The sea had always been restless—alive with currents and wind and salt—but on the morning Selene and Corin arrived at the coast, the water lay absolutely still. The entire shoreline was flat as polished obsidian, reflecting a washed-out sky without a single ripple to distort the image.
Selene had seen strange waters before—glacier lakes that held centuries of cold memory, still ponds that hid ancient stones—but nothing like this.
This ocean was still because it was waiting.
She felt the realization settle in her spine.
Not dead. Not calm. Not dormant.
Waiting.
Beside her, Corin stood with his hands in his coat pockets, eyes fixed on the horizon. The air around him felt unnaturally steady—as if whatever force had stilled the sea recognized him and chose not to touch him.
He didn't speak. He rarely did unless prompted.
Selene finally broke the silence.
"Describe it," she said.
Corin's gaze didn't waver. "It feels like a held breath."
Selene nodded once. "Yes. That's exactly it."
Behind them, the Expeditionary camp sat in uneasy formation: tents arranged in perfect military grid, supply crates labeled and stacked, ropes coiled neatly, lanterns trimmed and ready. The Guild trained its expedition teams in order, preparation, and calm.
Yet every lantern flame flickered in the same direction, though no wind blew.
Selene watched the flames lean toward the water.
Toward the Cathedral.
Toward whatever lay beneath.
She tightened her grip on her journal.
Corin finally blinked, slow and deliberate. "It's listening to us."
"That's impossible," Selene muttered.
But the words felt thin in her mouth.
Corin didn't argue. He didn't need to.
They approached the shoreline.
The wet sand gave slightly under their boots, but the surf did not move to greet them. The sea remained flat, reflective. Selene scanned the waterline for tide marks.
Her chest tightened.
"No tide shift," she murmured.
"None in the last three days," Corin confirmed.
That was wrong. Not odd—not surprising—not unexplained.
Wrong.
The ocean was never still. It breathed, it moved, it answered the pull of the moon and the turning of the world. To stop the tide was to stop time.
Selene drew a slow breath, steady and controlled.
"Do we wait for the Cathedral to surface on its own?" she asked.
Corin shook his head. "It already has. Just not for everyone."
He stepped forward.
The ocean moved.
Not with waves—not with splash or roll or tide—but as though the surface were a veil being drawn aside by an unseen hand. The water parted cleanly, dividing down the center and peeling backward.
Revealing a descending stone walkway.
Selene's breath hitched.
The path sloped downward into the ocean, disappearing into deepening blue shadow. The water remained parted on either side, held in place like walls of clear glass. Fish hovered motionless within it, eyes wide, bodies frozen mid-swim.
"It's not physics," Selene whispered.
"No." Corin's voice was soft. "It's memory."
She shivered.
He started down the path.
Selene followed.
They descended together into the silence of the sea.
The world above dimmed into a muted haze. The sunlight filtering through the parted walls of water formed shifting patterns, like pale constellations drifting across the stone below. Their footsteps echoed faintly, the only sound in the drowned quiet.
Halfway down, Selene spoke without looking at him.
"What did the Guild tell you about this place?"
"That it was abandoned after the last High Tide Cycle," Corin answered.
"That was over two hundred years ago."
"Yes."
"So how is it intact?"
Corin didn't respond.
Which meant he knew.
Which meant the answer was something the Guild had decided she wasn't supposed to know.
Selene's jaw tightened. But she kept walking.
The stone path ended in a wide landing, and there before them stood the Cathedral.
It rose from the ocean floor like a memory carved into the world—a vast, pale structure of smooth limestone towers and arching buttresses. Stained glass windows shimmered faintly from within, casting soft colors onto the still water surrounding it.
No algae. No barnacles. No erosion.
As if the sea did not touch it.
As if the sea respected it.
Selene felt awe coil with fear in her throat.
"Corin," she said quietly. "This place isn't submerged."
"No," he agreed. "The sea is only pretending it is."
The bell tolled.
One deep, resonant note vibrating up through the stone beneath their feet, through their bones, through the air that should not have carried sound here.
Selene's pulse skipped.
"That was inside," she whispered.
Corin nodded once. "It knows we're here."
They approached the Cathedral's entrance—two massive stone doors carved with a single sigil: a circle, open at one edge, as if turning in on itself.
Corin lifted his hand and pressed his palm to the stone.
The doors opened without force.
Not outward. Not inward.
They unfolded like something waking up.
Cold air swept past them—dry, clean, smelling faintly of candle smoke and salt. Selene stepped forward.
She crossed the threshold.
The Cathedral breathed.
The interior of the Cathedral was beautiful in a way that made Selene's breath halt in her chest.
Light filtered down from high arched windows made of stained glass, shifting in colors she could not name — soft auroras of violet-gold and green-blue that felt like the memory of moonlight over snow. The air was still, but not stale. It smelled faintly of incense, old prayers, and something warm — like sun on parchment.
The pews sat in perfect rows, unbroken, unrotted, untouched by salt or time. Every candle sconce was filled with wax that had melted and hardened in smooth, quiet drips — as though someone had lit them yesterday.
A soft hush filled the space.
Not silence.
Hush.
Like the air itself was holding a hymn in its lungs.
Selene stepped forward slowly, as if anything louder than thought might shatter the stillness. Her boots made no sound on the stone floor. The Cathedral absorbed it — lovingly, almost reverently.
"It's… beautiful," she whispered.
Corin didn't answer. His eyes weren't on the windows, or the architecture, or the altar.
He was watching the shadows.
Selene closed her eyes for a heartbeat and let the space settle around her. For a moment, she felt something she had not felt in months —
Peace.
But peace that did not belong to her.
She opened her eyes again.
No altar stood at the far end of the cathedral. Instead, there was only a raised platform upon which sat a bowl of still water, wide and shallow and carved into a single piece of smooth, pale stone.
The water inside it was perfectly calm.
Too calm.
Like the ocean outside.
Selene approached it slowly.
Corin stayed one step behind her — always close, never in the way.
She leaned just slightly over the bowl and looked into the water.
Her reflection stared back.
At first.
Then the reflection blinked.
Selene did not.
Her pulse stopped.
The reflection smiled.
A slow, knowing smile — not mocking, but familiar. Intimate. As though the reflection knew something about her that she herself had forgotten.
Selene stepped back so sharply she nearly lost balance.
Corin caught her sleeve.
"Don't look directly into the basin," he said.
"You knew," she whispered.
"Yes."
"You didn't warn me."
"You wouldn't have believed me."
Selene swallowed hard.
"What is this place, Corin?"
He finally looked at her. Truly looked. His expression was not cold — only unbearably honest.
"A memory," he said softly. "But not ours."
The bell tolled again.
Not loud. Not thunderous.
Soft.
Like a call from the bottom of a dream.
Selene's eyes lifted slowly to the stained glass windows above.
Their colors shifted — not light, not refraction — movement.
Shapes formed.
Figures.
Faces.
Their eyes were closed.
Every single face in the stained glass had been carved with eyes shut tight.
As if they were praying. Or as if they were trying not to see.
The Cathedral felt sacred. But sacred in the way a grave is sacred.
Holiness built to contain something.
Selene's breath trembled.
"Corin," she murmured, "what happened to the people who built this place?"
Corin looked up at the stained glass the same moment she did.
"They opened their eyes," he said.
A soft sound echoed from deeper in the Cathedral.
Not footsteps. Not movement.
Breathing.
Slow. Steady. Human.
Selene froze.
Corin's hand moved — not to weapon, not to defense — but to still her, fingers brushing her wrist.
She didn't look at him. Her voice was barely audible.
"Someone is here."
"No," Corin said softly.
His eyes were on the darkened corridor beyond the central hall.
"Not someone."
The breathing grew louder.
A shape stepped into the stained glass light.
Tall. Human-shaped. Draped in robes the color of deep water.
A hood obscured its face.
But its hands—
Its hands were folded in prayer.
Selene's throat closed.
Corin spoke — quiet, sure, steady:
"Do not address it. Do not answer it. And do not ask it questions."
The figure lifted its head.
The hood fell back.
There was no face.
Only smooth, pale surface.
But something beneath the skin moved, like thoughts pressing upward.
Selene's heart hammered.
The faceless priest raised its hand — slow, gentle — as though offering blessing.
Selene felt her knees weaken.
"It's beautiful," she whispered before she realized she had spoken.
Corin grabbed her arm — hard enough to hurt.
"Selene," he said sharply. "Look at me."
She did.
The Cathedral breathed in.
And the faceless figure spoke.
Its voice was not sound.
It was memory.
"You have been here before."
Selene's vision blurred.
Her heart knew the voice.
But she had never heard it.
Ever.
Had she?
Her breath trembled.
"I haven't," she whispered.
The figure tilted its head.
"Not yet."
For a moment, Selene could not breathe.
The Cathedral blurred, smeared into streaks of color and shadow, and something inside her mind shuddered, like a lock turning inside bone. She saw—no, remembered—
Salt wind. Footsteps on stone. Her own hands pushing these same doors open.
