then take mine," Orion said.
Nera stared at him. "What?"
"My blood. My will. My power—whatever it is." He met her eyes, and in his gaze was absolute certainty. "Use it. Channel it into the binding. I believe I can make this work—and my power makes real what I believe."
"That's not how it—"
"It's exactly how it works." He placed his hand over his heart. "Unknown Creation. The ability to accomplish whatever I truly commit to. And I commit to this. I commit to saving this city, to protecting you, to making this binding hold for another thousand years."
He felt the power surge through him—not fighting it this time, but directing it. Channeling it. Believing with every fiber of his being that it would be enough.
"Take it," he said. "Take what I'm offering and use it."
Nera's eyes filled with tears. "You could die. You could burn out, give too much—"
"Then I'll die doing something that matters." He smiled at her—that rare, real smile. "For someone who matters."
The Leviathan charged.
And Nera—Neradok, Queen of All Fairies—reached into her husband's soul and pulled.
* * *
Light.
That was all Orion knew for a long, timeless moment. Pure, brilliant light, flowing from him into Nera, from Nera into the binding, from the binding into the stone anchor deep beneath the earth.
He felt his power emptying out of him—not painfully, but completely. Everything he had, everything he was, poured into the seal that would hold the Leviathan.
And as it flowed, he heard the creature scream.
NO! THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE! THE BINDING WAS BROKEN—THE SEAL WAS FAILED—
"It was," Nera's voice echoed. "But my husband is very stubborn. He decided it would work. And his power makes his decisions real."
YOU CANNOT—
"We can. We are. Go back to sleep, Leviathan. Dream of the hunger you'll never satisfy. And pray that when you wake again, in another thousand years, there isn't someone like him waiting."
The light peaked—blinding, absolute, filling the entire harbor with noon-day brilliance.
And then it faded.
And the Leviathan was gone.
Orion collapsed.
* * *
He woke to the sound of waves.
Gentle waves, lapping against the shore. Not the violent churning of a monster rising from the deep—just the normal, peaceful rhythm of the sea.
"You're awake."
Nera's voice. Normal-sized Nera, pixie Nera, sitting on his chest and looking down at him with red-rimmed eyes.
"Did we win?" he asked. His voice was hoarse.
"We won." She laughed—a wet, relieved sound. "You impossible, stubborn, wonderful man. We won."
"The Leviathan?"
"Bound. Sleeping. The seal is stronger than it was before—your power reinforced it in ways the original priests couldn't have imagined." She wiped her eyes. "It won't wake for a very, very long time."
"And the city?"
"Damaged but standing. Some injuries, some property destruction, but no deaths. We got to it in time."
Orion let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "Good. That's good."
"You almost died." Nera's voice cracked. "You gave so much—your power, your life force—I thought I was going to lose you."
"But you didn't."
"No. Your power, whatever it is, protected you even as you gave it away. You believed you'd survive, so you did." She leaned down, pressing her tiny forehead against his. "Unknown Creation indeed."
"Speaking of things I didn't know..." Orion reached up, brushing her hair back with one finger. "A queen? You're a queen?"
Nera's wings drooped. "I was going to tell you. I just... never found the right time."
"We've been married for three years."
"None of those times felt right!"
"Nera."
"I know, I know." She sighed. "I'm Neradok. Queen of All Fairies. I ruled the Eternal Court for... a very long time. And then I left, because I was tired. Tired of politics and duty and being something instead of someone. I wanted to live. Really live. And then I found you, and..."
"And you married a random human without telling him you were royalty."
"...yes."
"Divine royalty."
"Technically, yes."
Orion stared at her. She stared back, anxiety clear on her tiny face.
And then he started laughing.
"Orion?" She sounded worried. "Are you okay? Is this shock? Should I get a healer?"
"I'm fine." He was still laughing—the exhausted, giddy laughter of someone who had come through the impossible and found it absurd. "I just... of course you're a queen. Of course. My wife is the ruler of all fairies, and I found out while fighting a sea monster. Why would anything about my life be normal?"
"Are you angry?"
"No." He got his laughter under control, looking at her with more tenderness than he'd ever shown. "I'm relieved. I was worried your secret was something bad."
"Being a queen isn't bad?"
"Nera, you're still you. You still burned the eggs this morning. You still collect interesting rocks. You still talk too much and drag me into adventures I never asked for." He smiled. "You're my wife. Everything else is just... details."
She stared at him for a long moment. Then she burst into tears and threw herself at his face, wrapping her tiny arms around his nose in the same ridiculous hug she'd given him so many times before.
"I love you," she sobbed.
"I love you too." He held up a hand, letting her settle onto his palm. "Even if you are a queen."
"I'm not a queen anymore. I abdicated."
"Does the fairy realm know that?"
"...probably not."
"That might be a problem."
"Later. Problems later." She curled against his palm, exhausted and happy. "For now, we rest. And then we figure out the rest."
Orion lay there, holding his wife, listening to the peaceful waves.
The festival was over. The Leviathan was bound. The city was saved.
And somehow, against all odds, they had survived.
Together.
— End of Chapter Thirteen —