From Ironhold, our convoy turned west toward the coast, where the Sea Kingdom of Maren's sprawling port capital offered both a crucial naval alliance and, according to Selene's careful research, a set of ancient ruins along its southern coastline that might hold further clues about the Architect's original purpose.
Maren's royal court proved a study in contrasts compared to everywhere we'd visited so far — a merchant-driven monarchy where naval trade and commercial interest shaped diplomacy at least as much as military concerns, and where Queen Isolde herself, a sharp, calculating woman in her sixties, seemed less interested in the moral urgency of our cause and considerably more interested in the practical opportunities a continent-wide coalition might eventually provide her kingdom's trade networks.
"You're asking me to commit Maren's fleet to a war against a threat most of my court still considers, frankly, a fairy tale exaggerated by frightened border villages," Queen Isolde said bluntly, over a working dinner that felt considerably more like a negotiation than a diplomatic courtesy. "Convince me otherwise, Master Gigonos, and convince me in terms a merchant queen actually finds compelling, rather than the noble sentimentality I suspect works considerably better on Kaldrath's court."
I appreciated the bluntness, honestly, after weeks of careful diplomatic maneuvering elsewhere. "Your trade routes will be the first thing disrupted if this war reaches full scale," I said. "Every kingdom's economy depends on stability this threat has no interest in preserving. I'm not asking you to fight out of nobility, Your Majesty. I'm asking you to invest in preventing a catastrophe that would cost Maren considerably more than any military commitment you make now."
Something sharpened in Queen Isolde's expression — genuine interest, rather than the polite skepticism she'd led with. "Now that," she said, "is a pitch I can actually work with."
The formal negotiations that followed took the better part of a week, considerably more transactional than the alliances we'd built with Sylvaris, the beastkin plains, or Ironhold, but no less genuine for their mercantile framing. Maren's fleet, when finally committed, came with careful conditions regarding trade protections and future economic partnerships — practical concerns that Seraphine, to her credit, navigated with the same patient skill she'd shown throughout the entire journey.
It was during a lull in those negotiations that Selene finally secured permission to investigate the ruins she'd flagged along Maren's southern coastline — an ancient, partially submerged temple structure that local fishermen had long avoided, citing old superstitions about lights that moved beneath the water on moonless nights.
"I want to see it," I told her, once the day's formal negotiations had concluded. "If it's connected to the Architect the way the Eldoria ruins and Kai's mountain findings were, I'd rather investigate it myself than rely entirely on secondhand reports."
Kai insisted on joining as well, and the three of us, along with a small contingent of Maren's own coastal guides, set out the following morning toward the submerged ruins — a journey that would prove, within hours of our arrival, considerably more significant than any of us had initially anticipated.