{"Some truths are felt before they're spoken, and some storms come not to drown us, but to awaken what lies beneath."}
MORKAI'S POV
The sea stirred later in the day when I was just resting and not in the way it does when the moon tugs it forward, but in the way a soul recoils before it weeps. I felt it like a chord struck too hard in the deep silence. My eyes snapped open from meditation, the throne of black coral beneath me pulsing with faint unrest.
The Emerald Gold was nearing the Pearl castle entrances and "Tarion," I called, though I knew he was already at the outer walls. My voice echoed through the coral hollows of the Pearl Castle, reaching into the marrow of the sea. A moment later, his presence surged through the currents like a blade. Tharion, the Abyssal Warden, armor made from obsidian-scaled leviathan hide, eyes like boiling pitch stood where the shallows met the deep, his trident raised to the churning sky above. His voice thundered into the ocean like a war song.
"You are not worthy to walk the halls of pearl and memory. The sea sees through you."
His power rolled outward in concentric bursts. Waves rose like teeth, curling high above the Emerald Gold's path, slamming down with the intent to push, to punish. Lightning cracked across the sky, not from any storm, but from Tharion's wrath, drawn upward by his command of tide and shadow.
I rose from the throne, robes drifting like ink around me. "Why now…" I murmured, placing a hand on the glassy wall of the hall. Through it, I could feel the vibrations not just of a ship, and I sensed the presence of Lady Nerisca, Lord Ardanis, a fellow Fae and General Callion. There was one more person, his power was strong, a Fae-Witch born. A scent bloomed in my senses, unexpected and sharp salt and moonlight twisted with yew bark and wild violets. The taste of fae magic, but not just any. This one carried the song of forgotten forests and broken promises, woven into seafoam.
"She shouldn't be here," I whispered to the sea, though it gave me no answer. My heart cursed and still as it was stirred, not from fury, but... recognition.
"Hold your waves, Tharion," I said aloud, voice low but echoing with the force of command. "There is a presence aboard that ship that calls to me."
Tharion did not turn to look, but his trident lowered half an inch. The waves, though still towering, paused their descent and I walked. Up through the spiral halls of the Pearl Castle, my footsteps unheard but reverberating through the bones of the sea. The sea-doors parted as I approached the beach, sand black as sorrow beneath the water's edge. Foam licked at my bare feet as I stepped to where water met land.
The Emerald Gold fought the waves beyond the reef, sails snapping with stubborn defiance. But my eyes were not on the ship, and they were on the figure at the beach that spit the water from the sea. He then looked towards the Pearl castle, cursed for a minute and walked towards it. I chose to make my presence known now and we stood staring at each other.
Even from this distance, his presence struck me like a bolt of lightning splitting a storm-dark sky. Handsome. Breathtaking. The kind of beauty that made the ocean itself seem dull in comparison. His face was carved with sharp precision, strong jaw, high cheekbones, lips that held the faintest curve, like a secret he was not ready to share. But it was his eyes that froze me. Deep emerald, green, glowing softly beneath dark lashes, alive with a wild, ancient magic. I could feel their pull like they were unravelling parts of me I had long tried to bury beneath salt and shadow.
His hair fell in loose waves, the colour of midnight leaves shimmering faintly under the grey sky, tousled by the sea breeze. Around him hovered that faint shimmer, the subtle glow of fae glamour that marked him as something otherworldly, something not fully bound by the rules of this world. He stood tall and unyielding, a storm contained in flesh and bone, and for a moment, I wondered if the sea itself dared to challenge him. He was power and beauty entwined. A living spell that could enchant or unravel with just a glance, and he was the Witch-Fae born Caelan Thorne.
"Fuck, you're not what I expected." The words cut clean through my mind, link, sudden, and unmistakable, and I froze.
The man standing before me was more than wreckage washed ashore. Caelan was the outcast, born a Witch-Fae, and they termed him the wild one. Born of both courts and claimed by neither, he was a creature of untamed magic and impossible legend.
