"Okay, people! Let's light it up like we got a brand deal with the gods!"
Yeah, that was me shouting across the beach like I owned the place, which, let's be honest, I kind of did. At least for the next two hours until the sun dipped and the content clock ran out. The turquoise waves of Maui sparkled behind me, the golden hour bathing everything in the kind of glow you can't fake. My content team was hustling, scrambling with tripods and reflectors, trying to catch the shot before the wind jacked up my perfectly done hair or the tide rolled in and ate a camera.
I was barefoot. Bronzed. Glowing like I was dipped in glitter and confidence. My sheer beach cover up was doing absolutely fuck all to hide my thighs or my chaos energy. I posed, hands on hips, smile wide, eyes sharp. A storm wrapped in beach glam.
"One more spin! Hair flip! Show the toes, Rhi! The sponsors love that feral barefoot aesthetic," Beck called, his laugh echoing behind his camera.
I flipped him the bird mid spin. "You're lucky you're cute, Beck. I should summon a fuckin' tsunami on your ass."
We all cracked up.
But under that laugh... my smile didn't quite reach my eyes.
Because the truth? I was tired. So goddamn tired. The kind that lives in your bones. Foster care. Abuse. The Marines. Everything I had survived clung to me like salt on skin...coated over, not washed away.
This influencer gig? Just another mask. Glitter and filters and ten second dopamine hits. All to cover the hollow echo inside me that kept whispering, Is this it?
I glanced around, brow furrowing. This beach was too perfect. Like a dream stitched into the real world. We'd flown halfway across the damn globe for this last minute collab because the money was insane...but now, standing here, something tugged at me. I sighed deeply and breathed in the salty air, running my fingers through my wild mane of auburn hair that hung well past my ass. I could feel something. Something deep down. Like right on the tip of my tongue...
Like…it felt like I was meant to be here.
And that feeling? It wouldn't shut the fuck up.
As I posed, changed outfits, adjusted camera angles, I couldn't shake it. The sky, the waves, the sand beneath my feet, it was all so alive. More than it should be. I wasn't just walking this beach, I was being watched by it.
"This can't be all my life is…" I thought, digging my toes deeper into the warm sand. A giggle escaped me, unbidden. Goddess, I felt good. Giddy. Light. Dizzy almost. Like something inside me had been asleep for years and just now started to stir.
"You good, sweet cheeks? Ready for the last shot?" Beck asked, squinting under his sunglasses as he wiped sweat from his brow.
I nodded, stepping forward toward the water. Something in me pulsed, soft but firm. A heartbeat that wasn't mine. I stretched my arms wide, turning so the waves crashed behind me. I wanted to feel the sun on my face.
That's when I stepped on it. My entire body tensed as I froze.
It was smooth. Cold. Wrong.
I looked down.
A circle.
Etched into the sand like it had been branded by starlight. Silver. Swirling. Alive.
"What the hell!!"
I never finished the sentence.
Because the ground moved. My mind went into panic mode as I tried to brace myself. Flashes from the war running through my head like wildfire. Were we under attack!?
No, not just moved. It fucking beat. Like a heart. Like a drum summoned from the bones of the earth. I looked around wildly, my throat closing as I struggled to draw breath.
Wind screamed.
My hair whipped across my face like it had teeth. Electricity snapped against my skin. My team shouted, screamed, but their voices sounded far. Fuzzy. Fading.
Then?
Nothing.
No beach. No Beck. No camera. No goddamn reality.
Just black.
Cold. Crushing. Infinite. My panic was at an all time high and I felt like I couldn't breathe. This was the day apparently. After surviving the war and years of abuse in my childhood, I would be done in by a sentient beach. Lovely.
Then, a scream like a damn banshee ripped from my throat as I was thrust forward.
And I fell.
Spinning through time, through space, through something older than both. My mind spinning as I struggled to hold onto consciousness.
I screamed. I kicked. I fought.
And then....
I slammed into the future.
Hard.
The blackness wasn't just dark. It was thick. Like I'd fallen into ink, or the belly of some ancient beast that forgot to digest me.
Then suddenly my eyes felt like they might burn right out of my sockets.
Light.
Soft. Lunar. Like moonlight wrapped in fog. It draped over me like silk, cool and whispering. I gasped, trying to get my bearings, but there was no ground. Just stars.
Endless, floating starlight.
And then I saw her. My heartbeat drummed like a rabbit afraid for their life and I swallowed hard, giving my best death scowl.
She stepped forward as if she'd been waiting for me for centuries.
Tall. Ethereal. Wearing a crown of woven constellations that flickered and spun like the fucking universe bowed to her. Her hair was silver, her eyes galaxies. She was both everything and nothing...and every cell in my body knew her.
My mouth dropped open in shock. No fucking way! But I just knew. I felt it.
"...Mom?" It was so soft it sounded like a whisper.
Her smile was soft, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Rhiannan."
I blinked. "No. Nope. You do not get to be hot, glowy, and cryptic while I've just been yeeted through time like an unpaid intern in a wormhole. Start talking." I crossed my arms across my chest with as much sass as I could muster and tapped my foot impatiently.