Not now. Not today. Not in this lifetime.
Memory crashed over her like a wave breaking stone.
Her vision snapped back.
The Cathedral was still there. The air was still cold.The faceless priest still stood before them.
But something had changed.
Selene pressed a hand to her sternum, feeling her own pulse—too fast, too high, too alive.
Deja vu. Not vague. Not fleeting.
Detailed. Certain. Lived.
Her knees trembled.
But she did not fall.
Her mind moved—quick, sharp, trained.
This is a triggered memory event. Not hallucination — recall without origin. Which means:
The Cathedral is interacting with perception.
The memory is not hers.
The memory is inside the place itself.
She inhaled through her nose. Slow. Controlled. Present.
Corin's hand remained tight on her arm, grounding her to the moment. Not restraining. Keeping her here.
She didn't look at him. She didn't need to.
Instead, she forced her gaze back to the figure.
Slow. Careful. Defiant.
Her voice came out low, steady, almost clinical:
"You're not showing me my past. You're showing me yours."
The faceless figure's head tilted—barely perceptible—but the air in the Cathedral changed. Not colder. Deeper.
Like the building itself had leaned closer.
Corin's hand tightened slightly — warning.
The figure's chest lifted as though it breathed.
"Memory is not ownership," the voice said. The voice made of remembering."Memory is witness."
Selene's skin prickled.
She took another breath — slow, precise.
"What are you?" she asked.
Corin moved instantly — stepping between her and the figure.
"No," he said sharply. "Do not ask it—"
But the figure answered.
"We are what remains of those who saw the God Beneath."
The Cathedral did not echo.
It listened.
Selene's heart slammed against her ribs.
Corin's jaw clenched.
"That's enough," he said, taking her by the elbow. "We're leaving."
But Selene didn't move.
Not because she wanted to stay.
Because she realized something.
The figure wasn't approaching.
The figure wasn't threatening.
The figure wasn't trying to keep them here.
The figure was waiting.
Waiting for her.
Her eyes burned. Her throat tightened. Something in her chest felt like it was turning over, like a heavy wheel restarting after centuries.
She forced air into her lungs.
"Corin," she whispered.
He heard everything inside that whisper.
His voice, low and steady: "I know."
The figure's faceless head bowed in something like reverence — or mourning.
"You walked these halls before the forgetting."
Selene's pulse stopped.
Her mouth opened.
But no sound came out.
Corin took her hand.
Not to calm her. Not to comfort her.
To anchor her in the version of herself that existed right now.
"Do not remember anything that is not yours," he murmured.
The faceless priest lowered its arms slowly, reverently, like one offering prayer.
"All memory returns," it said softly. "When the tide does."
The Cathedral breathed again.
And the bell tolled.
Deep, slow, final.
Selene felt something inside her mind answer.
Like a door had just unlocked.
Inside her.
The Cathedral fell silent again.
Not peace. Not rest.
A silence like the one between heartbeat and heartbeat —that thin, bright edge where something might start or something might end.
Selene stood very still.
Corin was still holding her hand.
Her fingers were cold.
Not from the ocean. Not from fear.
From the sudden sense of distance — like her body was standing in the Cathedral, but her mind was a half-step behind, watching through glass.
She blinked.
And the world—changed.
For the smallest fraction of a second — a shutter-flash of vision — she was not herself.
She was standing in the Cathedral—but it was full of light.
Candles burned in rows along the pews.Voices were singing.The air shimmered with gold dust and incense.
And she was wearing white.
White robes.White sleeves.White ribbon bound around her wrist.
Her hair was longer.Her hands were steady.
Someone stood beside her—a figure in deep blue priest's robes—face blurred by memory, not by lack of feature.
She turned toward him—
Selene inhaled sharply.
The vision vanished.
The Cathedral was empty again.
Cold again.Silent again.
But her heart was still beating like she had just run up a mountain.
Corin did not ask what she saw.
He didn't need to.
He recognized the look — the glazed, dislocated focus of a mind seeing what no one taught it.
"Selene," he said quietly, "look at me."
She tried.
She did.
Her focus took too long to return.
Her voice came out frayed:
"I was here."
Corin didn't look surprised.
That hurt more than the memory.
"How long have you known?" Her voice broke on the last word.
He didn't look away.
"Since the first day I met you."
The words struck like icewater.
Selene stepped back — but Corin didn't move to follow.
He knew she needed space.
She pressed a hand to her jaw, to her forehead, grounding herself by touch.
"You could have told me."
"I couldn't." Corin's voice was steady — but not unfeeling. "If I told you, you would have searched for the memory. That is exactly what the Cathedral wants."
Selene swallowed hard.
Her voice was small.Not weak.Just very human.
"I don't understand what I'm remembering."
Corin's gaze softened by a degree so slight anyone else would have missed it.
"You're remembering a version of yourself who lived before the Guild erased the record of this place."
Selene's stomach dropped.
"You mean the Guild hid it."
Corin didn't nod. Didn't speak.
Which meant:
Yes.
The faceless priest had not moved.
But something in the Cathedral was watching them now.
Not eyes.Not intelligence.
Attention.
Selene felt it — a subtle pull, like a tide beginning to turn.
Corin stepped slightly in front of her — not protective, but anchoring, placing himself as the fixed point by which she could measure reality.
"We leave," he said quietly.
Selene looked at him.Then at the Cathedral.
Her pulse throbbed in her temples.
"No," she whispered.
Corin went still.
Selene lifted her chin — slow, deliberate — the way a scholar prepares to state a thesis that may ruin careers and rewrite history.
"I am not running from a memory that belongs to me."
Corin's expression did not change.
But the silence around them did.
A soft pressure built behind Selene's eyes — like someone was gently pressing their thumb against her mind.
Remember.
The whisper did not come from the priest.
It came from inside.
Selene squeezed her eyes shut—and the world shifted again.
FLASH
This time, she was sitting at a long wooden table, quill in hand.Books lay open around her.She was writing—in a language she did not know.
Corin—but not Corin—stood across the table, younger, unscarred, without the spiral mark.
He was smiling.
Her chest ached with the certainty of it.
She loved him.
Not now.Not here.
Then.
Someone walked past them.A priest with a face.A face Selene recognized but could not name.
She turned pages—fast, precise—as though searching for something.
She found it—
A symbol.
The same spiraling mark now carved into the door of the Cathedral.
Her hand hovered over it.
She whispered—
Not the language of the Guild.Not the language of scholars.
A word from a place beneath language.
"Othriel."
Selene gasped.
Reality snapped back.
Her palm was pressed to the basin's stone edge.
She didn't remember moving.
Corin caught her wrist instantly, pulling her back, voice low and sharp:
"Do not speak anything you remember from inside the visions."
Selene's breath trembled.
She had not spoken the word aloud—
But she had almost.
The faceless priest lowered its head, as though disappointed.Or reverent.Or grieving.
Selene's pulse hammered.
She whispered:
"Corin… I think I was a priest here."
Corin shook his head.
"No. Not a priest."
He looked at her—
And for the first time, his voice was not steady.
"You were the one they were praying to."
The Cathedral did not move.But Selene felt it waiting.
Waiting for her to accept something she did not want to acknowledge.
Corin's words hung in the cold air:
"You were the one they were praying to."
Selene's breath shook.
"No," she said.
Soft.Almost calm.Too calm.
Corin didn't push.
He didn't need to.
The denial was already cracking.
Selene swallowed, her throat tight as rope.
"You're wrong," she said.Her voice was steady now.Controlled.Measured.The voice of someone who has decided that if she does not control her breathing, she will break.
Corin watched her carefully.
"Am I?"
Selene's jaw locked.
Her pulse was uneven, as though her heart could not decide whether to flee or remember.
The silence did something subtle then—the Cathedral exhaled.
Not wind.Not breath.
Memory.
The candles on the basin rippled—though there was no flame.
The faceless priest bowed its head.Not to Corin.Not to the Cathedral.
To Selene.
She couldn't look at it.
Her voice came thin:
"That's not real. It's a hallucination. Memory artifacts. The mind tries to fill gaps with— with familiarity. With story logic. This is just— just displacement. Trauma echo. Pattern recognition gone wrong."
Corin's expression didn't change—
But something in his gaze softened.
"Selene," he said quietly, "you are explaining this like a scholar because if you stop explaining, you will feel it."
That was when her throat closed.
Not from fear.
From recognition.
Her hand had begun to tremble.
She hid it behind her coat.
"It doesn't matter what I feel," Selene forced out. "Feelings aren't evidence."
"No," Corin said. "But memory is."
She shook her head once. Sharp. Like cutting.
"I am not—"Her voice cracked. She swallowed the break down. Start again.
"I am not something holy."
The faceless priest bowed again.
Selene flinched.
Corin took one slow step closer. Not touching. Not crowding.Just present.
"You think divinity is holiness?" he asked.
Selene's gaze snapped to him. Her eyes—wide, bright, frightened.
