The five mermen swam between the white stone of the pillars and came to rest at the circular table in the center of the open walled room. Small posts sticking out of the sandy floor had widened and curled over tops to create a curve the mermen were able to hook their shark-like tails underneath to anchor themselves and resist any current that drifted through the meeting place.

The moment they removed their silvery helmets, Riptide stood out among the five mermen he'd arrived with because their hair was as dark as a forest of kelp and Riptide's was the color of golden sand. Bites from various sea beasts such as sharks and giant eels scarred the skin of their muscular arms, testifying to their harsh life in the South Atlantic Kingdom. Riptide had a number of sucker marks from wrist to shoulder on his right arm from a fight with a squid. The shell armor covering their chests showed damage from swords, spears, tridents, and daggers, remnants of the war with the Northern Atlantic Kingdom.

Floating next to Riptide was his brother, Typhoon. The barbed end of a trident had caught Typhoon along the side of his mouth last year, and the resulting scar increased the width of even the smallest of his smiles. His brother wasn't smiling now.

"It has to be a trap," Typhoon suggested.

"For only me and whoever I choose to bring with me as a guest?" Riptide questioned. "It seems a great deal of effort for so small a prize. I could understand if I was a leading general or something, but this doesn't make sense."

"Exactly," Typhoon insisted. "Why would the Northern Atlantic Kingdom, during the middle of a war, invite you to attend the Royal Pearl Ball in their capital city of Atlantica? There's no reason for it, unless it's a trap. As for the efforts they're making, it doesn't matter how costly the trap if it snares the intended fish."

Riptide was silent a moment, staring at the table and watching the lines of light from the surface world ripple across the smooth top in waves of brilliance.

"It could be an opportunity," Riptide suggested.

"You're not considering peace with them, are you?" Typhoon demanded, a look on his face as if he was about to be ill.

"I'd consider a peace if they surrendered," Riptide countered. "They've been hammering at our borders for decades, generations even, trying to take the little we have when they already have plenty."

"The North Atlantic won't be satisfied until everything swims under their banner," Typhoon grumbled.

"We're not going to give them one grain of sand," Riptide declared. "Listen carefully to my plan, and if you agree to it, we can end this war in short order."

Typhoon and his fellow warriors waited with rapt attention as Riptide explained his reasoning for accepting the invitation from the North.

"If this is a trap, we could all be killed," Typhoon pointed out. "If your plan works, we still might all be killed."

"True," Riptide accepted. "But, it could end the war. Interested?"

Typhoon nodded, and the other warriors of Riptide's shiver nodded one after another until all had agreed. Collecting their helmets, they removed their tails from underneath the hooks and swam after Riptide on their way to make the needed preparations for the Royal Pearl Ball.

***

The grand palace for the Northern Kingdom was truly magnificent. White marble pillars held up the gleaming gold of the dome far above everyone's head, and silvery light streamed from the bioluminescent chandelier. The royal court was assembled around the perimeter of the circular ball room on the lowest floor of the palace. From the waist up, the men were clad in gleaming scale armor that left their muscular arms bare. The majority of the women were wrapped in crisscrossing bands of woven and dyed seaweed and adorned with shimmering pearls, but a few were members of the palace guard and matched their male counterparts in their scale armor. The guests with longer hair had the strands twisted around a spur of coral extending down the length of their spines from a gem encrusted circlet crowning their heads.

Every conversation around the ballroom silenced when Riptide and his shiver of warriors arrived. All eyes focused on the group, still clad in their dark and scarred armor but without their helmets. Whispers, both excited and offended, began rippling around the room as the crowd voiced opinions among themselves as to what a group of the enemy was doing there. One of the guards swam quickly over to intercept Riptide and his team, followed by a number of fellow soldiers equal to the amount Riptide had brought with him. An orb of white was held out toward the unexpected intruders and white lines of light cut through the waters to sweep over them, inspecting the visitors from the South Atlantic for any of the refined metals of Atlantean weaponry. The orb remained a pale white in color, indicating no metal was found.

"We were invited," Riptide announced, holding out the invitation to the guards. The carved tablet was snatched from his hand and inspected. Before an official decision could be made, King Shoal entered the ballroom. Everyone, even the guards, immediately bowed in respect to their royal leader.

The King was bare-chested and showed his position hadn't softened him any; well defined muscles covered his broad chest and stomach. Only a few strands of grey had started to creep into his golden hair around his temples. The golden crown on his head was a single circular band with a prominent upward spike in front. The forward spike was inset with glittering diamonds to form the shape of a trident.