She didn't. Of course not. Instead, she fucking floated closer like some goddess of Pinterest worthy riddles and tragedy.
"You are awakening." She stated in that infuriatingly erethreal voice.
"Oh, are we doing the vague shit now?" I snapped. "Cool. Love that for me. What's next? 'The stars will burn when the time is ripe'? 'Trust the fucking river'? You dragged me here to fortune cookie me?"
Nythera tilted her head. "Your path is not one forged, it is one remembered."
"Oh my goddess," I growled. "Try me again. Use real words. I was just on a beach shooting for a skincare line, now I'm in space magic hell getting handed celestial haikus. Bitch, I don't even know what year it is!"
"Not all truths can be spoken before their time." She narrowed her eyes at me, likely in disapproval. I was used to that.
"I swear to all that is unholy, if you say 'when the moon is full, the blood will sing' or some shit I'm going to hurl myself into a star."
She stepped closer, her expression shifting and her eyes wide, almost pained. "You were taken from me. Hidden. Sealed. If I could tell you everything, I would. But the threads must remain tangled for now, my love."
I blew a raspberry in frustration. I could tell she was being honest, but I was still furious.
"Threads?! Lady, I am a grown ass woman. I pay taxes. I served in the Marine Corps. I'm not your fragile little moonflower."
Her smile deepened, but a tear slid down her perfect glowing cheek. "You were never fragile. That's why they fear you."
I froze. My chest heaved. "Who?"
Nythera's form shimmered, stars falling from her skin like dust. She reached out, brushing a cold thumb across my cheek.
"You will remember. When the stars fall. When your name burns the sky." She sighed wistfully. I could see the pain in her eyes, hell I could almost feel it radiating from her. It hit me hard.
I grabbed her wrist. "No. No, don't you dare fade on me, space mom. I swear I'll body slam a comet into your temple if you don't tell me..."
Her form began to unravel. "The ones you need… will find you. The bonds will anchor you."
"WHAT FUCKING BONDS!?"
CRACK.
White light exploded through my chest like lightning had drop kicked me in the sternum. I screamed, flung backward as gravity reasserted itself like a jealous ex.
I hit the sand hard.
Like… rib-jarring, lung punching, "did a truck just yeet me from the moon?" kind of hard.
The wind got knocked out of me as I faceplanted into warm, glittering white sand. My ears rang, my body screamed, and every bone in my body felt like it had just been politely disassembled and tossed into a blender.
I groaned and rolled onto my back, blinking into a sky that looked wrong, too purple, too sparkly, too... fucking magical.
"What the actual fresh fantasy fuck?" I gasped, coughing up salt and rage.
I was on a beach. Not my beach. This one was glowing, and humming, and, holy hell, there were mushrooms bigger than my goddamn car dotting the treeline.
Before I could start screaming again, I heard a chirp. Then a snort. Then a little honk?
I sat up slowly, brushing sand out of every crevice of my damned body, and nearly screamed.
A fluffy orange ferret with a crooked ear tilted its head at me.
Behind it stood a fat gray pigeon, a tiny fox with three tails, and a floating jellyfish creature that blinked at me with literal sparkles in its eyeballs.
"Oh, fuck. I'm dead. I got struck by fantasy lightning and died, and now I'm in Fae Narnia."
The ferret waddled closer, sniffed me, then promptly crawled onto my chest like I was its long lost couch.
"Uh. Hi?" I muttered, too sore and confused to stop it.
The little fox yipped, the pigeon cooed, and the jellyfish floated closer, glowing pink.
And then I heard it.
A low hum. Deep. Mechanical. Like an engine growling across the water.
I turned toward the horizon and saw a ship.
A massive, black, jagged pirate ship. Its sails were stitched from shadow, its mast crowned with an eerie glowing symbol I didn't recognize, but my soul did. Every inch of me said, get up.
I stood, wobbling. My hands lit with power I didn't remember learning. I squared my shoulders, surrounded by magical fucking woodland creatures like I was the pissed off Disney princess nobody wanted to cross. I shook my hands a few times, totally shocked that they were glowing. I had zero fucking idea how to use whatever this was, but I wasn't going down without a fight. Period.
"Alright, assholes," I whispered. "You want me? Come get me."
The ship docked fast, slicing through the waves like it was made of war itself. Planks slammed into the sand.
A figure stepped off first.
Tall. Built like he was handcrafted by a divine thirst trap committee. Black hair tied back, pirate coat swinging, one glowing gold eye glaring and the other covered by a black eyepatch. Golden skin. Scars everywhere. This man was a beast I could tell, and wouldn't be easy to take down. I glared with all the rage in my small body. If looks could kill he would have dropped dead on the spot.
I raised my hands, ready to throw literal hell, my hands glowing with that weird magic as I grinned with triumph.
He paused, assessing me warily.
He tilted his head.
And grinned.
A slow, crooked, infuriatingly sexy grin.
"Didn't expect a goddess with blood on her lip and murder in her eyes," he said, voice like velvet and gunpowder. "Name's Arwen. Heard you landed. Figured I'd come say hello."
I blinked. All of my rage disappearing from my body. I looked around warily.
The fox yipped. I opened my mouth to speak...
And I promptly passed out.