"What else would it be?"
Corin looked at her the way one looks at a door that is almost open but not yet safe to push.
"Something ancient," he said. "Something seen before names existed. Something that remembers the weight of oceans before there was water."
Selene went very still.
The fear inside her did not scream.
It sat.
Cold.Heavy. Settling into place.
Because she recognized the description. Not with knowledge. With memory.
A memory older than language.
Her voice was barely audible.
"I don't want this."
Corin exhaled.
Not relief. Not frustration.
Something sad.
"I know."
The Cathedral hummed then. Very faint. Like the sound a stone makes in deep pressure, far beneath the waves.
Selene felt it in her bones.
The priest moved.
Just one step forward.
Selene stepped back.
Her back hit stone.
There was no more space to retreat.
Her breath stuttered.
Soft. No panic. Just pure, clean terror.
"Corin," she whispered. Not calling for protection. Just needing to say something real.
He stepped beside her—not shielding, just standing with.
A steady presence.
As if to say: You are not alone in the remembering.
Selene closed her eyes.
Just for a moment.
And in the dark behind her eyelids—
She saw:
The Cathedral full of worshipers. The golden candles. The white robes.Her own hands lifting a chalice that held the sea.
And she heard her own voice say:
We do not worship the deep. We return to it. We were made from pressure.
She gasped—
Eyes snapping open—
The vision gone.
But the meaning not.
Selene whispered:
"…I don't want to remember who I was."
Corin's answer was soft.
"You don't have to want it."
The Cathedral answered for him.
You already are.
The Cathedral had fallen still again. Selene was trying not to look at the faceless priest. Corin was watching the doors.
Something in the air had changed.
A pressure — faint, rhythmic — not from within the Cathedral this time, but from outside. Footsteps. Measured. Metallic. Boots on stone. The cadence of the Guild.
Selene's stomach turned cold.
Corin's hand dropped to the knife at his belt. Not drawn, but ready.
The doors at the far end of the nave groaned open, spilling thin, grey light into the drowned sanctuary. Three figures entered — cloaked, masked, the Guild's seal stitched over their hearts. The Investigators.
Selene's breath locked.
One of them carried a sealed iron cylinder — the kind used to contain dangerous relics. The Guild did not bring such containment vessels unless they expected to find something alive.
The lead investigator stepped forward, pulling off his mask. His face was pale, sharp, too clean for this place.
"Corin Vale," he said flatly. "By order of the Guildmaster, you are to surrender the artifact and the subject of interest."
Selene's pulse jumped. Corin didn't move.
"I don't have an artifact," he said evenly.
The man's gaze flicked past him to Selene. "Then perhaps you misunderstand what the Guild now classifies as an artifact."
Selene's chest constricted. Her voice came out raw: "You mean me."
The investigator didn't answer. He didn't need to.
Behind her, the faceless priest tilted its head, as though curious about this intrusion. The Cathedral's air began to hum again — faint, electric, warning.
Corin stepped forward once, his tone ice-calm. "You shouldn't have come here."
The investigator smiled thinly. "On the contrary, we're precisely where we need to be. The Deep Memory Site has reactivated, and the Guild intends to contain whatever caused it."
Selene flinched.
Contain. That word had weight.It meant imprisonment. Dissection. Erasure.
She opened her mouth to speak—And the world fractured.
The sound of the investigator's voice twisted mid-sentence, turning metallic, stretched — as though time itself had bent. The Cathedral blurred again.
Selene wasn't standing anymore.She was kneeling.
Stone floor under her palms, smooth from centuries of touch.The nave was full of robed figures. Voices chanting.The same Guild sigil, but older, carved in red wax instead of gold.
She was watching him again — the man in blue robes. The one she loved, or would, or had. He was arguing with another priest.
"She cannot be bound," he said. "The sea does not serve its cage."
The other priest's voice was quiet, terrified. "If we don't bind her, she will remember. And if she remembers—"
He didn't finish.
Selene turned, and her eyes met her own reflection in a silver basin filled with seawater.
But it wasn't her current face. It was the same, yet ageless — calmer, crueler, luminous with something that wasn't human.
A whisper rippled across the vision:
The Guild was born from your silence.
The vision shattered.
Selene staggered backward. Corin caught her before she fell. The investigators froze — they'd seen it too, the flicker of light, the impossible resonance in the air.
"What did she just do?" one of them hissed.
Corin didn't answer.
Selene's hands were shaking. Her voice barely existed.
"They... bound me."
Corin looked at her sharply."Who did?"
She looked past him to the Guild agents, to the sigil over their hearts. Her voice came out like breaking glass.
"Them."
The air in the Cathedral convulsed.
The investigators reached for their weapons. The faceless priest stepped forward.
Not fast. Not violent. Just—inevitable.
Stone cracked beneath its feet.
Corin moved between Selene and the agents, hand on his blade.But Selene barely saw him. Her mind was full of sound — bells, ocean, screams, chanting — overlapping until meaning itself dissolved.
And beneath it all: Her own voice, ancient and cold, whispering from inside her skull.
You were never their student, Selene. You were their experiment. Their god that forgot she was a god.
The air in the Cathedral tightened.
The investigators froze as the faceless priest moved—no haste, no anger, only purpose, as though the scene unfolding had already been decided centuries ago.
Corin stepped forward, blade now drawn.
Selene barely noticed.
Her mind was a whirl of memory and present, layered like two pages stuck together — impossible to separate without tearing.
The lead investigator raised his hands slowly, palms open.
"Stop," he said—not to Corin. To Selene.
The silence that followed was so deep that Selene felt her heartbeat echo inside her teeth.
The investigator swallowed — fear visible now, sharp and thin.
"You don't remember your first death," he said.
Selene's breath caught.
Corin's grip on his blade tightened.
"Don't," he said low, dangerous.
The investigator took one single step closer — respectful, terrified, reverent.
"You died inside this Cathedral."
Selene's vision wavered. The world tilted. Memory pressed like a wave—
Corin moved to step between them—
The investigator spoke faster, desperate to get the words out before Corin silenced him:
"You offered yourself to seal the Deep. To hold back what sleeps beneath the stone. The Guild didn't bind you out of greed — we bound you because the sea was going to take everything."
The faceless priest stopped moving.
The Cathedral listened.
Selene's voice came out quiet, almost polite:
"You killed me to save the world."
The investigator shook his head violently. "No. No. You asked us to. You begged us to. You said if you remembered what you were—"His voice broke."—the ocean itself would remember too."
The basin behind Selene vibrated — water trembling like a struck bell.
Corin's voice was low and furious:
"You think telling her will help you walk out of here alive?"
The investigator barely looked at him.
His eyes were on Selene. Only Selene.
"You died praying no one would ever speak your name again."
The Cathedral answered.
Every candle in the nave flared with light that had no flame.
The air shuddered with low, resonant sound — not music, not chant, not voice.
Pressure.
Deep-sea pressure.
The kind that crushes bones and thoughts and memory and time.
The faceless priest raised its head — and faces began to form across its surface, like thousands of people trying to remember themselves at once.
The investigators panicked.
One reached for a weapon. One reached for a relic seal. One began to run.
None of them made it.
The Cathedral moved.
Not walls. Not doors.
Gravity.
The space folded downward — subtly, impossibly — and the investigators were pulled to the floor, pressed flat, unable to breathe or speak or scream.
Corin grabbed Selene's arm, anchoring her before the force could drag her with them.
"Selene—look at me."
She couldn't.
Her eyes were locked on the faceless priest.
Because it was no longer faceless.
It was her face.
Not now-Selene.
Then-Selene.
Ancient-Selene.
A face with eyes like the deep ocean trench, where no sun has ever been.
She felt her throat move. Words pushing up from memory. Language older than air.
Corin's hand closed around her jaw, forcing her eyes to his.
"Selene. Don't speak. Don't answer it."
Her lips were already parting.
The Cathedral leaned closer.
We remember you.
The stone under Selene's feet rippled.
Corin made a decision before she did.
"Run."
He pulled her—Not away from the Cathedral—But deeper into it.
Because retreating to the entrance meant facing the sea again. And the sea was listening.
The investigator still pinned to the floor gasped, forcing one final sentence through the crushing pressure:
"If she remembers the name, the ocean will wake—"
The Cathedral crushed his voice into silence.
They ran.
Not heroically. Not cleanly.
Stumbling over ancient stone, chased by echoes and footsteps that did not belong to them.
The corridors twisted, shifting—architecture responding to Selene's presence like a creature scenting blood.
Corin pulled her into a narrow stairwell, slamming the gate behind them.
They landed hard against the wall, both breathing ragged.
Selene clutched her chest, swallowing her heartbeat.
"I— I saw myself," she gasped. "Not in visions. In the priest. I was— I was—"
Corin grabbed her shoulders, grounding her with touch.
"You are Selene," he said, voice steady, absolute. "The past version of you is dead."
Her voice broke on a whisper:
"What if she's not?"
Corin didn't answer.
Not because he had no answer.
