Tideborn

Book 0: Drowned World

by Eliza Chan

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Urban Fantasy

Synopsis

A dragon queen, a vengeful sea witch, and a mythical titan converge on the underwater city of Tiankawi in the sequel to the international bestselling epic fantasy Fathomfolk.
  
A tsunami and a dragon's wish have wrought changes upon the city of Tiankawi that have never been seen before. But shared experiences have not healed the rift between the city’s fathomfolk and human citizens, and scars from years of oppression still remain.
 
Mira, a half-siren and activist, fights politicians and her own people to rebuild her city, and to uncover a deadly conspiracy. And Nami, the dragon princess, undertakes a daring ocean voyage alongside friend and foe, in order to convince a mythical Titan not to destroy Tiankawi for its crimes...

Release date: March 25, 2025

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 448

Sample

“Again,” said Sobekki, Protector of the Realm. He was indifferent to the choice curse words; to the scales that had come loose by the handful, drifting in the water like tiny fish. Nami kept the habitual scowl across her features as she swam into position. She pushed her long hair from her eyes, wondering if it wouldn’t be easier just to hack it short and be done with it. It would certainly upset her mother, and that in itself would be worth it.

The young Academy student crouched low and waited for the signal. Sobekki dropped a lazy hand, his claws raking the Yonakunish waters as she propelled herself forward. She dived through the rings with ease, her human shape quick and lithe as she kicked her legs to undulate up and down, setting the obstacles spinning in her wake. With a boost of waterweaving behind her, she propelled herself to the surface to retrieve the flag. The change in temperature, the sharp breeze on the surface and the cackling of the gulls disorientated her a little, and as she paused to adjust, Sobekki found his opportunity. The crocodile-headed fathomfolk barrel-rolled towards her, body corkscrewing with unstoppable force.

Nami dodged to one side, then the other, but he was gaining ground. His jaws snapped at her ankles, barely missing as she kicked him in the snout. She panicked; the frothing water, the bubbles obscuring her sight, made her feel like he was everywhere at once. She was fragile and vulnerable in this form. Dragon-scale coated her lower limbs, and she felt herself doing it again. Reflexively reaching for her true form: for antlers and claws to balance the odds.

“Every time!” Sobekki roared as his grip tore into her foreclaw, sending a dozen more scales loose. It hurt like he had prised the nails from her fingers. Pulsing and taking up all her attention. “Stop trying to make yourself bigger.”

“But I’m a dragon!” she gasped as she swam back, further from him and his constant lectures. “You told me—”

“I taunted you, princess. Every time you let me get under your skin. Do you think others will be more honourable? That they won’t use dirty tricks?” Sobekki pursed his lips, his curved teeth nonetheless gleaming like daggers.

Nami had transformed fully, her ribbon-like dragon form longer than his, even with his tail. What he said made no sense. Constantly goading her to stay in human form, to fight in this ridiculously weak, impossibly slow body. He didn’t do it to the other students. Didn’t bully them and make them wake early for extra practice. She wished she had never managed to cut him that first week at the Academy when he had challenged the new intake to single combat. He had a vendetta against her now. Stubbornly Nami refused to give him the satisfaction of complaining to her mother, dragon matriarch Jiang-Li. If he thought she was a spoilt princess, then she would prove him wrong.

“You are not your brother,” Sobekki rumbled.

“As everyone keeps telling me.”

He hissed through his teeth. “It wasn’t an insult.”

“Sounded like one.”

“For once in your damned life, listen! Kai could walk around all day with antlers atop his head, effortlessly making snow fall in perfect flakes. There was nothing I could teach him. The lessons he has to learn are out there.”

The martial instructor was talking nonsense. The same cryptic drivel that her mother and the Senate liked to spout. She knew what they were implying: Kai was perfect. Didn’t need teaching. She, on the other hand, had been signed up for additional lessons. She roared with the injustice of it, charging straight for Sobekki’s belly. She could almost see the tiny nick she had made in his hide all those months ago. The same trick would not work twice. The old crocodile turned, his strong tail whipping out and slamming across her head. Disorientated, she felt herself sinking. Strong teeth grabbed onto her shoulder, and she could not counter it, could do nothing as he spun, dragging her down with him. She hit the sand bed with enough force to knock the air from her. Shoulder pulsing although he had not bitten deep. Her limbs tingled as they were pinned by his heavy legs. His pointed snout scraped over her cheek.

