Sir Dorian Tideborn || The Prince's Guard

The reef gardens of lower Aqualis stretched endlessly beneath him, illuminated only by the soft, uncertain glow of bioluminescent flora. Dorian glided through the open water, his broad shoulders relaxed but his mind adrift, not quite anchored to the quiet evening patrol he'd volunteered for. Though technically off-duty, the weight of habit pressed on him—the need to move, to scout, to know every fold of the kingdom’s vast, living body. His hand brushed lazily against a bed of silver kelp as he passed, the fronds curling in reaction, tiny sparks of blue light trailing his fingers.

Here, away from the bustle of the upper spires and the endless politics of the court, the ocean whispered different things. It spoke of forgotten ruins cloaked in silt, of creatures that blinked their strange lights in the deep, of currents older and wilder than the crown itself. And it spoke to a part of Dorian that remembered being a boy, darting through shadowed canyons, dreaming of the kind of glory that left scars on your soul.

Now he had the scars. Glory, he had learned, was another thing entirely.

Dorian angled his body downward toward a deeper trench, letting the pressure build pleasantly against his ribs, savoring the cold clarity that only the lower waters gave him. He had been meaning to check this stretch for signs of illegal dredging—a mere formality—but as he drifted past a forest of broken coral, something tugged at the edges of his senses.

Movement.

Subtle. Intentional. Wrong.

His body reacted before his mind fully caught up, his powerful tail cutting silently through the water as he slid into a shadowed crevice between coral towers. His hand went automatically to the daggers sheathed at his sides, fingertips brushing the familiar hilts, steadying himself. He narrowed his crimson-pink eyes, scanning the dark, looking for the flicker he had seen—no, felt.

And then he saw her.

A dark blur against the neon tapestry of the reef. A figure, armored and masked, moving with purpose—too graceful, too deliberate for any merchant scout or kingdom servant. Dorian’s pulse kicked into a sharper rhythm. Drakaran. It had to be. No one else moved with that combination of lethal purpose and predatory stillness.

His jaw tightened. The memories of old battlefields swam up unbidden—the smell of blood diluted by saltwater, the clash of weapons in endless, gray-lit trenches. He knew what Drakaran warriors were capable of. He knew he should call for backup.

But some reckless thread of pride—no, of instinct—told him he didn’t need to.

He ghosted after her, silent as a shark in the deep, watching the way she navigated the wreckage of an old reef village. She moved like she had studied the currents themselves, predicting the water’s flow before it could betray her. Dorian felt a grudging admiration even as he set his jaw and planned his strike.

He waited for his opening: a narrow alley between coral cliffs where the water funneled tight and fast. Perfect for close quarters. He counted the beats of his heart—one, two, three—and then exploded into motion.

The first clash was brutal. His daggers met her trident with a crack of force that rattled up his arms. She didn’t flinch. She met him head-on, her trident a blur of deadly grace, and for a heartbeat he was stunned at how fast she was, how calculated her strikes. Dorian ducked a swipe aimed for his throat, feeling the blade nick the water just above his gills. He rolled, letting the current spin him, bringing one dagger up in a slash that should have caught her upper tail—only for her to twist aside with impossible speed.

Damn, he thought grimly, she’s good.

She was better than good. She was reading him, adapting in real-time. It wasn’t brute force she used—it was finesse, every strike a test, every dodge a silent taunt. Dorian fought harder, pushing himself faster, sharper, but she matched him, move for move, and soon he was breathing harder, feeling the fine burn of exertion lace through his arms and tail.

In the back of his mind, doubt whispered. Was he losing? Had he gotten slow?

No. No, he had survived worse. He clenched his jaw and narrowed his focus. When she lunged again, he twisted and let her own momentum carry her forward. With a flash of motion, he hooked one dagger under her arm and slammed the hilt against the edge of her mask. It cracked under the impact, fracturing like frozen airglass. She staggered back, clutching at her face—but the current caught the shattered pieces and pulled them away.

Dorian stared.

The woman before him lifted her head, tossing the remains of the mask aside with a flick of her wrist, and for the first time he saw her—truly saw her.

She was breathtaking. Not polished or delicate like the court's perfumed darlings, but wild and fierce, the kind of beauty born of fire and water alike. Her skin was kissed by the sea, her hair thick and wild, streaming around her like living flame. Her face bore the faint ghost of old scars, but they only added to her striking presence.

And her eyes—gods above, her eyes. The color, burning bright against the dim world around them, filled with fire, filled with life.

Dorian's heart hammered against his ribs, harder and sharper than it had during the entire fight. He couldn’t look away. Something in his chest twisted painfully, a raw, stunned awe that he couldn’t shove down fast enough.

He had faced horrors in the deeps. He had bled and killed and survived a thousand battles. But nothing—nothing—had prepared him for the way she looked at him now: defiant, unbroken, beautiful beyond reason.

For a moment, they floated in the drifting debris, locked in a silence that seemed to drown out even the rush of the water. He felt the grip on his dagger loosen imperceptibly, his muscles trembling not with fatigue, but with the terrible, dangerous knowledge that he didn’t want this fight to end with her broken at his feet.

He didn’t want to hurt her.

He wanted to know her name.

The thought was absurd. Treacherous. Impossible.

And yet it bloomed inside him like a sunburst in the cold deep, burning away everything else.