"So, were you planning to tell me that my brain was going to get turned into mush when I tried that water thing?"

  They were on that oh-so-familiar beach. Thalassa was just off the shoreline in a small boat. Her hands were wrapped around a fishing pole—one similar to the basic one that he'd started with. She looked up in his direction and coughed into her hand.

  Somewhere to the side, Lily was watching them with her non-existent eyes. He'd asked her to stay away, knowing she might do something reckless.

  "In my defense, I really didn't think about it," she said.

  "That's not a good excuse. Actually, that's not much of an excuse at all."

  There was a faint look of shame and embarrassment on her face. Nathan stepped onto the water and solidified it underneath his feet. He took one step, then another, until he finally reached within a few feet of the boat. He sat down on the water and cupped his chin.

  "You know, my species rank didn't upgrade," he said. "After I turned into water, I mean.

  She flicked her fishing rod to the side, as if she'd felt a nibble. "That's your own fault. You were actually about to do it, but then you backed out at the last moment."

  "Yeah, because I was starting to lose the ability to form conscious thought."

  "Do you really need that?"

  "You really weren't joking about the whole 'turn me into an axe' thing."

  "Whether you're in possession of conscious thought matters not to me in my goals. I would've found somebody to wield you, and that would've been the end of it."

  There was a cold tone that Nathan hadn't heard from her before.

  "So that's how it is?" He snorted and looked up toward the sky. "I have to admit, there was a part of me that was hoping that we'd become something a little bit closer than that."

  Her hand stilled. "What do you mean by that?"

  "You know, friends? Buddies? Not allies of convenience."

  Her lips quirked downward. "I didn't know that's how you felt."

  "Logically I guess it doesn't make any sense," Nathan said. "At the end of the day, it's not like we really have that much in common. I know that you're using me for your own objectives, just as I'm using you for mine. But even so, I thought we built up a little bit of a rapport."

  She reeled in her fishing rod and set it to the side of the boat.

  Nathan was tempted to continue the line of conversation, but stopped. This was the closest thing he had to her opening up since her strange attitude and mood swings had begun. He decided to wait and see if she would open up on her own.

  "You're right." Her voice turned firm. "Leviathan—he's related to me."

  "You told me, yeah."

  "I once took a lover two thousand years ago, as you know. Of course, he passed away while I remain living." Her breath hitched. "I won't bore you with the details. Suffice to say, I thought that was the end of it. That all changed when I ran across his reincarnation."

  Nathan blinked. "Reincarnation exists?"

  She sighed. "Honestly? I don't know. But . . ." Her voice trailed off. "He looked exactly like him," she said. "Every last one of their facial features. It should've been impossible."

  She remained quiet and looked over the edge of the boat into the water.

  "I fell in love with him, all over again."

  "And you had a child, Leviathan."

  She was quiet for several seconds.

  "Perceptive as always," she said. "It's funny. Endymion loved the sea. That was how we first met. Leviathan detests his affinity for water. He sees it as a shackle rather than something to be proud of."

  Nathan was starting to get a suspicion about why Thalassa had been acting so strange.

  "But you were overlooking all that. You even gave him some of your essence," Nathan said.

  "I did."

  "So when he shut you out of his dreamscape . . ."

  "I never did tell you how that happened." Her tone lightened, but her eyes seemed strained. "He was angry. Jealous. I'd come back into his life out of nowhere, and now I was favoring a stranger over him."

  "Out of nowhere?"

  "I couldn't be there for him, Nathan. Could you imagine me as a mother? Truly? I couldn't. So when I had him, I gave him to his father and left."

  So Thalassa was a deadbeat mom, good to know.

  "Then what happened?"

  "Endymion passed away. Leviathan was sent from family to family like some sort of item than a person. I wanted to intervene so many times, but . . ."

  "You were scared. Scared of what he'd say when he saw you."

  "Yes," she said. "But when the apocalypse started, I knew I couldn't continue to hide. I spoke to him. Helped him."

  "And in the end, your worst fears came true, and he ended up rejecting you."

  She winced. "Did you have to put it like that?"

  Nathan didn't say anything.

  "That's why I've been acting so strange," she said. "I apologize. Things are challenging enough without me causing this trouble."

  Nathan wasn't sure what to do. He awkwardly reached out his hand toward her back, stopped, then patted it. She looked at his hand and furrowed her eyebrows together.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Comforting you?"

  "You phrase it as a question rather than a statement."

  Nathan drew his hand back and rubbed the back of his neck. "Look, I'm not good with the women thing. Or friends. Or people in general. But I do know that you're in a lot of pain, so . . . I'm sorry."

