Queen Asisya carefully tipped the Ocean's pearl into her bare hand, and Bastian saw a shiver run through her. While she stripped off the magical gauntlet, Ambrosia tried to regain Bastian's attention.

"I'm sorry, Bastian. Really, I am. But we needed the power of the gifts and Father died before Mother could get the pearl out of him. And you know women don't inherit the gifts. But then Mother heard you were born and..."

Bastian managed to glare at her. "And I was an easier target than Uncle Arsenius." 

Ambrosia paled. "W-well... you were going to be the next Triton. You had Selene's blessing." 

For the first time in his life, Bastian bared his fangs. "You think that gives you the right to chain me up and strip my magic from me? How deranged are you? Do you even know how I felt about you?"

He watched the tears begin to form in her eyes. Despite everything she had done, his heart still hurt to see her sad. And he hated that. "Go away, Ambrosia. I never want to see you again!"

She flinched back from him and turned to her mother. Asisya's eyes remained on the pearl, but she waved absently in the direction of her daughter. "Swim along now, daughter. Tell the people that we finally have what we've waited for. Soon, the other tribes will know our power. They won't be able to look down on us anymore."

Ambrosia bowed to her mother and swam out of the room. Bastian didn't watch her go, afraid that his eyes would betray how much he wanted to cry. Instead, he focused on Asisya. "So that's what this is all about? You murdered my father so you could use his power to control the clans?"

"Of course."

Those two words were spoken so matter-of-factly that Bastian could only stare in horror. Queen Asisya closed her hand over the pearl and kissed her own knuckles. "You may have noticed that you didn't see anyone on the way into the city, Triton. That is because my people have learned to hide from you so-called 'real' merfolk." 

She swam to the wooden chest and gently laid the gauntlet inside of it once more. "Your kind think of us as less than people. In your eyes, we're nothing but twisted mistakes that should never have come to exist. The Ocean never made us. We made ourselves."

When the chest was tightly closed again, she moved closer to him, her face only a few hands away. "Your clan refused to help us. The Undine drove us from their home, shunning us. We had to build over a ruined city, because it was the only place we knew. Now, thousands of years later, we are still unwelcomed out in the vast waters of the ocean."

Bastian shook his head. "I could have welcomed you!"

Asisya slammed her open fist into the wall beside his head and he winced at the dull thud. "Words are meaningless! We tried the diplomatic way. For thousands of years, we tried! Now, we will do as we have always done. We will protect ourselves. We will rise above what we are to become something greater!"

Her eyes were filled with a manic light that scared Bastian more than her fist had. Now he could see a glimmer of insanity in her. Bastian tried to show her reason, though he knew he was in no position to bargain. 

"But...what about the people you're going to hurt? Surely you know that even your own clan would suffer losses if you were to provoke a fight."

She opened her closed palm, and the golden light of the pearl lit the room again. "I know that. My people know that. We are willing to pay any price, if it gets us what we want." Asisya looked back at Bastian. "I will sacrifice anyone to help my people be able to live openly and unafraid. That's what a real leader does. Your father didn't understand that. Do you?"

Madness lurked inside of her. It poured out of her eyes and wove itself into her words. Bastian wondered if this had been the last thing his father had ever seen. Had Augustus been trapped in this very room before he had died? 

The dream he'd had after the waterfall suddenly made sense. Ambrosia had been wearing Augustus' vitae gem, his essence and memories left behind after his death. Augustus had been trying to warn his son, even in death. 

Don't trust. 

Look where trust had gotten Bastian. He felt foolish. All he had wanted was to find peace with the Selachs and stop the bloodshed between the clans, but here he was. He willed the ocean to rise up and free him... but all he felt was the ache of emptiness in his chest. 

Bastian felt his eyes grow hot with tears. Crying wouldn't help him, but he couldn't think of anything that would. 

Asisya grinned. "Don't look so sad, little Triton. If it would make you feel better, I can always put you out of your misery. I don't need you alive anyways. Not anymore." 

His body still ached, his head throbbed, and he hadn't slept since he'd tumbled over the waterfall. Bastian's tears fell down his cheeks, born of frustration and helplessness. Soon he wouldn't even feel that anymore. Numbness spread through him.

Is this how I'm going to die? Maybe I deserve it. Uncle Arsenius was right. I shouldn't have come on this stupid journey. What's going to happen to Zareb and Lachlan? 

Bastian's head snapped up. Zareb! Lachlan! Asisya was still close to him, grinning her demented grin. "What did you do with my friends?"

His sudden energy made her move back just a little. She blinked. "Your...friends? Why should you care? You're about to die, you know."

"Tell me!" Bastian roared with more strength than he had felt a minute ago. Worry spread through him like lightning, spurring him to move. His tail wiggled back and forth, trying to get him out of the steadfast chains. 

"If it matters that much to you, I'll tell you as a last request." Asisya considered him with a calculating look. "They're locked up for questioning. I'll need to know everything I can about the other clans when I go to overpower them. Your friends should have quite a bit of useful knowledge."

A scream erupted outside of the room, faint but unmistakable. "Oh look," Asisya said as she turned to the doorway, "they've started already."

Bastian saw red.

The door exploded open, showering dust and stone into the room. In poured a pair of merfolk wearing dark robes. They looked around and both of them stopped when they saw Bastian. 

He knew those eyes. Would know them anywhere. "Mother!" And beside her, where he always was, the ever faithful Militum. 

~~~~~~~

Yay! Rescue! Now you know who was following the trail! Woo! Did I surprise you?