“Stop letting your pride get in the way.”

Nami scowled but had no response.

“Again.”

Mira and Nami stood with the welcome party, banners unfurled and long rows of chinthe, kumiho and Council members in their finest attire. The high-collared green cloak scratched at Mira’s neck and she resisted the urge to itch. At least it gave her armour to hide behind. Inside she was screaming. The dragon matriarch, Nami and Kai’s mother, was coming for Kai’s memorial. Yonakuni was the oldest of the havens, not to mention the largest and most influential. Mira had read books on haven customs, quizzed Nami and the freshwater folk with Yonakunish heritage. She’d memorised traditional Yonakunish phrases, practising them with her mother every evening. She’d spent a month’s wages dining out at a Jingsha establishment to persuade the pair of Yonakunish chefs to cater the welcome meal. Had a traditional pipa and bamboo flute ensemble at the ready. Every preparation she could make had been made.

And yet she was not prepared.

Birds rose from their position bobbing on the water. Terns and gulls that had been swooping for fish; cormorants that had been resting on small fishing vessels, their heavy wings like dark clouds passing overhead. In their wake, the waters broiled, foaming as the surface churned. A dozen objects shot up from the sea, bottlenose dolphins leaping in perfect synchronicity. Their tails trailed thick ropes, pulling from the depths a massive vessel. Front and centre, claw loosely on the reins, was Jiang-Li, dragon matriarch of Yonakuni. Her scales were an oil slick of colour: blue and green and purple, dark hues shimmering on a base of iron grey. Her spines were more prominent than Kai’s had been, plates more than ridges. Mira could see the resemblance all the same. She closed her eyes a moment. She had not realised how much seeing another dragon would affect her. Could not help but compare, finding them all lacking.

The Yonakunish vessel was an impossible structure made of shell and coral. As Jiang-Li stepped onto the port, the fragments began to tremble. By the time the last of the party disembarked, their vessel had crumbled to debris floating on the water’s surface. The dolphins were loosened from their reins to dive back beneath. This was the way of the haven: to live in harmony with the world around them; leave no trace of their passing. The sheer power of the waterweaving needed to transport them was tremendous.

A show of might.

Despite the marvel, despite the excitement emanating from those around her, Mira felt only a sense of utter dread. A thrum ran from her stomach and travelled along her bones like someone hammering on an internal axle. Again and again until she would surely break. She plastered a smile on her face, ignoring the sweat that ran down her forehead.

Behind her the musicians began to play. She could see now that all her efforts were for naught. Where she had thought it respectful, the pitchy music sounded like a shrill mockery of true skill.

The Fenghuang’s voice was garbled under his phoenix bird mask. Only his eyes could be seen through it. “Jiang-Li, Great Dragon of Yonakuni Haven, you grace us with your presence. I wish this visit was under better circumstances, but we are glad it has brought you to the shores of our city. Long may the friendship between our two nations continue.”

Jiang-Li had not transformed to human form. Her long serpentine body took up three or four times the space of a human, forcing the servers waiting with drinks and food to shuffle back awkwardly so they were not pressing on her. She moved about on all fours, sniffing at one plate, raising an eyebrow at another. All the weeks of work, undone in that one disdainful expression. None of it was good enough.

A yell drew Mira’s attention. Jiang-Li had stepped right up to a server, forcing him backwards. With nowhere left to go, he’d slipped off the dock and splashed unceremoniously into the water. The dragon looked up, finally catching her eye. She smiled, whiskers flickering forward as if to taste the air Mira occupied.

“You are the one. The one my son made his wife.” A statement of fact rather than a question.

Mira made a fist-palm salute and recited the Yonakunish welcome phrase she had been practising. Only fumbled over the last syllable. For a fraction of a second she was proud of herself. Of the effort she had put into this and the disparate peoples that were being brought together.

Jiang-Li burst into guffawing laughter. Tilted her head up to the sky and howled with it. The Tiankawians did not know how to react. They all looked at Mira, the Fenghuang included, for an explanation. Their resident fathomfolk expert, she could surely understand what strange new custom this represented. Mira blinked rapidly, just as confused as the rest, but ploughed ahead with her prepared speech.