And now, he stood before me at the edge of the Pearl Castle, saltwater curling around his ankles, cloak clinging to his frame like shadows and silk. "Up close, you're even more handsome, Morkai," he said aloud, voice rough but laced with a mocking edge, and he grinned like someone who had just won a very long game.
My pulse kicked hard beneath my ribs and realized that I had known him before this moment. Not his face, not his form but his voice and his presence. That voice had pierced my thoughts through the link days ago, waking something I thought long dead.
"You're Caelen," I said quietly, reverently.
He winked and stepped closer, unconcerned by the power thrumming between us. "Didn't think you'd recognize me so fast, your Majesty."
"Your voice is imprinted in my mind," I replied, the truth spilling out before I could stop it.
Caelen tilted his head slightly, the wet strands of his dark hair catching in the breeze. His green eyes, bright and impossibly deep, caught mine and held them. "Then I suppose meeting you here was inevitable," he said, softer now.
I stepped forward. I heard the way his breath hitched, and I knew then he was as affected by me as I was by him. "You are truly a sight to behold. Is this magic or witchery?" I murmured, and a flicker passed through his expression, like he had been waiting for those words.
"Oh," he said, voice dipping low as he moved closer, close enough for our magic to stir the air between us, and he raised his chin, stared up into my eyes, and spoke with quiet fire, "What about you, your Majesty?" He paused. "You're not just handsome, you're the kind of beautiful that unsettles every part of my body, since the first time I set my eyes on you."
My breath caught, and for the first time in a century, the sea went silent around me. I took a slow step back, the cool black sand shifting beneath my feet as the weight of his presence pressed in.
"Why have you come here, Caelan?" I demanded, voice sharp, cold. "What business does the council have at the Pearl Castle, or you?"
He smiled an enigmatic, unsettling curve of his lips that did not answer, but promised far more. "We all come for reasons, Your Majesty," he said, stepping closer, the waves curling around his boots like they obeyed him alone. "Sometimes, words aren't the only way to speak."
Before I could react, he closed the gap between us in a heartbeat. His hands rested lightly on my chest, and then his lips pressed against mine. The world tilted. Salt air, wild magic, and something dangerously intoxicating surged through me. His emerald eyes fluttered closed, and for a moment, time stopped, stolen by a kiss that was both a question and a challenge. When he pulled back, his gaze locked onto mine, fierce and unyielding. "Some truths," he whispered, "are felt before they're spoken."
I swallowed hard, heart pounding, as the ocean roared behind us. The council's arrival was no ordinary visit. And Caelan wild and breathtaking was the storm at its centre.
My breath hitched unexpectedly and rawly. The kiss was a sudden tide pulling me under, and for a fleeting moment, all the control I prided myself on slipped through my fingers like grains of black sand. There was fire in Caelan's touch, wild and unrestrained, but also something deeper an ancient sorrow and promise folded beneath that brief contact. His lips burned with questions I was not ready to answer yet could not ignore.
I wanted to push him away, distance myself from the chaos he brought. But something in me, buried beneath centuries of command and cold command, stirred awake. A part I thought lost to the abyss and the sea thundered around us, but all I could hear was the pounding of my own heart, erratic and reckless.
What had I been waiting for all this time? And what dangerous game had Caelan just begun?
Without thinking, I caught him by the waist, pulling him hard into my arms. My fingers dug into the fabric of his cloak as my voice dropped low, a rumble born of warning and something darker.
"You're playing a dangerous game," I growled, breath hot against his skin, "one I never wanted to play."
Caelan's emerald eyes sparkled with mischief as he leaned closer, his breath warm against my jaw. A slow, teasing smile curved his lips. "Oh, Majesty," he murmured, his voice dripping with playful seduction, "I don't just want to play, I want to play with you." He brushed a finger lightly down my chest, the touch electric. "Dangerous games are always the most… unforgettable."
His gaze locked with mine, bold and unashamed, the wild magic swirling around him like a promise. "Tell me, your Majesty," he whispered, "are you ready to lose control?"