Kenna POV: "Where is Dominic?" I propelled my tail fin half a meter forward, sending a sharp tremor through the water pressure to force the bronze-armored servant to look up at me. Tonight is the Night of the Blood Oath. My fiancé, Dominic Dodson, and I agreed to seal our marriage pact before the Tidal Wellspring—the most solemn ceremony of the merfolk of Thalassia. But he is late, so late that every noble in the hall who had come to watch the spectacle began to whisper among themselves. The Tidal Wellspring gave off a faint blue glow, suspended at the core above our heads. The clan believes that those who bind their souls here are granted three hundred years of life. And for noble women, it carries another meaning: a Tide-Oath Ring activated by blood. Without this ring on my ring finger, the law would count me among the Ringless—a woman who legally does not exist. Tonight was supposed to change all of that. Declan, my fiancé's personal squire, stopped three body-lengths below me. He tilted his chin slightly, exposing the four pale gill slits behind his neck in a half-hearted gesture of submission—no merfolk ever knelt, yet his lack of respect was glaring. "The Young Clan Lord says he cannot make it tonight," Declan muttered, his eyes darting away from mine. "He told you to swim home first." Sharp, mocking laughter rippled through the hall. The malicious soundwaves churned the currents, sending an icy shiver straight through my chest. "He cannot make it?" My voice cut through the water without a single tremor. "Tonight is our Blood-Oath night before the Wellspring. Is he too stingy to even spare me a second-tier silver Electrum Ring?" Before Declan could answer, an eerie green glow flared at his waist. A Spirit Nautilus—a bioluminescent shell used by noble houses to project live voices and images—floated upward and cast a wavering projection into the water. In the projection, Dominic Dodson lounged on a plush coral couch. Curled against his chest was a frail mermaid with flaxen curls—my stepsister, Antonina Bass, whom my stepmother had brought into House Reid years ago. Antonina looked deathly pale, pearly tears clinging to her lashes as she pressed against Dominic's collarbone. "Brother Dominic, it is all my fault," she whispered, her voice fragile enough to shatter. "My Tide Spirit suddenly gave out..." Dominic stroked the scales behind her ear before turning a cold, irritated glare toward the shell. "Kenna, Antonina is gravely ill and needs my life force to stabilize her. We are pushing the ceremony to next month." From an angle Dominic could not see, Antonina curved her lips into a smug, triumphant smile aimed directly at me. My heart dropped like a stone into a trench. I drew a deep breath, letting freezing seawater flush through my burning gill slits until my mind turned razor-sharp. "Push it to next month?" I let out a soft laugh that echoed off the basalt walls. "Dominic, do you think an oath before the Ancient Deep is a seashell you can toss around?" Dominic frowned in the green light, his tone dripping with superiority. "Stop throwing a tantrum, Kenna. You do not even have a Tide-Oath Ring. Aside from me, who else in the Inner Atolls would claim a Tide-blind cast-off who cannot even shift her tail?" "Sister, please do not blame Brother Dominic, he is just too kind-hearted..." Antonina squeezed out two more pearly tears, playing the helpless healer to perfection. I ignored her act. Raising my right hand, I gathered a faint, pure spark of primordial aurora light at my fingertip and pressed it directly against the hovering shell. The projection flickered violently. Dominic's roar echoed out. "Kenna, what are you doing! Stop!" "Taking out the trash," I said coldly, and drove my hidden ancestral strength through my fingertip. With a sharp crack, the priceless Spirit Nautilus exploded into powder under the water pressure. The green light died instantly. Dead silence swallowed the hall. Every noble who had stayed to watch my humiliation stared with wide eyes, stunned that an unringed outcast dared crush the Young Clan Lord's projection. Deep in my chest, the Remnant—the agonizing soul-thread left behind when a preliminary mate bond is ripped apart—tore in half like a hot blade dragging through my ribs. I did not even flinch. "Swim back and tell your master," I said, looking down at the frozen Declan with a voice like polar ice, "our engagement ends tonight." Declan opened his mouth as if to release his Warlord pressure on me, yet under my cold stare, his eyes instinctively dropped downward. Without sparing him another glance, I flicked my tail fin, dragging my long sea-silk hem out of the grand hall. The onlookers parted automatically, chilled by the frost radiating off my scales. Outside, the dark current cooled my feverish gill slits. I closed my eyes for a heartbeat, riding out the lingering ache in my bones—until a low, mocking chuckle echoed from the basalt shadows ahead, heavy enough to stall the surrounding current. My eyes snapped open. Retreating half a body-length, my right hand gripped the bone dagger at my waist as a tall, broad-shouldered figure glided out of the dark, his abyssal gray-blue eyes locking onto me from above.