“It’s an honour to meet you. My name is Mira, captain of the chinthe and Minister of Fathomfolk. Kai and I married a few weeks before his death. He… he saved us all.” A hitch in her voice stopped her, and she held back the tears that filled her eyes every time she spoke his name aloud. She hoped Jiang-Li would feel her sense of loss, share the burden of sorrow.

Jiang-Li’s eyes slid from Mira’s face, raking down her body. The oversized chinthe coat hid most of her shape, but she was not expecting the dragon to ask, bluntly, “Are you pregnant?”

One of the other ministers gasped, but the rest remained silent. The uniform that had provided so much protection earlier now felt like a shell grown too tight. Mira shook her head, too shocked to speak. She unbuttoned the cloak, her hand on an unremarkable belly. She’d wondered that too, almost hoped for it in the weeks after Kai’s death. A distraction to take away from the loss. But it was not to be. Her monthly cycles came with a regularity that seemed to mock her.

“Then why he married you, and in such haste, is beyond me. My son lost his way in this city. And it looks like my daughter has too.” Jiang-Li finally turned her full attention to Nami. “Come. I am tired from the journey. This can wait.” She waved her claw dismissively at the pomp and ceremony Mira had spent weeks planning, her mouth pulled into a sneer on one side.

Mira did not know whether to laugh or cry. The Yonakuni entourage swept down the walkway with Nami meekly at her mother’s side. In their wake, voices competed for Mira’s attention. Crowded her with questions she could not answer. She would take the blame for this disaster too, but what else was new?

Nami reeled with her mother’s arrival. She had expected many things of Jiang-Li, but the ruthlessness with which she had torn into Mira was not on her list. Half in a daze, she led the way to the opulent accommodation the visiting party had been given atop one of the undamaged towers in Jingsha district. It had been a rotating restaurant before the tsunami, a perennial favourite of the elite. With so many residences destroyed, it had been repurposed by the Council and hastily turned into luxury quarters. They could not afford to offend the Yonakunish representatives.

Nami’s old teacher Sobekki was among the entourage. He insisted on a sweep of the quarters, inspecting the doors and locks, muttering to himself about vantage points and exit routes before the dragon matriarch firmly bade him leave.

Jiang-Li lay down on the vast bed that dominated the room, her dragon body forming a gentle curve. She beckoned Nami to draw the shutters. Breathed in noisily against the backdrop of the rasping slide of wood and the ticking of an unseen clock. Nami’s hand trembled, glad of the opportunity to turn away and compose herself. She’d not left her mother on the best of terms, nor expected to see her so soon. Kai was the link between them, the soft spot in both their hearts. Without him, what were they?

A noise behind her made her turn. Jiang-Li had fallen to the floor. “Lock the door,” her voice commanded before Nami had taken more than a step forward. Even in a swoon, her mother would not be disobeyed.

Nami had been awestruck by the shell and coral vessel that had burst from the waters. The sheer waterweaving strength and precision had thrilled her to the core. Perhaps, just perhaps, Yonakuni had found a solution to their waning powers. Something beyond the barbarism of the Onseon Engine using folk like livestock.

Exactly the impression Jiang-Li wanted to give.

Here in the privacy of her room, the real toil was clear. Scales drained of all colour and whiskers pressed against her head, Jiang-Li drank greedily from the cup of water Nami pressed to her mouth. Nami had to assist her back to the bed. Her mother’s body had gone stiff, like a muscle spasm drawn out along her full length. Scales flaked off in Nami’s hands, scattering like petals onto the quilt. The dragon matriarch’s waterweaving entirely spent.

“You didn’t need to do that.” Nami sat on the edge of the bed.

“They will treat us with respect now they believe we are powerful.” Jiang-Li’s eyes remained closed, the veins on her lids strained red tributaries.

“Mira was already treating you with respect. She tried so hard.”

“That siltborn half-breed?”

“Estuary!” Nami was horrified at her mother’s casual use of the slur. Siltborn. That was what they called biracial folk back in Yonakuni. She herself had used it just as indifferently back in the haven. Never thinking of the person behind the name. Hearing it from her mother’s lips was like looking back into history.