  She chuckled, then shook her head. "You're truly one of a kind, Nathan."

  The two of them remained like that for several minutes.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "All right, enough trauma." She stood up. "You need a wake-up call."

  "Wake-up call? For what?"

  "Your affinity. You haven't experimented with water transformation any further."

  "Yeah, because I liquefied my brain last time."

  "You need to practice it, Nathan."

  "Really? I'm kind of worried about—"

  "Worried about losing your humanity?"

  Nathan blinked.

  She was right on the money.

  "How did you figure that out?" he asked.

  "Lily shared it with me before you entered this space."

  Nathan's eyebrows shot up into his head.

  "It took a lot of energy for her to enter in before you and get the information to me," Thalassa said. "But she's been paying attention and had put together the pieces."

  Nathan sighed and turned his attention back to Thalassa. The water underneath him shifted around, a little bit more unsteady than before.

  "It just kind of all hit me," he said. "You kept on saying that I'm becoming more and more waterlike, whatever that means, but I had no idea that it was literally turning me into a puddle down to my very core."

  "I will not lie and say that your fears are unfounded. When I look at you, I barely see anything resembling a human. All I see is something akin to a faint summer storm just on the horizon. You have more in common with a cloud than you do with a human."

  "So what do I do?"

  "You'll need to learn to hold on to your humanity. Whatever it is that bonds you to your past, you have to grip it with everything you have. Practice transforming, build your endurance, see what works. Then, when you're ready, merge golden water with your essence and perform the upgrade."

  "I understand." Nathan nodded at her. "Thank you. That was helpful."

  She winked at him. "I've got to pull some of my weight, at least once in a while."

  The dream started to turn fuzzy at the edges.

  "Good luck, Nathan," her voice faded away. "And remember, buying gold as a part of your portfolio helps give it stability in risky financial markets."

  What—?

  His eyes snapped open. The waters of the golden realm surrounded him.

  "I'm being invited to a what now?"

  "The orc diet. As the head of your household, you have a guaranteed voice. Not only that, but because of your level of strength, you have a seat in the upper room."

  Bjorn had sent a message requesting a planning meeting to discuss how to get the orcs on Nathan's side. Nathan had gathered his major allies into the war room where they would take Bjorn for discussion.

  Nathan looked over at Anand, who'd chosen to don an all black cloak that hid his face from everybody else. It was kind of funny, since Nathan was pretty sure everyone knew that Anand was the spymaster. Wait, had they actually met Anand?

  Nathan put that to the side and focused on his next words.

  "I know that you've been working on slowly getting Fenrir unelected. How's that been going?" he asked.

  Bjorn's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "So that's who it was. It did seem a bit strange how suddenly support was rallying against Fenrir."

  Anand nodded.

  "It's been a moderate success, though not as fast as I would've liked," he said. "Thankfully, it looks like violence won't be needed. Fenrir has been destroying his reputation in record time."

  Nathan couldn't help but remember the first time he met Fenrir and noted his strength. Who would've thought that it would be this easy? Everything was going so smoothly.

  "Yes," Bjorn said. "Whatever you told him was damaging enough to make him change all our plans overnight. He acts like a crazed lunatic half the time. The other half, he's a fearful coward."

  "So what would I be showing up for?" Nathan said.

  "To start a vote of no confidence and replace Fenrir as our leader."

  Nathan stared at Bjorn. "I think I misheard you."

  "You need to go there to start a vote of no confidence and replace Fenrir as our leader."

  "Repeating it doesn't help, you know." Nathan rubbed his face. "Why exactly do I need to do it? Seriously. There's nobody else?"

  "No."

  "What about you? You're smart. And an orc."

  "I could try, but my path would be significantly more difficult," Bjorn said. "Orcs respect strength more than anything else. So believe it or not, you're a household name among the orcs. If you revealed the fact that you're an honorary orc by our customs, I have no doubt that you would achieve a plurality of support."

  Nathan was about to open his mouth and protest when Gius spoke up for the first time in the conversation. His mushroom cap flopped on top of his head when he looked over at Nathan.

  "If you truly feel uncomfortable with the idea of administrating the orcs, you could just delegate the job to Bjorn," he said.

  Nathan's lips quirked down. "I . . . suppose."

  The truth was that he felt uncomfortable with yet another responsibility being added on his back. But he couldn't very well say that, could he? He was already the unofficial leader of humanity. It would be an absolute joke to try to back out now.

  "You're sure this will work?" Nathan said, looking at Bjorn.

