The First rose slowly, as if waking from a dream that had lasted longer than time itself.
Her coral-woven body shimmered with ancient power. Eyes like twin abysses locked onto Quinta, and for a moment, neither spoke.
Then the being reached out—her fingers long, delicate, and lined with bioluminescent veins—and brushed Quinta's face.
A flood of memories surged through her.
Not hers.
Theirs.
She saw the world before men.
Before fire.
Before names.
The ocean stretched wide and unbroken, a realm ruled by beings who moved between water and shore, shaping the tides with their breath, singing the stars into place with voices that resonated through bone and stone.
They were called many things by those who came after—gods, monsters, myths.
But they called themselves the Veythari .
Born of the deep, shaped by pressure, bound to the rhythm of the sea.
And among them, the First was queen.
She bore no children in the way humans did—but she seeded . With thought. With song. With blood.
And when the tide began to turn against them, when the land grew hungry and humankind rose from the shallows, she scattered her essence across generations, hiding pieces of herself within those born under strange signs.
Those who carried the shape.
Quinta.
The vision ended with a scream—not from her, but from the world.
The ocean floor trembled.
The temple groaned.
And the First stepped down from the platform, her movements fluid, unnatural.
"You are the last," she said, voice echoing through the chamber like the call of a leviathan. "The final echo of what we once were."
Quinta staggered back. "I'm just… me."
"No," the First corrected gently. "You are more ."
Behind them, the Warden bowed low.
"The Return has begun," it intoned.
Back on the surface, the storm had returned.
The villagers of Brinemere watched in horror as the sea churned violently, waves rising higher than any living soul could remember. Lightning struck the cliffs where Quinta's cottage stood, igniting the sky in flashes of blue and green.
Something beneath the water pulsed.
A heartbeat.
Slow.
Massive.
Older than memory.
Frank Frownwater stood at the edge of the cliff, eyes reflecting the storm.
He smiled.
"They're awake," he whispered.
Inside the temple, Quinta struggled to process everything.
"I didn't ask for this," she said, voice trembling. "I never wanted to be part of something so… big."
The First tilted her head. "None of us do. But the blood remembers."
Quinta looked down at her chest—where her four breasts glowed faintly, pulsing in time with the ocean's rhythm.
"What happens now?" she asked.
The First turned toward the far wall of the chamber. With a single gesture, the coral stones parted, revealing a hidden passage descending even deeper into the earth.
"There is one final truth you must see," she said. "One your kind tried to bury."
Quinta hesitated.
Then followed.
The passage twisted downward, growing darker and colder with every step. Strange symbols flickered to life along the walls, glowing in patterns that made her dizzy.
At the end lay a chamber unlike any other.
It was round.
Empty.
Except for a single object in its center.
A mirror.
Not glass—but polished obsidian, floating above the ground without support.
The First gestured toward it.
"Look," she commanded.
Quinta stepped forward.
And saw herself.
But not as she was.
As she had been .
In countless lives.
In countless forms.
She saw a woman with four moons standing on a battlefield, calling storms to drown an army.
She saw a child swimming beneath ice, singing to creatures that answered in kind.
She saw a priestess carved into stone, worshipped by a forgotten people.
And finally—
She saw herself again.
But this time, screaming.
Burning.
Hunted.
Betrayed.
By her own kind.
The vision shattered like glass.
Quinta fell to her knees.
"I've lived before," she whispered.
"Yes," the First said. "And you will live again."
"But why?" Quinta demanded. "Why me? Why now?"
The First knelt beside her.
"Because the world has forgotten the old ways. Because your people fear what they no longer understand. And because balance must be restored."
She placed a hand over Quinta's heart.
"And because you are the key."
Above, the storm raged on.
Below, the ocean stirred.
And somewhere between them, the past, present, and future bled together.
Quinta Quiz was no longer just a woman.
She was a vessel.
A memory.
A warning.
And a beginning.