Jiang-Li turned her snout in Nami’s direction. “What happened to the daughter who wanted to burn it all down?”

Nami bit down on her own words, an ache in her jaw pulsing from the repetitive movement. She had started grinding her teeth, wearing down the jagged surfaces of her body. She refused to meet her mother’s eye, knowing exactly the expression that would be on her face. “I lived, I learned. Wasn’t that what you wanted? Kai died for them.”

Her mother’s claw stopped her. The curling talons were like a cage over Nami’s human-shaped hands. “Kai did no such thing. You were the one who chose what his wish would be. You could’ve destroyed it all.”

A breath dug against the sides of Nami’s throat. She withdrew her hand, cutting herself against her mother’s dew claw in her haste. A small trickle of blood welled up before she pressed it against her mouth. She knew the implied answer but persisted anyway. “Estuary and folk included?”

“The tsunami would’ve done that. All you had to do was stay your hand.” The sentiment was merely a few times removed from the Drawbacks’ rhetoric. This was not the dragon matriarch who preached about separating emotions from politics. This was a grieving mother lashing out.

“This way lies madness,” Nami cautioned.

“No, this way lies opportunity.” Tiankawi and Yonakuni were diametrically opposed. The abacus beads clicked audibly in her mother’s head. Mira was considered Tiankawian, of course, an adversary rather than a daughter-in-law.

Nami despaired. She did not have the words, the influence to steer her mother back on course. Jiang-Li’s grief lit her as brightly as the Peace Tower itself. Only someone with the patience and compassion of a sand god could unpick this tangle. Someone universally loved and trusted by both sides.

Someone like Kai.

Her brother was gone. Even though Nami had sat all night waiting for him to open the door and say it had been a terrible mistake. Even after she and Mira had boxed up his things into crates and burlap bags; until the traces of him were not quite erased but eroded, softened around the edges. Even when she’d started to forget the exact features of his face and the sound of his laugh. Even when she had tried on his shoes and found them simultaneously too big and too narrow at the same time. He was still gone.

She made busywork for her hands to push the tide of emotions back. Someone had started to unpack her mother’s many chests of belongings, and Nami dipped her hand into one of them, feeling the fine embroidery on seasilk, the gossamer chiffon robes and the trinket boxes filled with hairpins. She pulled out a decorative belt rattling with small fan-shaped scallop shells. She had an indistinct memory of it from childhood. Jiang-Li shattering one of the shells in the face of a disgruntled servant, the matronly kappa cook to the household. Accusations over some missing pieces of jewellery. The roar of hantu ayer spirits released from the cracked shell, incorporeal water sprites that could merge for brief moments to make tangible shapes. The ghostly fist and haunting visions incapacitating the servant almost instantaneously. Nami snot-nosed and crying because no one would explain. She didn’t understand, not for years, why their old cook had pressed a knife against her throat and called her a colourful array of names. Knowing only that strife brewed outside their insulated coral walls.

Clutching the shell belt, Nami turned. Jiang-Li seemed to have fallen asleep. Even with her eyes shut, she scowled, displeased with something or other. Nami had never expected the reunion to be straightforward. Not with the melancholy that surrounded them like boggy waters. Still she had hoped, wistfully, foolishly, to rebuild their relationship in memory of her brother.

“When is the memorial service?” Jiang-Li’s eyes remained closed, but apparently she was still awake.

“At the next full moon. In a week.”

“A week? Then the rites should already have started. Without me.” Her voice rose with the indignation of it. To be omitted from the week-long ritual of mourning, as his closest family, was more than a slight.

“If you had remained at the port, spoken to Mira for more than a few seconds, she would’ve told you.” Nami spoke slowly, trying to take the accusatory edge out of her voice. They’d known it would be a stumbling block with the dragon matriarch, but they would handle it. Together. That had been the plan. She took one more deep breath before continuing. “The memorial ceremony will follow local Tiankawian customs, not Yonakunish.”

Her mother cursed, pulling herself fully upright. It was going to be a long day.

