Prologue
They were dying.
One by one, their population became smaller. There had once been millions of their kind, encasing the ocean all over the world and making homes among the rocks and sand, inhabiting the deep, long before the time of civilization was even a thought. Now there were mere hundreds, and they were declining rapidly. Without a means to increase their kind, she was their one and only last hope.
The elders floated above their thrones, eyes cold as steel and tails sharp as a whip. The king swam forward, his voice a sonar like a boomerang echoing back among the reefs.
“Bring her back to us.”