Kenna POV: I kept my grip tight on the bone dagger, staring up at the stranger emerging from the basalt shadows. He wore no elaborate noble robes—only dark anti-magic soft armor that smelled faintly of deep-trench blood and iron discipline. He halted at an aggressive, close distance, his gaze sweeping down to my bare left hand before his lips curved. "That was a clean break. Not afraid of House Dodson's retaliation?" "Are you House Dodson's watchdog, lurking in the dark to eavesdrop?" I shot back, refusing to drop my chin. The man let out a low laugh. The vibration in his chest triggered an infrasonic pulse that rattled my eardrums and made my bones ache to bow. Only high-ranking Warlords or a rare Sovereign carried a voice heavy enough to crush water. I bit the inside of my cheek and locked my spine straight, refusing to tilt my neck or bare my gill slits like a lesser mer. Surprise flickered in his gray-blue eyes, quickly replaced by approval. "My name is Atticus. As it happens, I was also stood up tonight. Kaleigh Stark decided a man like me was beneath her." I blinked slightly. Kaleigh Stark was one of the most arrogant high-born ladies in the Inner Atolls. If she had ditched him at the altar, he was likely a rough border officer stationed in the Border Marches—the fourth and most brutal realm of the empire—with plenty of battle scars and zero Mana-Crystals to his name. My gaze dropped to his left ring finger. He wore a dull, tarnished bronze band—the standard Verdant Ring of a third-tier Lesser Clan. Yet the suffocating lethality rolling off his shoulders belonged to no ordinary soldier. "My condolences, Lord Atticus," I said, sliding my bone dagger back into its sheath. "But that has nothing to do with me. Excuse me." I swept my tail fin to glide past him, but a long, muscular arm shot out, slicing the current in half to block my path. "Wait," he commanded, his deep voice carrying an authority that brooked no refusal. "You need a lawful Blood-Oath husband to shake off House Dodson, and I need a wife to stop the Great Council from shoving noblewomen down my throat." I froze in the water, staring at him in disbelief. "Are you proposing to a cast-off woman who just broke her engagement and does not even own a ring?" "I see a smart woman who crushed a Young Clan Lord's shell in public and cut her losses without blinking," Atticus said, leaning in slightly until his abyssal eyes filled my vision. "A contract union. We each take what we need." His breath stirred the water between us, sending a warm current brushing against the sensitive scales behind my ears. A involuntary shudder ran down my spine. I jerked my head back to put distance between us, my heart kicking hard against my ribs. "Why should I trust you?" I kept my voice icy. "A border officer who hides in the shadows?" Atticus, far from being angry, unfastened a heavy basalt military seal engraved with an Aurora Leviathan Wyrm from his belt and tossed it to me. I caught it reflexively. The stone was shockingly heavy, and the residual Sovereign pressure humming inside the carvings made my fingertips burn. "Hold onto this, and House Dodson won't dare touch a single scale on your tail," he said, as casually as if discussing crushing a sea urchin. "In three months, if you want to sever the contract, I won't stop you." My thumb traced the military seal as my mind raced. My grandfather, Earl Spears, was lying comatose and needed high-grade Mana-Crystals mined from the crushing abyssal trenches to keep his failing organs alive. More importantly, I needed a married, independent legal status to take over the Director post at the Defense Hub tomorrow without my family seizing my authority. "Fine," I said, raising my chin to meet his crushing gaze. "But for the next three months, we stay out of each other's private affairs." "Deal, My Lady." He extended his left hand, palm up, his long fingers calloused from wielding heavy weapons. After a second's hesitation, I placed my hand in his. His palm was startlingly warm in the cold deep water. The instant his fingers closed around mine, a dark, predatory glint flashed across his eyes. "Since we are agreed, there is no need to wait until next month," he said, turning and pulling me back toward the glowing archway. "We bind the Blood-Oath right now." "Right now?" My eyes widened as I struggled to match his powerful stroke. "The hall is still full of nobles—" "They will keep their mouths shut," he said without looking back. When we swam side by side back through the grand archway, the nobles still gossiping around the Wellspring spotted Atticus's face. Every single voice choked off instantly, their faces draining of blood as they dropped their eyes and tilted their necks in terror. Who on earth was this man?

