"The sea never forgets what the land buries."
---
The ship was old. Haunted, perhaps.
Nyra said it was built from drowned trees, infused with salt-magic from the flame-witches of the Ash Gulf. It creaked like it hated every wave. And it hated Selene most of all.
She could feel it in the way the boards whispered under her feet.
> God-killer. Dream-thief. Tides will take you too…
---
They were headed for the Drowned City of Tarvax, a ruin spoken of only in fevered mutterings by dying seers.
A place swallowed by the sea after the gods warred.
And somewhere beneath it…
Lay Drellos, god of the ocean, ancient brother to Velex.
> "If Velex dreamed the end," Nyra said, "Drellos watches it happen. And laughs."
---
Selene hadn't slept in two days.
She couldn't.
Each time she closed her eyes, she awoke somewhere else.
Sometimes soaked in sea water.
Sometimes whispering in languages she didn't know.
Once, she woke to find her hands webbed and her teeth sharpened.
Kai found her on the bow the third morning, staring at nothing.
"I'm scared," she said.
He pulled her close.
"I'll watch your back."
"I don't think it's my back you need to worry about," she murmured. "It's my mind."
---
Nyra stayed in the crow's nest, sharpening her knives.
Since reading the prophecy, she'd grown distant. Fiercer.
She wore a bone pendant she never took off now—a relic of her fire-mother.
Sometimes, Selene caught her whispering to it.
> "What happens when the prophecy picks me to betray you?" she'd once asked Selene.
Selene had no answer.
---
Riven was healing. Slowly.
Too slowly.
The godmark had changed Selene, made her stronger.
But it had also taken from her.
And Riven, who once stood like a dagger, now moved like a ghost.
Her magic flickered when she tried to summon it.
Her eyes lingered too long on the dark horizon.
---
Three days into the voyage, the fog arrived.
And so did the voices.
They whispered from the water. Echoed through the sails. Laughed from inside the hull.
Selene stood at the edge of the ship, staring into the mist.
And saw herself.
Not a reflection.
A copy.
Dripping wet. Eyes glowing like the ocean depths. Hair writhing like seaweed.
> "You're already drowning," the other-Selene said. "You just haven't stopped breathing yet."
---
Suddenly, the sea beneath them exploded.
Tentacles of salt and bone surged upward, wrapping the ship.
A scream tore through the crew.
The god awoke.
---
DRELLOS.
Not a beast. Not a man.
But a mass of water made sentient. A storm given teeth.
His form rose from the ocean like a cathedral of mouths.
And he spoke.
Not with words. But with pressure. With gravity.
Selene collapsed, clutching her head.
"Too loud…" she gasped.
Nyra hurled fireballs into the sky.
They sizzled out in the mist.
Riven drew a circle of salt and blood on the deck, chanting.
Kai charged the god's mass, leaping from the mast with twin blades flashing.
It did nothing.
Drellos laughed.
And Selene vanished.
---
She woke in darkness.
Beneath the sea.
In a throne room.
Ancient. Drowned. Echoing with forgotten prayers.
Drellos stood before her—now in the shape of a man, tall and carved of coral and tide.
"You wear my brother's fang," he said.
"I killed him."
"Yes. That's why I like you."
He circled her.
"Mortals are such liars. They pretend to care about loyalty, yet feed on betrayal. You're honest. You killed your kin."
"I didn't want to—"
"Lies. You did. And you'll do it again."
He held out his hand.
"Take my gift. Become what the land fears. A tide no blade can stop."
Selene stared.
And something deep inside her wanted to say yes.
---
On the deck above, chaos raged.
Kai fought the tentacles like a demon.
Nyra called on forgotten flame spirits.
Riven screamed as she tried to pull Selene back from the dark.
And just as all seemed lost—
Selene rose.
Burst from the sea.
Eyes glowing with tidefire.
Gauntlet now fused with oceanlight.
She slammed her hand into the mast and screamed, "ENOUGH!"
The god's limbs froze.
Then shattered into mist.
The sea fell silent.
---
They landed on the shore of Tarvax hours later.
Wet.
Wounded.
Alive.
Selene stood at the bow, shivering.
Kai touched her shoulder.
"What did you say to him?"
She stared at the horizon.
"I said yes."
He tensed. "What?"
"Not to him. To his power. I didn't take him in. I chained him."
Behind her, the ocean moaned.
Selene's new gauntlet shimmered.
Blue now.
Twisting with waves.
"I have two gods inside me now," she whispered.
Kai moved to hold her.
She didn't pull away.
But her voice was cold.
> "And I think one of them wants me to kill you."