Chapter 9: The Midwife's Stand
The atmosphere within the Pearl Caves had reached a breaking point. The water was no longer a life-giving element; it had become a thick, gelatinous medium of shadow and salt, vibrating with the malevolent frequency of the Shadow King. Malakor's projection—that hollow, haunting visage of ink and ego—loomed over Zira like a shroud.
Zira's mind was a battlefield. The vision of her mother, Diana, weeping in that cage of thorns, had acted like a psychic anchor, dragging her soul toward the abyss. Her grip on the Black Stone anchor chain was slipping. Her eyes, usually vibrant with the shifting colors of the sea and sky, were glazed, the pupils blown wide as the shadow-infection began to trace cold, purple lines up her throat.
"Get away from her!"
The scream didn't come from the water. It came from the heart of a woman who had spent sixteen years defying destiny with nothing but herbs and a dagger.
Tama, the midwife who had seen the "Peace of the World" take its first breath in a hidden cottage, was no longer a passenger in this journey. Despite the shadow-rot eating into her side, despite the crushing pressure of the trench, she found a reservoir of strength that shouldn't have existed in a mortal frame.
With a guttural cry of defiance, Tama reached into the hidden sheaths of her combat-tunic. She drew her twin **Obsidian-Salt daggers**—relics of the Lunar Guard she had once served. These weren't mere blades; they were forged from the crystallized tears of the sea and the volcanic glass of the Land.
Using the last of her kinetic energy, Tama threw the blades. They sliced through the water with a hiss of steam.
The daggers didn't just pass through the shadow-projection; they ignited it. The salt in the blades reacted violently with the dark, oily energy of Malakor's image. A series of small, brilliant white explosions erupted within the shadow's chest and eyes. The projection shrieked—a sound like a thousand mirrors shattering—and dissipated into a cloud of harmless soot.
But the cost of the strike was catastrophic.
The sudden release of energy, combined with Tama's physical exertion, shattered her protective air-bubble. The shimmering sphere popped with a dull thud. For a terrifying second, Tama was exposed to the raw, freezing pressure of the deep. Her lungs, human and fragile, began to collapse as the salt-water rushed in. She began to sink, her body limp, her silver hair drifting upward like kelp.
The Rise of the Coral Throne
"MAMI!"
The shock of the explosion and the sight of Tama sinking snapped Zira out of her trance. The shadow-infection on her neck receded, burned away by a sudden, protective surge of adrenaline.
Zira let go of the anchor chain. She kicked off the iron links, her body moving like a streak of silver light through the murky water. She reached Tama just before the midwife disappeared into the dark crevices of the floor. Wrapping her arms around the older woman's waist, Zira felt the terrifying cold of Tama's skin.
"Breathe, Mami! Please, breathe!"
But they were hundreds of feet below the surface. There was no air here—only the weight of the world.
Zira looked up. The ceiling was collapsing, the King's anchor still grinding away at the coral. She needed a sanctuary, even a temporary one. She looked at the floor of the cave. She felt the **Earth** element—the legacy of King Zirael—thrumming beneath the silt.
She slammed her palm against the coral floor.
"RISE!" she commanded.
The earth responded with the roar of a tectonic plate. Using her **Earth** power, Zira didn't just move the stone; she accelerated its growth. The coral floor surged upward in a massive, jagged pillar, carrying Zira and Tama toward the ceiling. As the pillar hit the highest point of the cave roof, Zira used a burst of **Air** to push the water out of a small, jagged crevice, sealing the gaps with calcified stone.
For a moment, they were in a "dry" pocket—a tiny, air-filled womb of stone and pearl against the very ceiling of the trench.
Zira laid Tama down on the wet coral. The midwife coughed violently, spitting out salt-water and blood. The shadow-rot on her side had reached her collarbone; the skin there was black and brittle, smelling of stagnant earth.
"Zira..." Tama gasped, her lungs whistling as she tried to pull in the thin, pressurized air. "Listen to me... the time for hiding... it's over."
"Don't talk, Mami. I'm going to use the Fire. I can burn the rot away!" Zira's hands were already glowing with a desperate, white-hot light.
"No!" Tama gripped Zira's wrist with surprising strength. "You'll only... burn the bridge. The rot is part of me now. If you destroy it, you destroy the life I have left."
Tama looked up at the jagged ceiling, where the vibrations of the King's anchor were getting louder. *Thud. Grind. Thud.*
"The King... your father..." Tama whispered, her eyes beginning to glaze over. "He is up there. He thinks he is hunting a demon. He has spent sixteen years... building walls of stone to keep the shadows out. He doesn't know... he doesn't know the light he prayed for is right beneath his feet."
The Stone of Recognition
Tama reached out, her fingers trembling as she touched the iridescent scales on Zira's neck. "He has a relic... the **Stone of Recognition**. It is set into the hilt of his sword, or his throne... I cannot remember. It was forged when the first Land King wed the first Sea Queen. It only glows... in the presence of the True Heir."
Zira was shaking, her tears falling as glowing mercury onto Tama's chest. "I don't want a throne, Mami. I want to go back. I want the cottage. I want the forest."
"The forest is ash, my flower," Tama said, a sad smile touching her lips. "The cottage is a grave. You cannot stay in the sea, for the Shadow King owns the deep. And you cannot hide in the forest, for your father's law is iron. You must go to him. You must take the throne, Zira. Not for power... but for the Peace."
Tama's breathing slowed. The purple veins of the shadow-rot were now touching her throat, turning her voice into a rasping echo.
"Show him the **Flare**," Tama urged. "Don't fight him with Fire. Show him the Light. He loved Diana... more than he loved his own life. When he sees her eyes in your face... when the Stone of Recognition speaks... he will have no choice but to remember who he was before the shadows took his heart."
The Final Descent of the Hook
A violent crack echoed through their tiny sanctuary.
The Black Stone anchor had finally chewed through the ceiling of their pocket. The jagged metal hook burst through the coral just inches from Zira's head, bringing a deluge of seawater with it. The dry pocket was flooding.
"Go," Tama whispered, her eyes closing. "Reach for the chain. Reach for your father."
"I'm not leaving you!" Zira cried, grabbing Tama and pulling her toward the anchor.
"You aren't leaving me," Tama said, her voice almost silent now. "I am the midwife. My job... is finished. I have delivered you to the world, Zira. Now... you must deliver the world... from the dark."
Tama's hand fell limp. The last of her life-force, the tiny spark of Lunar-Guard magic she had carried for decades, flickered out. The shadow-rot instantly consumed what was left, turning the midwife's form into a heap of gray, salt-caked ash that dissolved into the rising water.
Zira stood alone in the flooding chamber. The silence was absolute, broken only by the rhythmic *clink-clink-clink* of the anchor chain being hauled upward.
A scream of pure, elemental agony ripped from Zira's throat. It wasn't just a sound; it was a release of the **Fourfold Pulse**. The water in the chamber boiled; the coral walls shattered; the air turned into a localized cyclone.
She reached out and seized the Black Stone anchor chain. The metal was freezing, but she didn't feel it. She wrapped her arms around the iron links, her skin erupting in a **Luminous Flare** so bright it could be seen through the hull of the ship above.
*"I am coming, Father,"* she thought, her silver eyes burning with a terrifying, righteous fire.
The winch on the Lion of the stone groaned, the steam-engines screaming as they hauled the "Peace of the World" from the heart of the abyss. Zira didn't look back at the ruins of the Pearl Caves. She looked up, through the churning foam and the dark hulls, toward the moon she had been named for.
The fight was over. The war for the throne had begun.