But because the Cathedral was answering for him.
The stone staircase beneath them began to sing.
Low. Deep. Calling.
Not words.
A name.
Selene's name.
Not the name she uses now.
The name she died wearing.
The name that could wake the ocean.
Selene pressed her hands over her ears—but the sound was inside.
Corin whispered sharply:
"Don't remember it. Don't remember it. Don't—"
But she already did.
The name was there.
Waiting.
Like a hand on the inside of a locked door.
The name was there. Pressed behind her teeth. Behind her thoughts. Behind her heartbeat.
But Selene held it back.
Her jaw clenched so tightly her teeth hurt. She was shaking — but she did not break.
Corin's hand was still on her shoulder, grounding her, holding her here, in this moment, in this body.
"Stay with me," he said, voice low, steady, fighting to keep her anchored to Selene and not to the echo beneath the ocean.
The Cathedral continued to sing through the stone — a deep pressure-hum that felt like sinking.
The name pulsed inside her skull.
She swallowed it.
"I won't say it," she whispered.
Corin closed his eyes for a moment.
Relief. Pain. Pride.
"You don't have to," he said. "You're stronger than—"
A voice interrupted him.
Not Selene's. Not Corin's.Not the Cathedral's.
It came from behind them.
From the stairwell.
From someone who wasn't dead.
The third Guild investigator.
The quiet one. The one who hadn't spoken once. The one who hadn't reached for a weapon.
He was kneeling on the steps—head bowed—blood running from his nose and ears—but still conscious.
Still watching.
And he whispered the name.
Selene's name.
Her first name. Her deep name. Her ocean name.
Not Selene.
"Othriel."
The sound was soft.
Barely breath.
But the world changed.
The Cathedral breathed in.
The air pulled downward, like the entire nave had become a lung filling with tidewater.
The stone shook — not violently, but with the slow, unstoppable force of tectonic shift.
The walls rippled like something alive.
Corin pulled Selene backward, deeper into the stairwell, shielding her with his body as dust rained from the ceiling.
But it was not collapse.
It was awakening.
Every candle in the Cathedral guttered out in unison.
Darkness. Then light — soft, blue, deep ocean light — blooming from the basin.
The water rose, slowly, impossibly, forming a human silhouette standing above the stone floor.
Not a ghost. Not memory.
Something real.
Something heavy.
Something old.
Selene's knees gave out.
Corin held her up.
The investigator on the stairs was crying now — sobbing as though the sound had broken something inside him.
"She remembers—" he choked, voice shaking. "It remembers her—"
Corin stepped forward sharply.
"How do you know that name?"
The investigator's lips trembled.
"We— we were taught it," he whispered. "Not to speak it. Never to speak it. But to recognize it. To know who to fear."
Selene's chest felt too small for her lungs.
"You were trained to fear me."
The investigator nodded, tears streaking down his face.
"You weren't a saint," he said. "You weren't worshiped. You were contained."
The figure of water stepped fully from the basin.
It did not walk.
It fell forward, like a wave folding on itself — and then rose into shape once more.
No face. No eyes.
But it looked at Selene.
Selene pressed a hand to her sternum.
Her chest ached. Her ribs felt too tight.
Something inside her recognized it — not as self, but as reflection.
Corin tightened his grip on her.
"Don't answer it," he said. "If you acknowledge it, you'll remember everything."
The water figure raised its hand—
Corin moved—fast—but this was not an attack.
The water did not strike.
It touched Selene's forehead with two fingers.
The contact was gentle.
And Selene remembered dying.
It came back in one single, terrible instant.
The ocean above her. The weight of miles of water. Her lungs filling with salt.Her arms outstretched like a crucifix of coral and bone. The Cathedral bells ringing underwater. Corin—not Corin—someone who looked like him holding her as she drowned herself to seal the Deep.
The pain was infinite. Not physical.
Memory pain.
Pain of knowing.
Pain of returning.
Selene screamed .Not loud. Not violent.
A quiet, broken sound.
Corin caught her as her knees gave out again. Held her to his chest. His voice shaking despite his control:
"Stay with me. Stay— Selene— stay."
Her voice was a whisper scraped raw:
"I don't want to be Othriel."
Corin's grip tightened.
"You aren't."
The water figure spoke — but not with voice.
With pressure.
With depth.
With tide.
You cannot choose what you were.
Selene lifted her head.
Her voice was small.
"But I can choose what I am now."
The Cathedral paused.
Like it was considering that.
The investigator on the stairs sobbed once more.
Corin held Selene's hand.
Her breathing steadied.
And for the first time in the entire Cathedral—
Selene's heartbeat was louder than the sea.
The water figure moved again.
Not violent. Not rushed.
Just inevitable.
Like the tide returning to shore.
It reached toward Selene — not to strike, not to take shape — but to enter, to fold into her chest like a returning piece of a broken statue.
Corin felt the movement before Selene did.
He stepped between them, sword drawn in a single smooth motion. No warnings. No hesitation.
He drove the blade through the figure's torso.
The sword passed through harmlessly, the water closing around it without resistance.
Of course.
Water had no heart to pierce.
But the gesture mattered.
Corin's voice was low, steady, absolute:
"You do not touch her."
The Cathedral trembled.
Not with anger.
With recognition.
The water-being paused mid-motion, head tilting slightly. It recognized Corin — not as himself, but as the shadow of the one he had been.
The man who held Selene as she drowned.
The Cathedral remembered him too.
Selene's breath trembled — not in fear, but in something dangerously close to grief.
She stepped out from behind Corin.
"Don't shield me," she whispered. Her voice shook — but not from fragility. From pressure.
Corin didn't move.
But his grip on the sword tightened.
Selene reached out — slowly — and placed her hand on the water-being's chest.
The moment her skin touched it—
The merge began.
Water surged through her hand, up her arm, into her lungs, her bones, her blood. The Cathedral sang louder — louder — louder — like a storm tide crashing inside her skull.
Her thoughts distorted.
Languages layered over each other.
Voices spoke in the drowned depths of memory.
Welcome home. We have waited. We remember you. We are you.
Selene's back arched.
Her eyes rolled white.
She gasped — choking on water that wasn't water.
Corin caught her shoulders — grounding her again — pulling her back from the collapse she had drowned into once before.
"Selene— Selene— look at me—"
His voice didn't reach her.
She was underwater again.
Miles below the surface. No light. No up. No down. Only pressure.
Say the name, the tide whispered. Say the name and return.
Selene almost did.
Her mouth opened—
But this time—she stopped herself.
She remembered the pain of drowning. She remembered the bells. She remembered the coral cross. She remembered choosing death to save the world.
She remembered the cost.
She refused to pay it again.
Her voice came out as a whisper — hoarse, halting, but hers:
"I am Selene."
The water-pressure reeled. The tide hesitated.
Selene pushed harder — voice strengthening, grounding itself in breath, bone, heartbeat:
"I am Selene," she repeated. "And I am Othriel," she continued — by choice and not surrender. "But I am not your vessel."
The Cathedral stilled.
The water-being froze.
Corin exhaled shakily — not relief, but awe.
Selene raised her chin.
And spoke to the Cathedral like a Queen returned to her throne.
"You will not take my body," she said, voice steadying into something ancient. "You will listen."
The Cathedral answered.
Not with sound—but with silence like the deep.
The kind of silence that bends the world around it.
Selene did not flinch.
She spoke again, stronger:
"Bring me to the lowest chamber. The one sealed by my death."
A low groan rumbled through the stone.
The water-being bowed.
Bowed.
To her.
Corin stared — stunned — because nothing about Selene in this moment was fragile or lost.
She stood like someone who had once commanded storms.
The Cathedral opened.
A door of stone that had no seams — no hinges — no handle — shifted and slid aside, revealing a corridor of black coral rib-bones descending into the earth.
Selene turned to Corin.
Her eyes were still human. Tired. Afraid. Determined.
"Come with me," she whispered.
Corin didn't speak.
He simply stepped beside her.
And together —hand in hand —they descended.
The corridor spiraled downward.
Not carved. Not built.
Grown.
Black coral curved along the walls like the ribs of a giant creature long dead. Some pieces pulsed faintly, bioluminescent veins glowing with a deep ocean blue.
The air grew heavier.
Not thicker.
Older.
As though every breath carried sediment — memories crushed into dust.
Selene's footsteps were steady, though her legs trembled beneath the certainty of her movements. Corin walked at her side, silent. He did not ask where they were going.
He knew she did not know.
She only remembered the path.
They reached the final stair.
It led into a chamber so vast the ceiling vanished into dark. The temperature dropped — cold like deep ocean trenches, where light has never existed.
Then they saw it.
The Gate.
A structure of stone and bone and coral, towering at least four stories high. It did not open. It breathed.
Its surface rose and fell slightly, like a creature sleeping under its own weight.
Not carved.
Grown.
From the Cathedral. From the ocean. From Selene.
Corin's hand moved to his sword—but he didn't draw it.
Drawing steel felt too small here.
