Before the sea turned cruel, it loved this land.
Its tides once kissed the shores of Ephyra like a blessing — carrying pearls, ships, and stories from distant kingdoms.Children played in the foam, fishermen sang to the waves, and gulls wheeled above a city so bright that travelers called it the crown of the western coast.
The sea loved us once.And we, foolishly, believed it always would.
The Reign of Acastus
Long ago, when the world was still half-wild, there ruled a man named Acastus, first King of Ephyra.
He was a man carved by ambition — tall as an obelisk, eyes like molten gold, a voice that could bend men or gods to silence. He claimed he was chosen by the winds themselves to rule the shores — that the gods had set him above mortal law.
He built his palace upon the cliffs, so high the clouds brushed its battlements. From there, he watched the sea like a conqueror surveying a loyal servant. He raised banners dyed with crushed sapphires and declared before his court and his people:
"I am not beneath the sea's mercy.The sea moves because I command it."
The priests warned him. His queen, gentle Lysandra, wept in the shadows of her chamber, begging him to remember humility — but Acastus's heart had grown too loud with the echo of his own glory.
The people rejoiced anyway.For in his pride, Ephyra prospered.
The rivers ran fat with fish, the granaries overflowed, the ports thrummed with gold. He opened new trade routes, built marble causeways that reached into the sea like offerings. At night, when lanterns glowed along the coast, it seemed even the tide bowed to his will.
And perhaps it did.For a while.
The Temptation — The Gods' Warning
But pride has a sound — and the gods hear it louder than prayer.
The first sign came with the tides.The sea, once gentle as a mother's hand, began to resist the harbor's call. The waves rose higher each season, tearing at the cliffs as if to reclaim what man had stolen. Storms struck without moon or wind, and lightning danced upon the palace towers like a warning.
The priests begged the king to humble himself.They said the sea god — lord of depths and storms — had grown restless with his arrogance.
"You build walls against the tide," one priest pleaded, trembling before the throne, "but no man commands the sea. It bows to none but its god."
Acastus's laughter filled the hall like the clash of steel.
"Then the gods are jealous," he said. "They see what I have built — a kingdom from sand and salt — and they fear I will match their glory."
"The sea is not yours to master," the priest dared to answer. "It is ancient beyond your blood. The gods will remind you of that truth."
Acastus rose from his throne, his gold cloak spilling like sunlight over the steps.
"Then tell me, priest," he said, voice low and dangerous, "if the gods forbid me, how do I make the sea obey? Tell me how to silence its defiance. Tell me how to rule what they hoard."
The old man hesitated. The courtiers turned their eyes away.
At last, the priest spoke — softly, as if each word cost him a piece of his soul.
"They whisper of a jewel that should never be touched — the Heart of Zephyra, breath of the first storm.Whoever holds it will command the sea...but the sea is not meant to be commanded."
A hush fell across the court.Even the torches seemed to flicker, as if the wind itself recoiled from the name.
The priest bowed his head.
"Seek it not, my king. The Heart was born of the goddess's first breath — it belongs to no mortal hand."
But Acastus's eyes gleamed with something bright and terrible.The warning only fed his hunger.
"So the gods fear one jewel," he murmured. "Then I will take it from them. Let the sea bow — or drown trying."
The priest fell to his knees.
"You cannot grasp the sea without drowning in it."
Acastus smiled.
"Then let it drown with me."
And with that blasphemy, the fate of Ephyra was sealed.
The Theft
Under a red and swollen moon, Acastus rode to Calithra with his chosen men — not soldiers, but zealots who believed his star would never fall. They stormed the sacred temple, their torches throwing monstrous shadows against the alabaster walls. The priestesses screamed prayers that were drowned beneath the sound of steel.
At the heart of the temple stood the altar of Zephyra, draped in white sails that never touched the wind.Upon it lay the Heart — a crystal so clear it seemed carved from lightning. Within it pulsed a light that was not of this world.
Acastus approached alone.He lifted it, and for a heartbeat the world held its breath.
The winds died.The torches froze.Even the sea went still.
Then the crystal blazed like a second sun — and the world screamed.
The Wrath
Thunder ripped the sky apart.The temple cracked from its foundations.The cliffs groaned and split like bone.
From the horizon, the sea rose — not as water, but as something alive and furious, a body of wrath shaped by every drowned prayer ever spoken.
The soldiers ran. The priestesses fell to their knees.Acastus alone stood upon the altar, his crown torn from his head, the Heart blazing in his hands.For an instant, he laughed — a mad, broken sound.
Then the waves struck.
They devoured him whole.They swallowed the palace, the city, the fields.When the dawn came, there was no dawn — only smoke, silence, and the soft hiss of the tide withdrawing from the dead.
The Heart of Zephyra sank with him, lost to the deep.
The Curse
No gods spoke.No lightning struck again.Only the land itself changed.
The crops blackened in the soil. The rivers soured. The sea refused to give up its bounty, and every spring that once bloomed with green now birthed frost and rot.
Mothers buried their children beneath salted earth. Fishermen whispered prayers that turned to curses. And through it all, a single phrase spread like wind through ruin:
"The debt of a king must be paid in royal blood."
Shrines rose along the coast — not of gold, but of stone and bone.People offered shells, wine, and tears. They sang to the gods who had turned away, hoping to soothe them with their grief.
But the sea remained silent.The wind carried only whispers.
Whispers that told of a curse that would never end until the blood of the royal line — the blood of Acastus — was given in return.
And though centuries passed, Ephyra never forgot.
The waves still crashed against the cliffs as if searching for something — the echo of a sin that could not drown.