had lived through the fiery blast.
Huge, jagged rocks lay strewn across the blasted terrain. Dead fish floated in the dappled turquoise water and glinted silver where the weak sun's rays touched them. Small scavengers that had finally returned to the area worried frantically at the unexpected feast, concerned that larger predators would come at any moment. More rubble covered the skeletal remains of ships that had fallen to sahuagin savagery, battles, and deadly storms.
Dozens of sahuagin bodies floated in the currents as well, prey to the flesh-eaters also. The malenti priestess knew that those weren't all that had been killed. Many more corpses had surely remained trapped inside their dwellings when they caved in. Other bodies had been swept away by time and tide.
The living sahuagin worked among their dead, sharp claws and huge teeth stripping meat from the corpses for meals. The scent and taste of scalded blood and boiled meat hung in the water, constantly touching Laaqueel's nostrils.
'You are troubled, priestess?'
Slowly, not knowing how to properly broach the subject, Laaqueel turned to face Iakhovas. Her eyes met his even though she still wanted to show him deference. No matter what, she knew she couldn't lie. He would know and she didn't want that between them.
'Yes,' she said simply.
Iakhovas walked to the railing and closed his hands over it. His face remained stern and hard. 'Why?'
'So many lives of We Who Eat have been forfeited.' She gestured out at the seabed. 'They have lost their homes.'
In the distance, the Ship of the Gods still simmered. White, foamy bubbles from superheated water spiraled to the surface. The currents threaded hot waves in with the cool ones that coiled around Laaqueel. Still, the volcano appeared to be in little danger of spewing deadly lava again.
'Ah, little malenti, your perception of things is off and you don't even know it.'
A sudden flush of anger flooded Laaqueel. She turned to him.
'You forget, my priestess,' Iakhovas continued before she could speak, 'they didn't choose to make their lives here.' He gestured at the heaps of rubble. 'That's no home, no village lying out there strewn about and destroyed. This parcel of unwanted land is what the sea elves and mermen grudgingly gave this tribe of We Who Eat after the First Seros War over ten thousand years ago. They drove them here, then penned them in, and they've kept them here ever since.' He held her eyes with his solitary one. 'This was no home, priestess. This was a prison.'
In her heart, Laaqueel knew he spoke the truth. Everything around her, including the Alamber Sea, was a cage. The Serosian sahuagin had lived very small lives.
'I had not intended for so many to die,' Iakhovas stated quietly. 'In truth, I didn't know that our arrival here would cause such an upheaval.'
Despite his flat tone and the fact that she knew he wouldn't have wanted her to know much of his private thoughts, Laaqueel believed the note of regret she heard in Iakhovas's voice was genuine.
'It was not your will, Most Exalted One,' she said, speaking with the certainty of faith. 'It was the will of Sekolah. These deaths are the result of the fury of his claws and teeth reaving the weak from the tribe, making his mark on his chosen people.'
He stayed silent for a moment, not looking at her, as if weighing her words carefully. It was the first time Laaqueel could ever remember him doing that. 'Do you truly think so, Most Sacred One?' His voice was almost a whisper.
Laaqueel shoved aside the tiny seed of doubt that stayed relentlessly within her. Even by Iakhovas's own admission he hadn't known the explosion was going to happen, but it had. Her training taught her that it had to be by the Great Shark's will.
'Yes,' she said. 'The sahuagin who lived here have stayed in one place for so long, it would have been hard to convince them to leave.'
'Or to convince them to challenge the sea elves and mermen who sentenced them.' Iakhovas glanced at her, a small smile twisting his lips. A dim golden light gleamed in the hollow of his missing eye. 'I find your words, your thinking, very comforting, my priestess.'
Laaqueel bowed her head, not prepared for the onslaught of emotions that whirled within her. She had never thought in her whole life that she'd be completely accepted. She was too much of a freak to expect that. She could only hope, and even then that hope was always dim. A surge of embarrassment filled her, one of the few times that it came from something she'd accomplished instead of something she'd fallen short on. She tried to think of an appropriate reply but couldn't.
'Thank you, Most Exalted One,' she said simply.
Tarjana floated closer to the destroyed sahuagin city, powered by the oars of the rowers below. The ship's approach had drawn attention in the form of a dozen fliers that suddenly skimmed from hiding on the sea floor. All of them carried sahuagin warriors.
'Ready yourself,' Iakhovas warned. 'We won't be greeted gratefully.'
Laaqueel knew it was true. As she'd been trained, she pushed her emotions away. It was so hard this time, though, because there was so much pleasure in how she felt as a result of Iakhovas's unexpected praise. That confused her because generally her emotions were filled with pain. Bloody Falkane had left her feeling the same way.
Tension twisted her stomach as she watched the fliers quickly flank Tarjana. The fliers the Serosian sahuagin used were smaller than the ones the malenti was accustomed to, but they moved quickly and powerfully through the sea.
Iakhovas called orders out to stop the mudship. Quietly, Tarjana sank to the sea floor, settling deeply into the loose silt, crunching against the lava rock thrown out from the volcano.
The smaller fliers rode the currents above them. Coral spears and tridents bristled over the railings of all the Serosian fliers. Crossbowmen peered over their weapons.
Iakhovas stood before them all, his arms at his sides. He took no cover and he offered no outward threat. Laaqueel glanced at him, then had to turn quickly away. Whatever spell he was using to disguise himself as a sahuagin had gained power. Even though she normally saw him as human, the malenti's vision clouded painfully, giving different views of human and sahuagin that overlapped so quickly one blurred into the other.
Occasionally, the view was of something else-something she couldn't clearly recognize.
The sight of Iakhovas's other self sent fear thrilling down Laaqueel's spine. Nausea twisted her stomach relentlessly. She wasn't certain if the ill feeling came from the spell or the sight of his misshapen other self. Her curiosity made her want to look again in spite of her reluctance.
Instead, her attention was riveted to the large sahuagin who strode to the forefront of the closest flier. He wore a prince's insignia, recognizable even though the markings were different than what Laaqueel was used to. He held a royal trident in one gnarled fist. A three-armed sahuagin in a royal guardsman's war halter flanked the prince on his left.
The royal guard beside the prince held Laaqueel's attention. The guardsman gazed at her with bold viciousness, no hesitation in him at all.
'Who are you?' the guard bellowed.
Silently, the other sahuagin aboard Tarjana who weren't at the oars swam up to take a stand behind Iakhovas. They bared their weapons as well, but Iakhovas waved them still.
Even with all the fliers they'd brought with them, Laaqueel knew they didn't have a chance if the Serosian sahuagin attacked. Despite the awesome destruction the volcano had unleashed, Iakhovas and his followers wouldn't have been able to stand against them. Unless Sekolah wills, the malenti amended to herself. She kept her gifts at the ready, certain Iakhovas was doing the same.
'I am Iakhovas.' His voice thundered through the water, punctuated by the shrill clicks and whistles of the sahuagin tongue. 'I am king of We Who Eat in the Claarteeros Sea.'
'Liar!' the black-clawed royal guard roared. 'That place exists only in myth.'
'Most Exalted One,' a sahuagin baron among Tarjana's crew said quickly, 'let me claim the right of blood challenge against this offender. I swear by Sekolah's blessed fins that I will bring honor to your name.'
'No,' Iakhovas answered calmly. 'No blood will be shed unless I command it. They need every warrior they can muster.' His words resonated and carried through the water.
