The sea swallowed the moon.
Fog clung to the surface like breath on glass, and beneath it, hidden by depth and time, waited Tir Kalthis—a city once carved from coral and reefstone by the Deep Circles of old, now reduced to a tomb of blooming silence.
Its towers bent like reeds beneath the current, grown over with bioluminescent kelp and shells that pulsed to a rhythm not of nature, but of command.
And in its center, within a throne-room of drowned gods, sat the Bloom Matron.
She was draped in robes of woven sea-fronds and pearlescent thread, her eyes masked by a blindfold of shimmering fishbone. Coral had grown from her shoulders, curving like a crown. Beneath her throne, water coiled in spirals of memory—liquid visions looping endlessly.
At her feet knelt a prisoner, bound in chains that sang with every tide shift.
A druid.
The final piece of the Circle.
He was gaunt, skin pale and translucent, veins glowing with a faint green-blue. The Song still clung to him—but it was fraying, unraveling slowly, absorbed into the bloom beneath the city.
The Bloom Matron's voice coiled like ink in water.
"Your Circle returns."
He raised his head slowly.
Eyes met hers, defiant despite the drain.
"And when they do… this dies with you."
The Matron smiled faintly.
"No, little Root. When they come… you'll finish it yourself."
Above, on the cliffs of Saltmere, Thalindra awoke with a sharp breath.
The dream had been too clear to be only dream.
A memory that wasn't hers.
A city beneath the waves.
A friend bound to coral.
Rowan stirred beside the fire. "Same dream again?"
She nodded. "Clearer this time."
Kaelen handed her a warmed shell cup filled with bitterleaf tea. "So who's left down there?"
"I don't know his name. But he's from the Circle. The final voice."
Rowan sat up, rubbing his neck. "Then we need to go under."
"Saltmere's tides aren't safe," Kaelen warned. "The water's singing now. If you dive wrong, you don't come back."
Thalindra stood and faced the sea.
"I'm not diving."
Rowan raised an eyebrow. "Then what?"
She pulled out the vine-wrapped seed totem, now glistening with dew. It pulsed softly in the wind.
"I'm growing a path."
By midday, the tide had receded unusually far.
Kaelen stood with arms crossed, watching Thalindra carve a circle into the sand with her staff, marking it with sigils of tide and root.
Rowan crouched nearby, eyes fixed on the horizon.
"You really think a plant can get us beneath the ocean?"
Thalindra smiled faintly. "Not a plant."
She plunged the seed into the sand.
Whispered: "Verdra kel'en sol."
The beach shivered.
From the sigil burst a spiral of kelp and stone—twisting, flowering, hardening with each breath. It shot forward into the surf, forming a bridge not of wood or rock, but living coral laced with vines, coiling down into the sea like a staircase.
The water did not resist.
It parted.
Inviting.
Kaelen cursed low. "You just told the ocean we're coming."
Thalindra stepped forward.
"That was never in question."
She turned to the others.
"Let's bring our Circle home."
And they descended beneath the waves.