Riptide was about to follow diplomatic courtesy and offer a bow of his own when Shoal spotted him. Tears formed in the King's eyes, and while the moisture was absorbed immediately into the surrounding water, the extreme salt content caused diminutive crystals to form around his eyes before floating off and slowly dissolving in the sea. Ignoring everyone else, Shoal swam directly toward Riptide and threw his arms around him.

"Welcome home, Son," King Shoal said happily. "You will unite the South Atlantic and North Atlantic Kingdoms and end the war."

The ballroom fell instantly silent. No one moved or spoke as the eyes of the royal court searched for similarities between the two men. They had comparable features and the golden hair common to the Northern royal line, but many looked on with skepticism that this foreigner could be heir to the throne.

"What are you talking about?" Riptide demanded as an escalating tide of whispers swept through the assembled court. "I've never seen you before."

"When you were born," the King explained, "I had you taken to the Southern Kingdom to be raised there in the hopes you'd be able to unite our two realms when you took the throne."

"Was it you who tended me when I was sick?" Riptide asked. "Was it your arms that held me when I was a child and either scared or sad? Was it your hands tending to my wounds when the Northern Kingdom raided our border? You say you are my father, but you were never in my life and I never knew you."

No one spoke, and the mournful sound of a distant whale song filled the ballroom.

"If what you say is true," Riptide went on, the edge of his tail wedging into the sand of the ballroom floor to keep him from drifting. "You cast me aside with no more concern than an octopus gives an empty crab shell after it has fed. You made no effort to contact me, or keep your raiders off the border where I lived. How many of your people did you send to their death against me in battle? How many of them knew they were trying to kill the heir to the throne? Did you care about any of us, or were we simply pawns in your game? Was I ever more to you than a military ploy?"

"What I did was for the good of the realm," King Shoal thundered, all previous tenderness vanishing in an instant. "Our Kingdom must endure, no matter the personal cost."

"If its people are suffering unjustly, what does it matter if a kingdom endures?" Riptide retorted. "It's certainly of no benefit to them."

Riptide looked to the only brother he'd ever known. Even with his scar, Typhoon's mouth was a hard, thin line; he gave a single nod.

"You wanted me to be a Southerner?" Riptide asked. "In that, I grant you, you succeeded. Family is connection, not blood, and they are my family. You wanted me to end the war? I shall do that, for it is the reason we came here today."

Riptide reached under the edge of his chest armor and pulled out the coral blade he'd concealed there. The weapon sliced through the waters as it plunged toward the unprotected heart of King Shoal. Typhoon and his men were quick to draw their own hidden weapons. Because the guards were focused on their dying monarch, they were taken by surprise and disposed of in rapid succession, leaving the remainder of the ballroom guests easy targets for Riptide and his team. The leadership of the Northern Atlantic Kingdom was assembled in the ballroom, though many were now fleeing for their lives, and Riptide knew eliminating them would cripple the military and any chance the North had to defend itself from what was coming.

One of Riptide's people, Gil, separated from the group and swam toward the surface after retrieving a wrapped bundle he'd buried in the sand before entering the palace. Placing special goggles crafted from insulating crystal over his eyes, Gill pulled away the wrappings and extracted the glowing sphere contained within. Taken from a titan angler fish, the sphere was bright enough to be seen by the forces the Southern Kingdom had marshaled at the border for this moment, and only the crystals over his eyes reflected away enough intensity to keep him from being blinded by it. As Gil swam around in circles to give the signal, the Northern Kingdom was invaded from the south.

***

"What's the situation?" Riptide asked, settling back upon his new throne.

"The military forces are scattered and leaderless," Typhoon reported. Several new scars marked his armor. "What little resistance they can offer won't be much and should be completely disposed of in a matter of days. Most of the people are waiting to see what you will do before they decide to oppose the rightful heir to the throne, so it would seem you are in control of the entire Atlantic. What are your orders now, King Riptide?"

Riptide held the diamond studded crown in his hand, previously worn by the man who'd claimed to be his father. He turned it over, watching the lights of the throne room glint off the facets of the polished stones.

"Atlantis has long been a divided realm," Riptide explained. "Split into sub-kingdoms in distant oceans. Some live well while others struggle simply to survive. There's no unity or cooperation like there should be."

"It's as if they weren't under the banner of Atlantis but under that of their individual kings," Typhoon agreed.

"We need to change that," Riptide told him. "We'll find what resources we have no need of here that may be of use elsewhere. We'll give our excess to those in need that our strength may be theirs without diminishing our own, eliminating waste while providing for all. We shall lead by example, encouraging others to do the same. The banner of Atlantis will mean something again, to all peoples of the sea."

Riptide chuckled as he placed the crown on his head.

"Who knows?" he suggested to his brother. "Someday, we may even reach out to the surface dwellers."