Selene stepped closer.
Her expression was not awe. Not reverence.
Recognition. And fear.
Soft, quiet fear.
The fear of remembering what she once did.
"What is behind it?" Corin asked.
Selene didn't answer at first.
Her eyes traced the living coral sinews, the runes etched like tidal scars, the places where hands had once rested in devotion.
And then she spoke.
Not to Corin.
To the Gate.
"…The Depthless One."
The air shifted.
Not a response. A stirring.
Corin's voice was low, harsh: "Selene. Look at me."
She did.
"What is the Depthless One?" he asked.
Selene's throat worked. Her answer was barely audible.
"The first thing the ocean forgot."
Corin stared at her.
"What does that mean?"
Selene exhaled slowly.
"When the world was new, the seas were deeper. Bottomless. Without floor, without heat, without shape. The ocean was consciousness—endless, unbound—alive."
She paused.
"And then the world hardened. Coral grew. Earth rose. The sea gained limits."
Her hand trembled.
"And what had no limits… was forced beneath them."
Corin's face changed.
"You sealed an ocean god."
Selene didn't breathe.
"I drowned it," she said.
Silence.
Not stillness — gravity.
Corin's voice was rough:
"Alone?"
Selene shook her head.
"No. The Guild helped. They built the memory-cages. The rituals. The drowning choruses. I wasn't a goddess to them. I was a weapon."
Corin's expression darkened — with a slow, cold rage.
He stepped closer.
"They made you kill something that should not have been killable."
Selene's eyes lifted to the Gate.
"I didn't kill it," she whispered.
The Gate shivered.
Like something behind it was listening.
"I changed it," Selene said. "Locked its form into something the world could forget. Something that could not wake unless I returned."
Corin went still.
"Selene— you coming back here—"
"Yes," she said quietly. "It is waking."
The Gate exhaled — a long, slow movement of massive weight.
The floor rippled like something beneath it had turned over in its sleep.
Corin stepped slightly in front of her.
Not to protect her.
To protect the world from what she might have to become.
"Can it break through?" he asked.
Selene closed her eyes.
"If I open the Gate— yes."
"And if you don't?"
Her eyes opened again.
Liquid.Glassed. Afraid.
"It will awaken anyway. Because it remembers me."
The Gate pulsed.
Once.
And a voice spoke from the other side.
Not in sound. In pressure.
A voice like trenches collapsing. A voice like the crushing weight of water that has never seen light.
Othriel.
Selene staggered—Corin caught her arm.
The voice came again:
You return to us incomplete.
Selene's breath fractured.
The Cathedral walls groaned under the strain.
Corin tightened his hold on her.
"You do not answer it," he whispered fiercely.
But Selene was no longer looking at the Gate.
She was looking at her own hands.
And remembering the moment she chose to drown a god.
Her voice broke like something inside her chest came loose.
"I am not Othriel anymore."
The Gate responded:
You are what the deep remembers.
The ground shook.
Stone cracked.
Seawater seeped from the coral veins.
Corin drew his sword.
This time, not against the water-being.
Not against Selene.
But against the Gate itself.
Selene reached for his wrist.
Her voice came from terror and certainty fused into steel.
"Don't—"
Corin froze.
Selene looked at him, and for the first time, she did not look scared.
She looked like the one who once commanded oceans.
"If you break the seal," she whispered, "The Depthless One will not wake."
Corin frowned—
And then his expression slowly changed.
Realizing what she meant.
"If I break the seal," he said slowly, "instead of you—"
Selene nodded.
"It will wake to you. Not me."
A silence that felt like death settled between them.
Corin lowered the sword.
And for the first time since entering the Cathedral—
Selene took his hand.
Not for comfort.
But for anchor.
She faced the Gate.
Her voice steady.
"We're not opening it."
The Gate trembled.
The world held its breath.
And something ancient — awake now — began to rise.
The Gate did not open.
It breathed.
Slowly. Deeply. Like something enormous turning in its sleep.
Selene felt the pressure of it — the weight of the ocean pressing inward. But the voice did not speak to her again.
It spoke to Corin.
A whisper so faint it could have been imagined.
You have drowned once before.
Corin stiffened.
His hand tightened around Selene's.
She felt the change — the tension, the cold — but she did not yet know the words he heard.
You remember the dark water.
The lungs filled.
The silence.
Corin's breath hitched.
His eyes stayed forward, locked on the Gate, but his pulse spiked.
"Corin?" Selene whispered.
He did not answer.
The voice slid deeper — beneath thought, beneath language — into the place where fear lives before words exist.
You remember her death.
Corin's jaw clenched so hard the muscles tremored.
Selene touched his arm, trying to bring him back into the present.
"Corin. Look at me."
He did — but his eyes were wrong. Not unfocused. Focusing somewhere else. Somewhere old.
He was seeing the moment she drowned.
Not this Selene. The first one.
The water. The bells. Her hand slipping out of his.
You held her as she died.
Corin's throat closed.
He inhaled sharply — not air, but memory.
"No," he said — but the word cracked in the middle.
Selene's heart clenched.
"Corin—"
The Gate pulse-throbbed.
The voice pressed harder.
You failed her.
Corin staggered.
His hand tore from Selene's without meaning to.
He braced one hand on the coral wall, breath shaking uncontrollably.
Selene stepped toward him.
But the water-being — the faceless priest — moved, blocking her with silent inevitability.
Not attacking.
Just preventing.
Selene tensed — ready to command it aside—
—but Corin spoke first.
"It's showing me—" he rasped, voice strangled. "I'm seeing it— I'm seeing it like it's happening now—"
He blinked—
And for a heartbeat, his pupils dilated into depth.
Like a trench. Like a rift.
Selene's pulse spiked.
"No. No. Corin—look at me. Look at me. Not the memory."
He tried.
He failed.
The voice sank deeper.
You are not her anchor.
Corin's chest heaved. The world tilted.
The Cathedral lights flickered blue-black.
Selene grabbed his face in both hands — forceful, urgent — dragging his gaze to hers.
"You are my anchor," she said.
Not gentle.
Commanding.
Not Othriel.
Selene.
"You are the reason I came back," she said, voice hard as teeth. "You are the reason I am not the thing behind that Gate."
Corin's breath stuttered.
The voice surged:
She will drown again.
Something inside Corin snapped — but not in the way the Depthless One intended.
Not into despair.
Into rage.
He straightened slowly — breath still shaking — but his hands steady.
He looked at the Gate with a hunter's gaze.
Measured. Cold. Controlled.
And he spoke — not as a supplicant, not as prey — but as someone who has already been to the bottom and walked back out.
"Try me."
The Cathedral shuddered.
Not in anger.
In recognition.
Because Corin had drowned before.
And survived.
Selene's voice lowered:
"It wants you," she said."Because you were the one who pulled me under before."
Corin met her eyes.
"…I know," he said.
No denial. No flinching. Just truth.
The water-being stepped aside.
Selene took Corin's hand again.
This time, he held on first.
Together, they turned toward the Gate—
And the Gate opened its eye.
The Gate's eye opened.
Not like a lid lifting. Not like a creature waking.
Like a depth revealing itself.
Dark blue at first—then deeper—then deeper still—until the chamber seemed to tilt toward it, as though gravity recognized the ocean as the true center of weight.
Corin's hand tightened in Selene's.
The eye did not look at them.
It showed.
A vision erupted across the chamber like a tidal reflection cast across glass.
No prophecy.
No metaphor.
A future.
What Happens If the Gate Breaks
First came silence.
Not calm silence.
The silence of a world that has stopped breathing.
Cities stood still — frozen mid-motion. A dropped cup suspended in the air. Birds paused in flight. Waves suspended mid-crest.
Every living thing held still—
—as though time had bowed.
Then the silence broke.
With water.
Not rain. Not flood.
Water rose from the ground.
From wells.From pipes.From the cracks beneath cities. From the pores of the earth itself.
Water without source. Water without gravity. Water without end.
People ran.
They drowned standing up.
The Cathedral door shattered — stone exploding like sand under a tidal crush. Saltwater poured into every street, every valley, every home, every mouth.
But the horror was not the drowning.
It was the stillness.
No screams. No panic. Just bodies lifted and suspended in water that moved but did not ripple.
As though something was holding them upright.
Like puppets. Like prayers.
Then—
Something rose behind them.
A shape too large for the sky. A mass of water and shaping pressure, like the ocean given spine.
It had no face.
It needed none.
It was everything the sea remembersand everything the land has forgotten.
The Depthless One.
It did not roar. It did not proclaim.
It simply pressed downward—
—and the sky collapsed.
Not the clouds.
The sky.
The blue shattered like glass, peeling open to reveal black water behind it, as though the heavens themselves had been only a thin film over a deeper ocean.
The world did not end.
It returned.
Returned to water. Returned to before land. Returned to before memory.
Returned to Othriel.
And in that drowned world—
Selene stood on the surface of the water.
Not drowning.
Not breathing.
Standing.