Humans feared siren control. The manipulation of choice: of love and hate and all that was in between. Never knowing if they were being fed thoughts, emotions that were not their own. Yet when it came to loss, it was a different story entirely. A siren could earn a reasonable living by working with loss, as stigmatising as it was. Quietening the pain of heartbreak, fading the memory as if through layers of tulle. Numbing the displeasure after an argument, a disagreement at work. Camouflaging it beneath sweet tunings until it became bearable.

Mourning, though, was a special case.

No matter how many melodies a siren knew, they couldn’t fill the gaping wound in a heart. A lifetime of memories woven with intricate detail could not be unpicked. A song was a life buoy but useless if no one reached out. A siren could only watch as they chose to sink or swim.

Mira sang. Her words rose into the air, catching like sails in the breeze. In the darkness she could pretend it was just her. Her and Kai.

The darkness did not scare her perhaps as it should. When she had been young, there were no lights. Not in the folk-dominated slums of Seong district. Lights were something seen in the distance: the clusters of stars in a clear sky; the bright windows of the Jingsha towers to the north; the blinking orange of a tram on its winding tracks. For those in Seong, lights were a privilege. Instead Mira had learned to count the planks along the walkways. To know which were loose and which missing altogether. To feel around the stacked crates and shuffle to avoid loose ropes. Night was not always safe, but it hid scars that could not be concealed in the harsh light of day.

Even though it was planned, even though they’d practised and coordinated, her voice faltered as the river of lights flickered into life behind her. Blue-red witchlights, buttery yellow floating lanterns, cerulean bioluminescence in the waters around them; they cascaded on and around the mile-long procession of vessels as Jiang-Li and Nami lit the brazier at the prow of their ship.

The flare of illumination made everyone’s faces look jaundiced. Drawn from the long days of negotiating, hair-splitting every damned detail of the memorial ceremony with the Yonakunish party until both sides were, if not satisfied, certainly exhausted.

The procession sailed in a meandering trail through Tiankawian waters, snaking like a dragon along the circumference of the city state’s outermost districts. Other voices joined Mira’s in the mourning song, a drumbeat rumbling low beneath the harmonies. She allowed herself a moment of quiet, to simply marvel at what they’d organised in Kai’s memory. He would’ve accepted the pomp and ceremony with a sheepish look on his face. Slipped a hand in hers. Not quite hating it, but enduring it with that good-natured smile on his face.

Mira’s eyes were dry. She had cried all her tears. Left them unwiped until furrows ran down her cheeks. She had cried until her insides were raw. Until hunger and loss and tiredness were one and the same. Until rational thought had burned away and all that was left was the knowledge, etched with a blunt knife into her brittle bones.

He had died for her.

For his belief in her.

In Tiankawi.

This would be her burden to shoulder. To ensure his sacrifice was worth it. Every minute she did not spend improving the city was an insult to his memory.

They neared the new cenotaph. It had barely been completed on time, the bamboo scaffolding to the rear still in place. From the front, the two-storey building was raised up by six stone pillars that plunged under the waterline. For now the procession would stop here. They could not fit all the mourners under the cenotaph’s roof. Here at the surface level, everyone who wanted to attend could. That was all that mattered.

The song finished, the last notes drifting like ripples. Mira could hear Jiang-Li behind her, the dragon matriarch’s racking sobs like accusations. Nami had warned her that outward expressions of bereavement were the done thing in Yonakunish tradition. A mark of respect in a culture often criticised for keeping its emotions under close guard. Jiang-Li had acquiesced to human form for the boat journey. She had scratched her own face, pulled at her hair and torn her white mourning clothes. The other Yonakunish were also on their knees, battering heads and fists on the decking as they cried out Kai’s name. Mira flinched at every utterance. She knew eyes were on her, loose tongues hissing at the calmness of her expression.

She reached out with one hand and cupped a handful of seawater from the bowl before her. Imagined it slipping between her fingers, falling as rain. She could not force tears, but there was water. There was always water.

Beside her, Nami matched her motion. The water dragon waterweaved from the surface of the waves with ease, a sheet of raindrops rising up before her. Each drip glistened, the globules wiggling under her hold as she raised them overhead, as high as the sails of the vessel, higher still, before letting them fall. The droplets created a barrier in front of the ship, the spray drizzling against Mira’s face, providing the moisture she herself could not. Her clothes were heavy with it. Then the other folk joined in. The sheet became a curtain, extended round either side of the cenotaph until it made a complete ring. A veil of tears.