Kenna POV: The silence inside the Wellspring hall felt heavier than ten-thousand-meter trench pressure. Dozens of terrified eyes dropped away from our joined hands as Atticus pulled me straight to the central baptismal pool. Even the High Cleric—an arrogant elder who usually looked down his nose at second-tier lords—was trembling slightly, his chin tucked low. "Open the Blood-Oath matrix," Atticus ordered, his tone clipped like a battlefield command. The cleric swallowed hard, asking zero questions before striking his staff against the floor to ignite the glowing blue runes beneath the spring. I frowned, leaning closer to Atticus's shoulder. "Are you sure you are just a border officer who got stood up?" Atticus glanced down at me, a teasing glint softening his gray-blue eyes. "I spend all year slaughtering abyssal wretches on the Coral Verge. The stench of blood on my armor scares city nobles. It is normal." The excuse barely held water, but before I could press him, the cleric swam forward holding a velvet tray with a plain, unjeweled silver band. "This is a temporary Warlord-rank provision band," the cleric stammered, keeping his gaze fixed on the floor. "Please... offer your blood." Without a word, Atticus sliced his index finger with his thumbnail. A drop of dense, ice-blue blood sank into the spring, dyeing the surrounding water a fierce azure. I bit the tip of my own finger and let a drop of clear, aurora-tinted blood fall. Drawn by the ancient magic of the Wellspring, our two drops spiraled together and fused into one. The instant our blood merged, the plain silver band flared with blinding silver-blue light, shooting out of the tray to slide onto my right ring finger. Intricate engravings of an Aurora Leviathan Wyrm surfaced like living fire across the metal—a permanent Bloodmark that no thief could ever forge or steal. Through the ring, a vast, carefully restrained wave of warm vitality surged into my meridians. It washed away the hollow, tearing ache left by Dominic's severed Remnant, so soothing that a soft breath nearly slipped past my lips. "Now, you are mine," Atticus murmured, his rough thumb rubbing slowly over the newly bound ring on my finger. The friction of his calloused skin sent a sharp tingle straight up my arm. I tried to tug my hand back, only for his fingers to tighten briefly around mine. "It is a three-month contract, Lord Atticus," I reminded him, keeping my voice steady. "Do not get too deep into character." "Of course," he said, releasing my hand though the dark amusement never left his eyes. "Come on. Let us celebrate our wedding night." Before we could turn toward the exit, a chaotic rush of water burst through the main doors. My biological father, Edward Reid—the Regent Clan Lord of House Reid—stormed in with four armed family guards. "Kenna! You shameless wretch!" Edward pointed a shaking finger at my face, his gills flaring red with fury. "Dominic merely delayed the rite to care for your sister, and you dared break the engagement in public! Where did you throw House Reid's face?" I looked at the man who had ignored me ever since my mother died, feeling nothing but cold disgust. "Didn't you and your fake stepdaughter throw away House Reid's face years ago?" "You insolent beast!" Edward roared, raising his hand to slap me as his Warlord-rank Tide Spirit whipped the water into a violent vortex. I did not flinch, because half a second before the current reached my cheek, Atticus stepped directly in front of me. He did not even raise a hand. He simply cast a cold glance at Edward—and an invisible mountain of Sovereign pressure slammed down on the hall. Edward's raised arm froze mid-swing. His face turned corpse-white as if an unseen giant fist had crushed his windpipe, his gill slits spasming wildly as he gasped for oxygen in the suddenly suffocating water. "Lord Reid," Atticus said, his voice dropping the temperature of the hall to freezing. "Raising a hand against my wife right in front of me—do you think House Reid has lived too comfortably in the Inner Atolls?" Edward stared in horror at the dull bronze ring on Atticus's left hand, clearly failing to recognize his identity while his body shook with primal terror. "Who... who the hell are you? A lowly wild officer dares meddle in House Reid's family affairs!" Atticus didn't bother answering. He released a faint infrasonic hum from his chest. Instantly, the four guards behind Edward clutched their bleeding ears with a muffled groan, their heads forced down as their trembling necks tilted to bare their gill slits in total submission. Watching Edward choke in place, I tugged lightly on Atticus's dark sleeve. "Let us go. Do not let him dirty the Wellspring's water." Atticus withdrew his pressure at once, slipping an arm around my waist to guide me out of the hall while Edward remained frozen behind us, gasping for breath with venomous hatred burning in his eyes.