Alone.
Her eyes were voids.
Her face expressionless.
She was not Selene. She was what the Gate wanted her to be.
Corin's voice cracked in the present.
"No—"
The vision continued.
Corin was there too.
At her side.
But not living.
Not breathing.
Kept.
Like an anchor tied to her throne.
Like a weight so she would never float away from herself again.
The Depthless One whispered to him:
You will stand beside her.
Forever.
Back in the Cathedral
The vision ended.
The world rushed back.
Sound returned. Breath returned. Color returned.
Corin staggered.
Selene caught him by the shoulders, gripping him hard enough to bruise.
His voice came out raw:
"I saw the world end."
Selene swallowed.
"So did I."
Corin looked at her then — not with fear of her. But fear for her.
"For that to happen," he said quietly, "you… you would have to break."
Selene didn't look away.
"I know."
The water-being bowed to her again — as though the Gate had shown not a warning—
—but a promise.
Selene's voice was steady. Burned clean of hesitation.
"We are not opening the Gate," she said.
Corin nodded.
"Then we need to stop whatever is waking it."
She turned toward him — eyes dark, fierce, alive.
"To do that," she said, "we need to find the Guild."
Corin's expression went razor-sharp.
"And kill them."
Selene didn't blink.
"Yes."
The ascent from the Cathedral was silent.
Not because there was no sound —but because the sound had changed.
The stone no longer groaned. The coral no longer whispered. The water-being no longer drifted without purpose.
Everything felt like it was waiting.
Selene felt it first — a faint heat under her skin. Like someone tracing a finger along the inside of her arm.
She rubbed it absentmindedly.
The heat grew.
Sharp.
Burning.
She hissed under her breath and stopped mid-step.
Corin turned immediately, hand going to her back—protective, grounded.
"What is it?"
Selene pulled back her sleeve.
The skin beneath glowed faintly — not ink, not scar, not rash —
A sigil.
Circular. Interlocking spiral lines. Fluid patterns, like waves collapsing into each other.
But it didn't look like ocean-language.
Corin's eyes darkened.
"That's Guild script."
Selene's breath caught.
"No—this is older."
She touched the mark.
It pulsed.
Not with heat—with awareness.
Corin's voice went low, grim:
"That's a hunter-mark. They used to brand summoned entities. It binds the target to a path. It means—"
"I can be found," Selene finished softly.
Corin's expression sharpened.
"They know you're alive."
Selene met his gaze.
"They always did."
A silence.
Thick as deep water.
The Cathedral corridor widened into the main hall. The faceless water-being drifted behind them.
Corin turned, sword half-lifted.
"Is it following us?"
Selene didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
The being stood still for the first time — like it was waiting for direction.
Selene hesitated.
In the Cathedral, it had served her.
But outside?
Outside, it would not be bound to memory.
It would be bound to debt.
Corin stepped forward, body angled between Selene and the being.
"What does it want?"
The water-being bowed its head.
It did not speak.
Not out loud.
Its voice came from inside the bones of the Cathedral:
It follows the one who drowned the deep.
Corin's hand tightened on his sword.
"Then it follows Selene."
But the being slowly turned its head.
To him.
Selene's breath halted.
"…no."
Corin looked back at Selene, confused.
The being bowed — lower this time.
The anchor is not the sea. The anchor is the hand that held it beneath.
Selene felt her pulse spike.
"It doesn't follow me," she whispered. "It follows you."
Corin stared at the being.
Then at the mark on Selene's arm.
And understanding landed like cold weight.
The Depthless One didn't want Selene alone.
It wanted the pair.
The drowned and the anchor. The tide and the weight.
Corin exhaled slowly, the realization settling deep and heavy.
"That means if we run—"
Selene finished:
"—it will follow us."
"And if the Guild comes for us—"
Corin's jaw locked.
"—it will slaughter them."
Selene looked at the being again.
Its faceless head tilted slightly, waiting.
Not for Selene's command.
For Corin's.
Because in the first drowning—he had chosen.
Selene whispered:
"You don't have to control it."
Corin shook his head, slow and certain.
"No. I do."
Selene stepped closer, voice low, steady:
"Corin. If you command it, you're taking responsibility for what it kills. For what it protects. For what it wakes."
Corin didn't look away.
"I know."
The mark on Selene's arm burned.
Somewhere above, distant but moving fast, bells rang.
Not Cathedral bells.
Guild bells.
War bells.
Coming here.
Selene and Corin exchanged a single look — full, loaded, unshaken.
Words were not required.
They turned toward the surface.
The water-being followed.
The first thing Selene felt when they stepped out of the Cathedral was wind.
Cold, dry, real.
The living world.
But the second thing she felt was wrongness.
The earth outside the Cathedral was not soil. Not anymore.
Bodies.
Hundreds.
Laid in precise rows.
Their skin pale and swollen, hair drifting in currents that were not there. Eyes open. Mouths open. Hands folded across their chests.
Like they had drowned peacefully.
Corin stopped moving.
He didn't speak.
Selene walked forward, slow, unbreathing.
The bodies were arranged like offering shelves—each one placed lovingly, ceremonially, reverently.
This was not slaughter.
This was ritual.
And these were not villagers.
Selene knelt beside one.
White robe. Guild insignia, water-worn.
Her voice came out thin:
"…these are Guild hunters."
Corin's expression went grim and still.
"How did they drown on dry land?"
Selene didn't answer.
She already knew.
The Cathedral wasn't waiting to wake the Depthless One.
It was already awakening.
The air shifted — a ripple through the grass.
Corin's hand went to his sword.
Selene stood slowly, the mark on her arm pulsating like a heartbeat.
From the treeline ahead—
Figures emerged.
Guild hunters.
Not dead.
Not ritual-offerings.
Alive. Armed. Prepared.
A full division — twenty, maybe more — fanning out in a half-circle.
White robes. Salt-steel spears. Mirror-polished masks that reflected the world in warped curves.
The lead hunter stepped forward.
His mask was not silver.
It was bone.
Decorated with tide lines.
Rank: Executioner-class.
He spoke first.
His voice was calm, measured, like someone presenting a medical observation:
"Selene Vale. Expedition Hunter. Former Guild Oracle. Designated: Disaster Vector."
Corin shifted forward — just slightly — enough to show that if a blade drew, it would be met.
Selene did not move.
She did not give them the satisfaction.
The Executioner continued:
"You were recorded drowned. Your ritual-death sealed. Your existence archived as completed."
Selene smiled.
Not kindly.
Not bitterly.
Cold.
"I got better."
The Executioner didn't laugh.
He didn't react at all.
"You were not meant to return," he said.
"I know," Selene answered.
"You were not permitted to return," he corrected.
Selene's eyes darkened.
"I know."
He lifted one hand — slow, deliberate.
The line of hunters lifted their weapons in unison.
"And you will not remain returned."
Corin's sword cleared its sheath in a single move.
But before steel met air—
The water-being stepped forward.
No sound.
No threat.
Just presence.
Every hunter froze.
Their masks turned toward the being.Their bodies reflexively stepped back.
Fear.
Not panic.
Trained fear.
The Executioner spoke — but now his voice had edges:
"You brought that into the world?"
Selene did not answer.
Because the answer was not simple.
Because the answer was yes and no and it was already here and it follows the anchor.
Instead she said:
"You killed your own for this ritual."
The Executioner tilted his head slightly.
"They drowned themselves willingly."
Selene's jaw tightened.
"Why?"
"So that we would arrive first."
Corin's grip on his sword went white-knuckle.
Selene's voice lowered:
"You were trying to stop the Gate from waking."
The Executioner finally reacted.
His head turned fully toward her.
"We are trying to stop you."
The water-being stepped forward again — just one pace.
The hunters flinched.
Not from fear of death.
From fear of being unmade.
The Executioner lifted a hand sharply.
"Do not take another step."
The being paused.
Not because it was commanded.
But because it was waiting.
Corin's jaw shifted.
His breath slow. Measured.
He understood now.
He spoke quietly — to Selene.
"It won't move unless I tell it to."
Selene's pulse stuttered.
The Executioner noticed that.
And smiled behind the bone mask.
"So the rumors were true," he said softly.
"The Anchor lives."
Corin didn't blink.
"You don't want to fight me."
The Executioner's voice warmed. Not kindly.
With religious joy.
"Oh, Corin. We have waited years to kill you."
Selene moved first.
Not fast.
Just decisive.
"No," she said.
Her voice was a command.
A liturgy.
A counter-ritual.
And the field stilled.
Wind froze. Birds froze. Breath froze.
The Cathedral responded to her voice.
Even outside its walls.
The Executioner's mask tilted — curiosity, annoyance, calculation.
"You remember the rites," he said.
Selene stepped forward.
One step.
Not threatening.
Just claiming space.
"The Guild forgot one thing," she said quietly.
The Executioner waited.
Selene's voice dropped like a blade:
"I didn't come back alone."
Corin spoke a single word:
"Rise."
The water-being moved.
Not fast.