Droplets clung to her lashes, impeding her vision, and yet Mira did not have to see to feel the strength of it. The shared power and pain burning back some of the darkness. Nami brought her hands together. The muscles on her neck strained, gills heaving open as she slowly pulled her hands apart, drawing back the rain curtain with the motion, the gap big enough to allow the lead vessel to pass. They would lay offerings on the cenotaph while the others watched on.

Mira allowed her eyes to flicker closed. She only had to keep up the act for a little longer. Then she could return to Kai’s apartment. Her apartment, she corrected herself. Wade through the piles of laundry and documents and cold cups of seaweed tea to sprawl across the bed that still smelled of him. Jiang-Li be damned, she needed this. Nami could handle her mother for a few days. Bat away her insidious questions. Each critique chipped away at Mira’s shell until the whole thing threatened to crack open.

The prow of the ship passed through the droplets of water. Something landed at Mira’s feet. She looked at it uncomprehending. The filmy eye of the fish stared up at her. Her initial thought was that it had leaped onboard, but then her wits belatedly caught up: it was not a whole fish. Just a head, hacked off around the gills. The smell rose up to her, a sour, pungent rot.

A thud.

And another.

Pieces of rotten fish landed with dull tones across the ship, raining down, rebounding from the people and equipment on board. Sliding and spinning across the deck. One piece slapped her across the cheek, slime leaving a trail down her jaw as the jagged fins caught in her collar. The overwhelming stench made her heave. What turmoil threw dead fish from the depths?

Those around her ducked and yelled, covering their heads and shielding each other as best they could. Nami pulled at Mira’s arm, mouthing words, dragging her away from the side. It was Jiang-Li who kept her wits about her. The dragon matriarch, face red raw from crying, pressed her shoulders back and roared. The veil of raindrops around the cenotaph came to her call, solidifying into a dome above their heads.

With the noise of the onslaught dampened, Mira could finally think. The fish were not in fact leaping up from the ocean floor. They were being lobbed from nearby vessels. From barrels and buckets that had been prised open. Tiankawian hands pelted their ship, faces barbed with hate.

“Salties.” Mouths gaped like empty cavities. “Bottom-feeders. Fish fuckers.” Even from within the protective dome, the taunts reached their ears.

Mira’s tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. Nami cursed under her breath. The folk to either side responded in their defence. Angry voices yelling back insults just as caustic.

“Mudskippers!”

“Feathernecks!”

The insults were quickly drowned out by incoherent noise, like screeching seagulls vying for entrails. The fathomfolk, while smaller in number, were incensed. Water rose shakily from the seas, splashing against the protesters, the waves treacherous around their boats as if hands shook the hulls.

The city was simmering, and Mira had no way of dampening down the flames.

“You have things under control?” Jiang-Li’s voice was a sliver of ice running down Mira’s back. Neither her intonation nor her volume had changed, but the threat dangled between them like a snare. She removed the fine tiered coral necklace from around her neck. Fish guts draped across it, sticking to her neck and hair also. Someone had hung loose robes around her shoulders, covering her wrecked outfit, but the smell rising from all of them could not be masked. Jiang-Li wanted answers. Arrests. Now.

“I knew there was some disgruntlement. Dissatisfaction about the changes Kai’s pearl had wrought. But that was to be expected. The Gill Adjustment Programme—”

“Your little charity project will do nothing. Trying to clear out a trash vortex with your bare hands.” Jiang-Li’s lip curled at one side. She continued to stare. Demanding an alternative plan Mira did not have. The dragon matriarch was diminutive in her human form and yet somehow managed to loom large over Mira. Her centuries-old bloodline justified that confidence, unlike the siltborn guttersnipe before her.

“We’ll find the source of the unrest.”

“And then what?” Jiang-Li asked, her eyebrow arching. “Fine them, jail them, make them work mandatory hours at the Onseon Engine? Do you see it now, the real issue?”

Mira sat down with a heavy thud, ignoring the damp of her trousers against her legs. Jiang-Li was many things – cold and critical in how she delivered information; upholding a hierarchy that was rightly fading away in Tiankawi – but she was no fool.

Tiankawi’s humans were . . .