The waves weren't crashing anymore.
They moved with eerie intent—curving, circling, rising in little serpentine arches as if beckoning Kael forward. Foam gathered like frothing breath at the shore's edge, and the air buzzed, faintly electric, heavy with salt.
Kael stood barefoot on the wet sand, heart thrumming as the tide crept close. A whisper licked the wind—too soft, too broken to be real.
"Kael..."
He flinched. The voice was distant, warped by water and wind, yet unmistakably familiar. It sounded like Lyra, only older. Wounded. Wrong.
"Did you hear that?" he asked over his shoulder.
But no one was there.
Just the cove, quiet as a held breath.
The voice came again, rippling across the tide, closer this time.
"Come back..."
Kael staggered backward. The pull in his chest—the strange tug he had started feeling in recent days—snapped taut like a fishhook caught on bone. The water shimmered unnaturally, as though a hand brushed just beneath the surface.
Then a sharp pain lit up his skull.
Not from outside, but within.
He dropped to his knees, clutching his head. Images flooded in—a blurred shoreline, moonlight bouncing off scales, laughter that wasn't his own. A voice whispered in his mind: "Sing to him, Lyra. Make him forget."
It wasn't memory. It wasn't imagination.
It was her past.
Lyra's.
Lyra woke with a start. Her skin burned—not from the sun, but from the water.
She stumbled out of the hidden pool behind the rocks, heart racing. The cove felt off-kilter, the rhythm of the sea gone strange. She tasted magic on the wind—old magic. Ancient, guttural, and deep.
Her curse was waking.
She clutched the edge of a boulder, breathing hard. Someone's calling him, she realized.
And he was hearing it.
"No," she whispered, voice raw.
Then her legs buckled as pain ripped through her chest. Not physical—deeper. Like the ocean itself was pulling at her soul.
The bond was thinning.
She had to find Kael. Now.
Miri was already near him.
She sat on a rock just above the tide, her wide eyes reflecting the sea's shimmer. Her pale dress clung to her, dripping, though she hadn't been in the water.
"You heard her too, didn't you?" she asked softly, tilting her head.
Kael, pale and still on the sand, barely nodded.
Miri smiled.
"She calls to you sometimes. She used to call to me, but I wasn't strong enough. You are."
Kael looked at her slowly. There was something off in her gaze.
"Who is 'she'?" he whispered.
Miri's voice dropped to a sing-song murmur. "The sea's first voice. The one who gave the sirens their names."
Kael backed away. "That's not real."
"Oh, but it is. I think Lyra's afraid you'll find her again."
"Find who?"
Miri smiled, dreamy and eerie. "Your other half."
Then she began to hum.
A melody Kael recognized—because Lyra had sung it to him once,when he'd been in her arms.
Except Miri's version was hollow. Like bones rattling through water.
And she stared right into him as she sang.
Elli found Lyra first.
"You're late," Elli said as Lyra stumbled onto the main trail.
Lyra ignored her, trying to catch her breath.
"He heard something," Lyra managed.
Elli's expression didn't change, but her hand twitched slightly on the basket she carried.
"I told you the tide would come for him," Elli said flatly.
"You knew?"
Elli looked away. "You weren't supposed to see that tide yet."
Lyra grabbed her arm. "What do you know, Elli?"
Elli met her gaze then, eyes sharp. "Only what the sea chooses to show me. And today it chose him."
Then she walked off, leaving Lyra shaking.
Back at the cove, a storm was building.
The wind stirred violently. Gulls shrieked and scattered. Lightning cracked somewhere beyond the cliffs.
Kael turned as Vaelen approached silently, his hair damp, his tunic clinging to his form like seaweed.
"You should not have answered," Vaelen said quietly.
Kael frowned. "I didn't say anything."
"But you listened."
Their eyes locked—and for the briefest second, the storm flash lit up Vaelen's face. But his reflection in the tide was wrong.
It showed a merman, not a man—his arms webbed, his eyes glowing faintly silver, with marks curling down his neck like tide-etched runes.
Kael blinked.
The reflection was normal again.
"I don't understand," Kael muttered.
"You're starting to," Vaelen said. "That's why she's waking."
"Who is waking?"
But Vaelen only looked to the sea.
Later that night, Lyra sat beside Kael, both wrapped in silence. The fire crackled. Miri had vanished somewhere into the trees. Elli had retreated to her hut. Vaelen was gone again.
The storm had passed. But something in the air hadn't settled.
Kael finally turned to her. "I remembered something."
Lyra froze.
"I was underwater. I saw... you. Not the you I know. You were younger. Sad. Singing to someone."
She stared at him.
"Lyra," he said softly. "Who did you make forget?"
Her lips parted.
But before she could answer, the wind shifted—and the tide whispered again.
Only this time, Lyra heard it too.
And it said a name neither of them recognized.
"Aeren."
Kael looked at her sharply.
Lyra was already pale. "That name is cursed."
"What does it mean?"
She closed her eyes, her voice a whisper.
"It's the name I gave him before I let him drown."