Not violent.
Just inevitable.
And the field of drowned bodies…
rose with it.
Hundreds of dead hunters stood up in perfect silence.
Their eyes black. Their hair drifting. Water dripping from their mouths.
Not puppets.
Not controlled.
Returned.
The Executioner stepped back—the first break in his composure.
"…oh," he whispered.
His spear trembled.
Corin exhaled, slow.
Selene's eyes were dark, ancient, unbroken.
"Run," she said.
The Executioner hesitated—
The drowned bodies took their first synchronized breath.
He ran.
The hunters ran.
The dead turned to follow.
And the world shifted toward war.
Night did not fall.
It collapsed.
Like someone had blown out the sky.
The horizon bled from violet to ink, and the wind vanished again, sucked down into the same great silence that had ruled the Cathedral's sea.
Selene did not sleep.
Corin did not sleep.
The water-being did not need to.
They walked the cliff path, heading south toward the ridge-line that separated the drowned valley from the world of the living. Behind them, the dead hunters flowed silently like a tide current — not close, not threatening, simply following.
Not a horde.Not an army.
A shadow of consequence.
Selene stopped once and whispered, soft, shaken:
"Corin… if they follow you… then they are bound to—"
"They are bound to the Depth," Corin finished. "Not to me."
He didn't sound convinced.
And Selene did not push.
Because she wasn't either.
They continued.
They were halfway across the ridge when the world listened again.
Not silence this time.
Listening.
As if the night had leaned in close to hear their heartbeat.
Corin's hand went to his weapon.
Selene's pulse slowed to the discipline of someone trained to fight blind.
The water-being's head tilted.
Then it stepped forward.
And its body evaporated, dissolving into mist and vapor, pulled downward into the earth as though through invisible drains.
Selene gasped. "What—"
Corin didn't answer.
He whispered:
"They are here."
The first assassin appeared not from the trees —but from Selene's shadow.
No sound.
No movement.
One moment: nothing.
Next: a figure of black silk and bone needles, face covered, hands coated in chalk-white powder to prevent even the sound of skin sliding across air.
A Silencer.
Trained to erase.
Erase targets.
Erase evidence.
Erase memory.
Selene didn't think.
Her knife was in her hand before breath returned.
The Silencer struck first — a blow meant not to cut, but to disconnect: wrist, elbow, throat.
Selene parried the joint strike, pivoted—
And stopped.
Because the Silencer did not bleed.
Their veins were filled with brine.
Water spilled from the wound instead of blood.
Selene's breath caught.
"Corin— they're—"
"Yes," Corin said.
"They drowned themselves. And came back different."
More silhouettes slipped from the dark, from reflections, from the space between footsteps.
Not many.
No Silencer needed numbers.
Three was enough to kill a regiment.
Six emerged.
Seven.
Eight.
A full silencing choir.
Corin did not draw his sword.
He simply stepped forward.
The assassins moved.
And the world blinked.
No clash of metal.
No shouts.
No footsteps.
Just motion made of absence.
Selene's knife flickered through a throat —
but the Silencer's hand was already on her wrist, bending, breaking—
She turned sideways, dislocating her own shoulder to slip free rather than lose the arm. Pain ignited down her side. She did not slow.
Corin moved like someone who had died and come back understanding exactly how the body can fail.
He avoided killing blows not by speed, but by preemption — he moved before the assassins finished their intent.
He was not faster.
He was earlier.
But it was not enough.
One assassin slipped behind Selene.
Bone needle drawn.
Silent.
Deadly.
Final.
Corin shouted — but his voice could not reach fast enough.
The needle fell.
Selene turned—
—and froze.
The needle hovered inches from her throat.
Suspended.
Held.
By water.
The water-being reformed behind her — no longer mist.
But taller.
Broader.
Darker.
Less human.
Its voice rippled through the stone:
"Touch the Anchor— and drown."
The Silencer dissolved — corpse collapsing into seawater that steamed against the cold ground.
Another lunged — and fell apart like wet sand.
The assassins backed away now.
For the first time.
For the first time, there was fear.
But they did not flee.
Silencers never flee.
They changed target.
Selene realized too late—
They were no longer aiming for her.
They were aiming for Corin.
The water-being moved to intercept—
But the Silencers blurred, splitting into overlapping shadows, motion layered on motion, a killing technique designed for one purpose:
To strike the Anchor faster than the Depth can answer.
Selene screamed:
"CORIN!"
He looked up.
Just once.
Just long enough for her to understand the truth:
He wasn't afraid to die.
He was afraid of who would wake in his place.
His mouth formed a word—
Selene saw it.
Don't.
But the Depth did not ask permission.
The drowned hunters arrived.
Hundreds.
Silent.
Simultaneous.
Tidal.
The Silencers vanished beneath a wave of bodies and water and memory.
No cries.
No death screams.
Just drowning.
On dry land.
The silence afterward was absolute.
Selene trembled.
Corin's sword finally lowered.
The water-being stood beside him —
still.
Not triumphant.
Waiting.
Selene whispered:
"…they'll send more."
Corin nodded.
"They already have."
The rain started without clouds.
No build-up. No warning. Just water falling from a sky that was clear.
The drowned hunters stopped moving when the first raindrop hit them.As if listening.
Corin did not stop.
He walked ahead on the narrow ridge trail, boots scraping stone, hands loose at his sides. Selene followed close behind him, one hand near her knife, the other gripping her journal though she didn't remember drawing it.
The water-being followed last, though followed was the wrong word.
It moved with them.
Bound.Mirroring.Reflecting.
And the drowned hunters trailed behind like a silent, endless tide.
Selene watched Corin carefully.
His posture was wrong.
Not tense.
Not tired.
Empty.
As if something inside him was… receding.
"Corin," she said quietly, "stop a moment. You're not breathing evenly."
He didn't answer.
He didn't even slow.
"Corin."
Nothing.
The drowned hunters halted.
The water-being froze.
Selene stepped forward and grabbed Corin's arm.
His skin was cold.
Not chilled.
Ocean-deep cold.
She looked up at him.
His eyes were open — but not focused.
Not here.
Not now.
He was looking downward, inward, far beneath, through layers of earth and pressure and memory.
"Corin!"
She shook him.
His lips moved.
No sound came out.
Then—
He collapsed.
Selene hit the ground with him, cushioning his fall with her whole body, ignoring the crack in her shoulder that hadn't fully healed.
Corin convulsed once — like someone choking on water — and then went still.
His pulse was there.
But faint.
Not like a heartbeat.
Like a tide-pulse, slow, deep, dragging.
Selene pressed a hand to his chest.
"Don't you dare," she whispered.
The water-being knelt on the other side of him.
Its voice was not sound now.
It was pressure. Weight. Depth.
"THE ANCHOR DESCENDS."
Selene glared at it.
"No. Not now. Not here."
The being's head tilted, as if studying her.
"THE DEEP CLAIMS WHAT IS ALREADY ITS OWN."
Selene's voice turned sharp as a snapped bone:
"You exist because he stands between the Depth and the world.If he falls—you flood.Everything floods."
The being stilled.
The drowned hunters stood motionless as statues, rain soaking their hair and robes.
Selene leaned close to Corin's face.
"Come back."
Nothing.
Her breath trembled.
She placed her forehead against his.
"You listen to me— I did not survive the drowning, the Cathedral, the Guild, the dead, the gods, the things under the world just to watch you vanish into the dark. If you go under— I'm coming after you. I will drag you back myself."
Corin's body twitched.
His jaw clenched.
His breath shuddered once— twice—
Then the world tilted.
The ridge.The sky.The rain.The drowned hunters.The being.
All of it flattened.
As though the world had become a painted canvasand someone had turned it sideways.
Selene's vision went white.
Her ears filled with pressure.
Like being shoved underwater.
Something whispered behind her teeth:
When the Anchor sinks, the Gate opens.
She wasn't hearing it in sound.
She was hearing it in her blood.
Corin's hand seized hers.
Hard.
His voice tore out of him — raw, strangled, wrong:
"DON'T—LET—ME—GO—"
Selene held him with both arms.
"I'm here," she whispered. "I'm here. I'm not letting go."
Corin's body arched — back bowing, spine taut — as though something inside him was trying to pull him downward through the ground.
Selene braced her legs against the stone and held him.
Muscles straining.Shoulder screaming.Fingers bruising.
The water-being reached out—
Selene snapped her head up:
"DON'T TOUCH HIM."
The being withdrew its hand.
It obeyed.
Not because she commanded it.
But because Corin did.
Corin's eyes finally focused.
But they were not the same color.
The black had deepened.The iris ring had thinned.The whites of his eyes were laced with faint, shimmering traces of blue phosphor.
Deepsea luminescence.
His voice came out hoarse, shredded:
"Selene… I'm… still here."
She nodded, tears without sound or permission:
"Good. Stay."
His grip tightened.
"I don't know… how long I can."
Selene leaned close enough her breath warmed his lips.
"Then I'll hold you until you can."
