Hadama was drawn to the fire and the forge, learning the delicate techniques of a jeweler and goldsmith from his grandfather and, when he was a little older, the concentration and refined strength of a bladesmith from his mother. His family was happy and things were going well, until his brother visited the undersea shrine on his eighteenth birthday. What answered his prayer wasn’t a god and it granted no wishes but instead cursed the young merman with a wasting sickness that killed him within the year. Hadama mourned his brother and the family began to find a new shape around the hole where Eiji had been. Ten years later his grandfather succumbed to old age and the family grew a little smaller.

Hadama had always been closest with his grandfather, and for a while he threw himself into his work while he grieved. The undersea city began to feel less and less like home and a restlessness grew in him, piqued by the arrival of Outlanders among the drylanders of the shore and their occasional incursions beneath the waves. The places they had been, the things they must have seen… Steadfast and responsible, Hadama initially resisted the lure of the unknown, honing his art and learning all that his mother could teach him of the volcanic forge. But when she finally told him that she had nothing left to teach him, that the last of the family secrets had been passed down to the next generation, and that he was free to sound his own course…

Hadama headed for the canals to see how the other half lived.

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