The Drowned Throne

Althea POV

The moment I closed my eyes, I was no longer in Cassian’s home.

I was somewhere else—underwater, yet breathing, floating weightless in a sea the color of blood and moonlight.

The world was silent. Not peaceful, but watching.

Then came the sound—low and echoing, like a whale’s song fractured through storm currents. It wasn’t just sound. It was memory. Mine. Or my ancestors’.

Shapes flickered into being. Marble ruins overgrown with kelp and bone. A temple at the bottom of the sea, its gates wide open. Beyond it, a throne carved of iridescent coral—bleeding cracks of black ink down into the sand.

And she sat upon it.

A woman with my face, but not my eyes.

No, hers were starless. Pure abyss. She wore a crown made of spiraled shell and molten pearl, but her mouth was parted in a scream I could not hear. Her hands clutched the arms of her throne—cracking it apart beneath her fingers.

The sea around her was dying.

A man stood before her. Fae ears. Crimson tattoos across his chest. His smile wasn’t cruel—it was cold. Detached. A necessary evil.

He raised a blade of woven light and shadows, and—

“No!” I shouted, but no sound left my mouth. My voice vanished into the pressure of the deep.

She looked right at me. That woman. That siren queen with my face.

And she whispered.

“Break the blood. Reclaim the crown. Do not trust the ones who drowned me.”

Then the vision cracked like glass.

I was yanked from the depths, flung back into my own skin, gasping like I’d been held underwater for too long. My back arched, lips parting around a scream I could hear this time.

Cassian caught me as I collapsed, flames dancing across his skin in panic.

Xanden was already at my side, grounding me, whispering soothing words in a language I didn’t recognize but somehow understood.

“What did you see?” Cassian demanded.

My lips trembled. “Her. The queen before me. My ancestor.”

“Did she speak to you?”

I nodded. “She told me to break the blood… and that someone drowned her.”

Xanden’s face darkened. “Not metaphorically?”

“No. I think she was betrayed. I think she was executed. And whatever power I’m waking up now… it might be what she died for.”

Cassian ran a hand through his hair, muttering a curse.

“This just got a lot more dangerous.”

I looked at them—my bonded mates, both breathing hard, both scared not for themselves… but for me.

And in my chest, something ancient stirred. The drowned voice. The broken crown.

And a vow I’d never made—but would damn well finish.

Cassian’s POV

The instant Althea whispered the words break the blood, a chill ran down my spine.

I hadn’t felt fear in centuries. I had ruled the underworld, devoured souls, built empires from ash. But something about her voice—low, hoarse, trembling with power—felt like prophecy given form.

We moved fast.

The portal snapped open in the basement vault of my estate, lined in volcanic obsidian and veined with glowing red sigils. The Infernal Archives hadn’t been touched in nearly a century. Most who entered left either mad or cursed.

But not me.

And not her.

She walked beside me barefoot, her siren power curling like warm smoke in the air. The bond between us pulsed with every breath, with every echo of her heartbeat in my mind.

“I’ve kept every written record of demonic bloodlines for a millennium,” I told her. “Including those marked as erased.”

“Why erased?” she asked.

“Because some bloodlines were too powerful,” I said, voice low. “Or too dangerous to remain remembered.”

I led her to the far end of the vault—to a sealed black stone monolith etched with warnings in Infernal, Celestial, and Fae script.

“Do Not Open.”

Naturally, I’d locked it. And just as naturally—I opened it.

The air that spilled out smelled like iron, salt, and ancient regret.

Inside, the scrolls were wrapped in demonhide and bound with seals no mortal hand could touch. Althea reached forward instinctively, and to my shock—they unlocked for her. Not me. Not even Xanden.

Just her.

She unrolled the scrolls and read slowly.

“A lineage of water-born seduction… The Crown of Coral… banished by order of the Trinal Pact…”

She paused.

“‘The queen drowned not in punishment, but by betrayal. A fae hand. A demon witness. Her bloodline cursed with silence until rebirth in triad form.’”

She looked up at me.

“I’m the rebirth.”

I swallowed hard. “So she was murdered to keep the crown from awakening. And now, bonded to us… you’ve awakened it.”

Althea’s hands trembled.

That’s when Xanden’s voice rang through the vault.

“You need to see what I’ve found.”

We stepped through another portal—his taking us to a realm of light and thorns.

The Moonspire Library, sacred only to the highest of the fae.

His armor shimmered as he led us past weeping trees and glowing tomes that floated midair. Althea seemed drawn to them, her presence pulling books from their resting places like moonflowers turning toward starlight.

He held up a silver-leafed scroll, edges frayed with time.

“This was buried beneath my family’s ancestral altar. It’s older than our war records.”

He read aloud:

“When the Sea Queen rises in triad flesh, beware the kiss of unity. Her touch binds life, her rage unravels fate. The ones who loved her will die by her. The ones who serve her… will change the world.”

Althea’s eyes shimmered—not with tears. With power.

“I think this was all planned,” she whispered. “My birth. My banishment. You two never bonding until me.”

“It wasn’t fate,” Cassian said darkly. “It was control.”

“Until now,” Xanden added. “Until you.”

Althea turned slowly between us, the sigils of demon and fae magic glimmering across her skin like tattoos under moonlight.

“I’m going to reclaim what they buried,” she said. “But I won’t do it alone.”

Cassian and I didn’t speak—we didn’t have to.

We knelt.

Not because she commanded us.

But because we chose her.