Corin exhaled.
Slow.
Grounding.
Human.
Present.
The drowned hunters released a synchronized breath — like a wave settling.
The water-being bowed its head.
The world righted.
Corin closed his eyes.
Selene held him.
And the rain fell.
Not drowning rain.
Just rain.
For now.
The rain eased.
Not stopped — simply softened, as if the sky were catching its breath.
Corin's breathing steadied. His pulse returned to a rhythm closer to human. Selene kept one arm around him until the tremors passed, the drowned hunters standing silent as monuments, the water-being kneeling nearby like a sentinel carved from the ocean's memory.
Selene exhaled slowly.The world felt fragile.As if one wrong movement could break reality's surface tension.
Then footsteps approached.
Normal footsteps.
Human footsteps.
Real sound.
Selene stood immediately, knife drawn.
Corin forced himself up on one elbow.
From the treeline, a figure emerged — soaked cloak, travel mud on boots, one hand raised in open peace.
Not Guild colors.
No insignia of the Cathedral.
Instead:Deep imperial blue.Gold-thread embroidery fraying at the edges.A crest of a griffin severed at the wing.
Selene's heart lurched.
The Old Empire.
Extinct.Collapsed.Erased from maps two centuries ago — officially.
But she knew better.
Everyone who had studied forbidden history knew better.
The Empire never died.
It just went underwater.
The messenger stopped five paces away, keeping his movements controlled, slow.
His hood lifted.
A young man — but exhausted, hollow-eyed, face marked by long travel and too many resurrections of purpose. His voice trembled at first, then steadied:
"I was told I would find you here, Selene Vale."
Selene's knife remained up.
"Who told you that?"
The messenger swallowed.
"Your mother."
Silence.
Stillness.
Even the drowned paused.
Selene's voice was ice.
"My mother drowned twenty years ago."
The messenger nodded once.Not denying it.
"Yes. Exactly."
Corin pushed himself fully upright now, hand resting but not gripping his sword.
Selene's jaw tightened.
"Speak plainly."
The messenger reached slowly into his cloak and withdrew a sealed scroll — bound in wax stamped with a sigil older than any Guild.
A sigil that had once flown on banners across kingdoms.
A sigil erased from official history books.
A crescent moon partially eclipsing the sun.
The mark of the Empire's Oracle Line.
Selene stared.
Her throat forgot how to swallow.
The messenger's voice broke, not from fear, but awe:
"She left this… for when you returned."
He held it out.
Selene didn't take it.
She couldn't.
Her body was too still, too rigid, too full of the sudden vertigo of a life she thought she had buried.
Corin's voice was quiet:
"Selene. Breathe."
She didn't.
The messenger lowered the scroll.
"There is more," he said. "But you are tired. I will answer when—"
The world blinked.
Selene did not fall asleep.
She fell inward.
There was no sky.
No ground.
Only depth.
Blue-black endlessness.
Cold that wasn't temperature — but memory.
Selene floated.Suspended.Weightless.
Then—
A shape formed.
Not a body.
Not a face.
More like an absence given outline.
A place where the world bent inward.
A pressure larger than thought.
The Depthless One did not approach.
It simply was.
When the anchor sinks, the gate opens.You survived the drowning.You crossed the threshold.You know me.
The voice was not sound.Not telepathy.Not language.
It was knowing.
Selene spoke without speaking:
What do you want with Corin?
The Depth did not ripple.
He is the doorway through which the sea remembers itself.He is the point where what was lost will return.
Selene felt her chest tighten.
He is a person.
The Deep responded with something like curiosity.
And so is a river.Yet it still carries ships.And drowns them.
The pressure thickened.
Darker.Older.
Why me? Selene asked.
The Deep answered without hesitation.
Because you are the one thing he will not release.The anchor is only strong because it is held.
Selene's pulse exploded in her ears.
If he sinks, I sink.
Yes.
If he breaks, I break.
Yes.
If he becomes something else—
You will follow.
Selene's voice turned sharp — defiant — human:
No. I choose my path.
The Deep did not recoil.
It smiled.
Not with a mouth.
With inevitability.
Choice is the surface of the wave.The ocean is below.
The pressure surged — swallowing sight — swallowing thought —
And Selene remembered—
A cradle of water.
Hands holding her beneath the surface.
Her mother's voice saying:
You will return when the sea remembers your name.
The dream shattered.
Selene gasped, choking on air.
Corin was kneeling over her, hands on her shoulders, eyes bright with sea-light.
The messenger stared, terrified.
The drowned hunters watched.
The water-being bowed its head.
Selene whispered:
"…she knew."
Corin didn't ask who.
He understood.
The messenger spoke, voice shaking:
"We need to leave. Now. The Guild is coming with the Heron Crown. If they reach the valley before we do—"
Selene stood.
Her eyes were not the same color anymore.
Neither were Corin's.
The Depth had touched them both.
Selene spoke quietly.
"We move at first light."
She finally took the scroll.
Her hand did not shake.
Not anymore.
The rain stopped sometime near dawn.
Mist clung to the ridge, soft and silver, muting sound and movement. The drowned hunters stood in still formation behind them, like a tide waiting for command. The water-being remained crouched beside Corin, its posture neither protective nor predatory — simply present.
Selene had slept only in fragments, dreamless now, emptied by the encounter in the Depth. When she opened her eyes, the messenger was already awake, sitting cross-legged in the wet grass, watching the horizon.
He didn't speak until she joined him.
"You saw the Deep," he said quietly.
Selene didn't ask how he knew.
Her voice came low, level:
"It spoke to me."
"Not many survive that."
Selene glanced at him.There was no awe in his tone.Only understanding.
"Tell me," she said. "Why you're here. Why now. Why me."
The messenger exhaled. Slow. Heavy. Like he had been waiting years to be asked.
"My name is Theron Vale."
The surname hit her like a thrown stone.
Selene's throat tightened.Her blood went cold.
Vale.
Her name.
Her mother's name.
"…you're lying," she said — but there was no strength in the denial.
Theron shook his head.
"I carry the name because she gave it to me. Not by birth."He paused."But by oath. By witness. I was there when she drowned."
Selene froze.
The fog around them suddenly felt suffocating.
Theron continued — quietly, carefully:
"I was a novice in the Old Empire's last inland sanctuary. Your mother came to us already marked — the sea had claimed her long before the Guild ever knew her name. She was a prophet of the Deep Memory Line, descended from the Oracle Who Walked Beneath Waters."
Selene's pulse was a fist in her chest.
"My mother was a farmer's daughter."
Theron looked at her, and there was no cruelty in his correction:
"No. She was the last living priestess of the Tide Moon Temple. The one who carried the Eclipse Sigil. The woman whose bloodline was believed extinct. The one the Guild tried to erase."
The world swayed.
Selene sat down before her knees could fail her.
Theron continued:
"She knew the Depthless One would awaken again. She knew the world would need an anchor. She knew the Guild would try to control it. And she knew she did not have much time."
Selene closed her eyes.
Her mother's voiceher handsthe riverthe breath that went wrongthe waterthe quiet
It rose inside her like a tide memory.
Theron watched her carefully.
"She drowned herself, Selene. It was a ritual — not a death."He paused."She crossed into the Deep to bind your life to the returning Anchor."
Selene's voice cracked, soft and broken:
"Why me?"
Theron lifted the scroll — the one he had carried across half a continent — and placed it gently in her hands.
"Because you are the only one who can hold him."
Selene could not speak.
Not yet.
Not for a long time.
So Theron spoke for her:
"There is a prophecy — older than the Guild, older than the Empire, older than the Cathedral itself."
He recited, not like someone quoting text, but like one repeating a vow engraved into the bones of the world:
When the sea forgets its name, the Anchor shall sink.When the Anchor sinks, the Gate will breathe.When the Gate breathes, the Drowned Choir will rise.But if the Anchor is held by one who remembers the river,Then the flood shall have a heart.
Selene stared at him.
At the words.
At their shape.
Held.The Anchor must be held.
Not controlled.Not commanded.Just not abandoned.
Selene finally whispered:
"My mother didn't die to save me."
Theron nodded.
"She drowned herself to give you a bond."
Selene's fingers tightened on the scroll.
"So Corin is the Anchor."
"Yes."
"And I am—"
Theron finished the sentence she couldn't.
"You are the Heart of the Flood."
Silence.
Heavy.World-altering.Irreversible.
Corin approached quietly.He had heard all of it.
His eyes — still stormed with that faint ocean-blue luminescence — met hers.
Neither spoke.
They didn't need to.
They had always known their lives were tangled.Now they knew why.
Corin reached out.Selene placed her hand in his.Not as fate.Not as prophecy.
But as choice.
The drowned hunters shifted — like waves responding to moonlight.
The water-being bowed.
Theron exhaled.
"We need to go," he said.
Selene nodded.
This time, she didn't tremble.
This time, she held her place in the prophecy.
Not as victim.
Not as survivor.
But as the Heart that keeps the world from drowning.