After Thalia’s warning, nothing happened for more than a week, but Mav didn’t trust it.
He went home at the busiest hours, through arches that he chose at the last moment. He hunted in his own sea instead of the Orphan Worlds, so that nobody could follow him anywhere. In the evenings, he trained with the four Reefkin who wore his collar.
They were learning fast. Sela was still the strongest, but the other three could each hold a rope of water as thick as a man’s leg now. The skill of their seaweeds kept them from falling asleep afterward. Mav made them practice moving one rope together, until the four of them could lift a column of water out of his dome and keep it in the air for almost a minute. Two sent his needlefish through it in tight lines, and they came out on the other side without ever leaving their water.
’That will be useful in an arena,’ Mav thought. ’It’ll be even more useful in my own sea.’
Birch had found her place too. She didn’t like the air halls, because they were too small for her, so she slept on the open seabed behind the dome, with her white fur floating around her like smoke. The young Reefkin were afraid of her at first. A few days later, they were climbing on her back, and she let them.
Away to the east, the island was growing. Sela’s builders had raised the ridge stone by stone, and its top was now only a few meters below the surface. Every evening, Sela swam out to inspect it. She came back with a new list of complaints, which she sent to him in pictures.
Then, one day, the needlefish swarm didn’t come.
-----
Mav noticed it at noon, because Two noticed it first.
"The swarm is late," Two said in his head. "It is never late."
Mav was eating in front of his cabin. He put down his fish and listened. The current that always pulled at the seabed from the north was gone. Then he felt the water against his face, and it was warm.
He had felt this once before, on the day his first base was destroyed. He would never forget it.
’Everyone into the rock. Now.’
He sent the order to every point in his head at once, and he felt his whole World obey.
This time, they were ready. After the first Churn, Sela had built the whole city into the rock, so nothing stood up from the seabed that the storm could tear away. The houses were cut into the slope. The dens had stone doors. The air halls had been dug into the cliff behind the dome. The young needlefish poured into the dens in silver streams. The Reefkin carried their eggs into the deepest halls. Six and Log took the main gate, and Birch lay down across the entrance of the second air hall like a white wall.
The four collared Reefkin took the dome. Mav hadn’t told them to do it. They simply went there, and they stood around the Heartstone with their hands raised.
Then the Churn came up from below.
It came as it had the first time. The cold water at the bottom of the World rose all at once, carrying the seabed with it. Mud, stones and broken shells rushed past the city in a roar that Mav felt in his chest more than he heard it. He was in the dome with Sela. Through its opening, he watched a boulder as big as a cart roll past the gate and fall into the trench.
The four Reefkin held the water around the Heartstone still. Everything outside was moving, but inside the dome, the water stayed calm.
It lasted most of the afternoon. When it finally stopped, the silence afterward was so deep that Mav could hear his own heart.
He went out to look.
The seabed was different. A new field of stones lay in front of the gate. Two of the outer houses had lost their roofs. One of the larders was full of mud, and Six was very upset about it. But the walls had held. The dens had held. When Mav reached for the points in his head, every one of them was still there.
Nobody had died.
He let out a long breath and sat down on the nearest rock. He was so relieved that his hands were shaking.
Sela came out of the dome a little later. She didn’t run to the damaged houses, and she didn’t send him any pictures. She walked slowly through her streets with her hands behind her back, looking at every wall, every door, every roof. The builders came out of their houses to watch her pass. When she reached the end of the main street, she turned around and walked back the same way.
She walked like a queen.
Mav smiled. Then he sent her a picture of the two broken roofs, just to see her face, and she made her annoyed little sound.
-----
He wanted to see the island before dark, so he swam out to the ridge with Sela.
The Churn had moved stones there too, but the core of the ridge was solid rock, and Sela’s work had held. She swam along it with one hand on the stones, checking each of them. Mav left her to it. He rose toward the light, and for the first time in a week, his head came out of the water.
The sky was gray after the storm. The sea was flat and dark in every direction, as it had been on his first night. He breathed air, which always felt strange now, and he floated on his back.
Then he saw it.
A shape was moving across the gray sky, very high above him. It was too far away to see clearly. It had long, narrow wings, and it wasn’t flapping them. It was turning in a slow, wide circle over the place where his city lay, far below the surface.
His World had no birds. He had lived in it for almost four months, and he had never seen a single thing in its sky.
Sela came up beside him, and she followed his eyes.
High above them, something with wings was circling.