  Bjorn nodded. "As sure as I can be."

  Nathan let out a deep breath. When he was done, he looked at Bjorn. "Fine. Let's do this—"

  "Hold on."

  Emi stood up from the table and put her hands against the surface. "Bjorn, he's allowed to bring one guest, right?"

  Bjorn narrowed his eyes. He hesitated, then nodded. "Yes, he's allowed to bring a guest."

  "Then bring me."

  The table fell into silence. Chad looked between Nathan and Emi, a tight frown on his face. Gius's expression was stoic. As was Bjorn's. Nathan himself felt a small twinge of anxiety in his chest.

  "May I ask why you wish to do this?" Bjorn asked.

  "Simple," she said. "First, I don't trust half of the people there not to try to kill him as soon as his back is turned. Someone needs to be there to keep an eye out."

  Bjorn's face didn't change on the surface, but there was something about his stillness that seemed to communicate far more than any motion ever could.

  "You think us so bereft of honor?" he said. "That we would kill one of our own in such a disgraceful way?"

  Emi snorted under her breath. "Your people seemed pretty honorable when they murdered my parents in their bed."

  Bjorn's mouth clamped shut.

  Nathan looked at her more closely. Did she know about Bjorn? There is no way, right?

  No, if she knew, she would've attacked Bjorn and the orc members of the special forces team. She had to be just talking in general.

  "Second," she said. "Even if orcs claim to respect strength above all else, I find it hard to believe they'd be so willing to cede authority to an outsider. It would look better if it's shown that the elves are cooperating with him."

  "And if you showed up, that would firmly cement your position as his subordinate," Bjorn muttered. "Perhaps this actually makes sense."

  Nathan waited for somebody to dispute the subordinate label, but no one did. He shrugged internally and turned his attention back to the conversation.

  "As much as we detest elves, we still respect their strength, especially on an individual basis," Bjorn said. "If they saw you with Nathan, it would further reinforce his image in their minds." He paused. "However, merely explaining a formal alliance wouldn't be enough. There would need to be evidence, and it would have to be according to the old customs."

  Emi stared at Bjorn. Her face started to turn a particularly vibrant shade of red. She let out a strange laugh.

  "Y—you aren't saying—"

  "That's exactly what I'm saying. Both of our peoples practiced this when we were uniting our lands. It's an ancient and recognizable tradition."

  Emi had turned into some sort of tomato. She held out her hands and shut her eyes, shaking her head back and forth. "There has to be another way!"

  Bjorn shrugged. "We could simply explain the nature of your alliance, but it would carry less weight than if we do it this way. You know that."

  At this point, Nathan was getting pretty tired of being left out of the loop. He raised his hand. "Mind explaining to the rest of the class what exactly you're talking about?"

  Emi looked at him, then shut her face into the table and guarded her head with her arms. Bjorn scoffed, though it was barely noticeable.

  "Though we are different peoples, there were certain traditions inherited by both of us," he said. "One of them was the way in which we formalized the conquering of a smaller nation or cemented an alliance."

  Nathan raised an eyebrow. "And what exactly is this tradition you want to use?"

  "It's quite simple," Bjorn said. "You and Emi need to get engaged."

  Emi's head slammed into the table. Nathan blinked. Then blinked again.

  Not dreaming. He's awake.

  A voice piped up in the background. "If you guys are getting married, do you mind if I stream the ceremony?"

  Mara clapped her hands. "I've never been to a wedding!"

  Nathan looked over at Bjorn's face. The orc hadn't twitched so much as a smile.

  He was being dead serious.

  "This would just be for political purposes, right?" Nathan asked. "Just until we get to the next circle. It wouldn't actually be binding."

  Bjorn shrugged. "It's up to you."

  Nathan squinted his eyes. "That's not a helpful answer—"

  "I'll do it!"

  Emi had stood up, a fiery look on her face.

  "If it's for the sake of getting to the ninth circle and returning home, I'll do anything!" she shouted. "Even—e—even . . ."

  Her voice trailed off. "You know what I mean . . ."

  Gius looked totally unaffected. Anand had nodded at her statement of conviction. Mara and Chad were shaking each other excitedly and talking about "OTPs" and "ships."

  Nathan sighed.

  "Well," he looked at Emi. "After hearing such conviction, how can I back down? Looks like I'm all yours, Emi. At least for one day."

  Emi staggered backwards and fell back into her chair with such force that it was sent rotating and the whole thing slammed into the ground with a crash.

  Nathan blinked. "Is she going to be okay?"

  Bjorn shrugged at him.