Naeris
She didn't return the next night.
Or the one after.
I told her to leave, and she listened.
So why does it feel like the tide itself recoils in her absence?
The currents move wrong. The coral dims. Even the storm spirits sleep restlessly in their trenches, waiting for something they can't name.
And I—
I search the cliffs like a fool.
Each twilight, I rise near the surface, hidden in the swell. I watch the shoreline where I first saw her. Sometimes, I imagine the echo of her footsteps across the sand. The salt in the air still carries the weight of her name.
Lyra.
But I can't let her go. Fae and sea were never meant to meet. The laws were carved in blood and tide long before either of us drew breath. But the ocean doesn't forget. And neither do I.
Her magic still hums in the current, faint but undeniable. I feel it like a splinter beneath my skin—irritating, aching, calling.
You told her to leave.
You lied.
I let the thought cut deep, a painful reminder of my own conflicting desires.
Tonight, the ocean is restless. The surface ripples with lightless tension. The reef gates groan like something ancient stirs behind them. Mareth asks no questions, but he watches me now with eyes too sharp for comfort.
Let them watch.
I slip through the water without a sound, rising toward the surface as moonlight shatters across the waves like broken silver. The cliffs appear. Her cliffs. Empty.
Until they aren't.
A shape moves near the edge. Cloaked. Still. Too small to be a threat. Too familiar to mistake.
Her.
I don't surface. I wait.
She walks the shoreline slowly, her hand trailing across the stone. She doesn't call me. Doesn't speak.
But the tide reaches for her anyway.
The water stirs around my hands. Not by my command.
By hers.
Her presence pulls at the sea like a second heartbeat—again. I feel it answer, rising in gentle waves, circling her ankles as though she were an altar.
I break the surface before I can stop myself.
She gasps, stumbling back a step, but she doesn't flee.
Her eyes—gods, those eyes—widen as they meet mine. Green rimmed in moonlight. Searching. Questioning. Burning.
"You came back," I say, voice rough from too much silence.
She swallows hard. "I shouldn't have."
"And yet you did."
She doesn't speak. She doesn't need to. Her magic hums louder now, brushing mine, unraveling things I've kept tightly bound for years.
And still I step closer.
The waves draw around us, silent and deep. Her cloak shifts in the breeze, and for a moment, I see the brand on her neck glowing faintly—an echo of the curse that severed her from the forest.
But she is not of the forest anymore.
She is becoming something else.
Mine.
The word slides through my mind like instinct. I tighten my grip on control, but the sea—traitorous, ancient, sentient—thrums with agreement, echoing the conflict within me.
She called us. She belongs.
No. Not yet.
I stay just out of reach.
"You shouldn't be this close," I say, stepping forward despite myself.
"The ocean doesn't ask. It claims. And it will not care what it breaks to keep you."
She doesn't move. Doesn't speak. But the wind catches the edge of her cloak, revealing her bare feet at the shoreline. The tide inches closer, kissing the sand just short of her toes.
One more step and it would take her.
She looks down at the water, then back at me.
"It's like a thread," she murmurs. "Wound tight through my ribs, pulling every time I breathe."
The tide answers her, brushing closer.
"You feel it," I say quietly. Not a question.
She nods once. Her eyes glint in the moonlight—afraid, but not running. The fear has changed. It's become… wonder.
The sea hums between us, thick with promise and peril. I see it all playing out—the moment she lets it in, the second she stops resisting the tide. The ocean will mark her. Rewire her. Make her something it can keep.
And I want to see it.
No, something inside me protests. She's not ready. Not yet.
But the tide keeps reaching. And she keeps standing still.
"I should go," she says at last, almost to herself.
I say nothing because I don't want her to.
She takes a step back—one. Then turns, and walks into the mist, her silhouette swallowed by moonlight and fog.
I stay.
The waves pull at my legs like a tether, restless with need. The sea is changing. So am I.
Still, I feel her.
Still, I want her.
And the sea—
The sea wants her too.
And it will not forget.
Not her voice.
Not her scent.
Not the pulse of her magic, unclaimed and glowing like flame just out of reach.
The tide tastes of her now. Even in her absence, it coils around my limbs like a promise—like possession.
I close my eyes, and I swear I feel her heartbeat echoing through the deep.
She thinks she can walk away.
But I've already felt the way she fits into the silence.
I've already imagined her name whispered in storm.
I've already decided: she belongs to the sea.
And the sea belongs to me.