The name clung to the wind like brine.
"Aeren."
Lyra stood so still Kael thought time had stopped around her. Her fingers curled against her thighs, digging crescents into her skin as if she could root herself to the earth by force alone.
Kael's voice broke the stillness.
"What does it mean?"
She didn't answer.
Instead, Lyra turned her back on him and walked toward the shore.
Kael followed. "Tell me."
Silence. Only the tide responded, licking the sand in rhythmic, whispering swells.
Finally, Lyra spoke, barely above a whisper.
"Aeren was the first one to see me."
Kael slowed. "Another fisherman?"
Her laugh was bitter. "He was no one. And he wanted everything."
She stepped into the shallows, letting the waves pull at her ankles.
"I thought it was love," she said. "But the sea doesn't love. It claims. And I—" She faltered. "I let him drown, Kael."
The words struck like ice. Kael stood at the edge of the water, staring at her. "You let him drown?"
"I didn't mean to," she said quickly, too quickly. "It was supposed to be a song. Just a song."
Kael's breath caught.
"Like the one Miri sang?"
Lyra turned to him slowly. "Miri shouldn't know that melody. That's... that's not a siren song. Not anymore."
"Then what is it?"
Her eyes met his.
"It's a curse."
That night, Kael couldn't sleep.
He lay in the small hut Elli had offered him, staring at the slatted roof. The tide's voice echoed in his mind, fragmented and soft. His skin itched—his shoulder, specifically. When he peeled back his shirt, his breath hitched.
A mark.
Curved and jagged like a tide-warped rune. It looked burned into him, but the skin wasn't raised. It shimmered faintly, like salt left behind by vanishing waves.
He touched it.
Pain lanced through his mind—
—and suddenly, he wasn't in his body.
He was underwater.
Flailing. Drowning.
A girl above him was singing, weeping as she sang.
And in that moment, he knew he was Aeren.
He awoke gasping.
The night outside was thick with mist. From the trees came the faint sound of humming.
Kael sat up sharply.
It was Miri.
Her silhouette flickered through the trees, pale and fluid as if she were more mist than girl. He followed the sound, feet silent on the damp grass.
He found her standing beside the tidepool where he'd first seen Lyra weeks ago.
Miri was singing the same tune—but now, there were words.
"Rise, oh love, from where you fell—
The sea remembers, and so shall hell—"_
"Miri," he whispered.
She stopped. Her head turned, slow and doll-like.
"You shouldn't be here," she said.
"You're the one singing death into the tide."
She smiled faintly. "I'm not singing for you."
Then she looked at his shoulder—and the mark.
"Oh," she said softly. "It's starting."
"What is?"
"You're remembering."
Kael stepped back. "What are you?"
Miri blinked, and for a moment her reflection shimmered—not a girl, but something older. A shadow with eyes.
"I'm what the tide couldn't keep," she whispered.
Then she vanished into the fog.
Lyra woke to the sea howling.
She ran barefoot through the trees, panic thundering in her chest.
The ocean was never supposed to speak that name again. It had been buried. Forgotten. But something had disturbed it.
Or someone.
She found Elli tending to a bundle of kelp by her hut.
"Where is he?" Lyra demanded.
Elli didn't look up. "Not your Kael anymore, is he?"
Lyra stilled. "What do you mean?"
Elli finally glanced up. "The curse marks the soul. And his has been touched twice now—once by you, once by her."
Lyra's mouth went dry. "Miri?"
Elli nodded. "She's a remnant. A vessel. The kind the sea spits out when it has regrets."
Lyra swayed. "That's not possible."
"Neither are you," Elli said gently.
Kael returned at dawn, pale and quiet.
He didn't mention the dream. Or the singing. Or the way Miri had looked at him like she'd known him long before he was born.
He only looked at Lyra and said, "Who was Aeren to you?"
She didn't answer right away.
She just knelt by the fire and let the silence stretch long and taut between them.
Finally, she said, "He loved me."
Kael waited.
"And I destroyed him."
"Because of the curse?"
"No."
She met his eyes.
"Because I loved him back. And I wasn't supposed to."
Later that night, Vaelen approached him by the shore.
"You feel it now," Vaelen said.
Kael didn't argue.
Vaelen crouched beside the tide. His reflection again betrayed his true form—fins, webbed limbs, silver-touched eyes.
"I thought I was just a normal boring prince," Kael murmured.
"You were."
"But I'm not now."
Vaelen shook his head. "Now, you're a thread in the sea's story. And threads fray."
Kael's mark throbbed faintly.
"So what happens next?"
Vaelen's voice was low. "She'll either remember enough to break it… or forget you to save you."
Kael looked back at Lyra's distant figure.
"I'm not sure which would hurt worse."