The water had always been her enemy.
Serenya D'Arvelle had known this for as long as she could remember. Long before she understood court politics, long before she learned how smiles could lie and kindness could cut deeper than knives, she had learned to fear the way water watched her.
Rivers unsettled her the most. They never stayed still. They whispered as they flowed, sliding past their banks like living things, like tongues tasting the earth for weakness. She hated walking beside them, hated the way their currents tugged at her vision, as if inviting her to step closer.
Lakes were worse.
Their stillness felt unnatural, a vast mirror stretched across the land. When Serenya looked into them, she felt as though she were peering into another world — one that could swallow her whole and never give her back. The sky reflected so perfectly upon their surfaces that it felt like standing at the edge of something sacred and cruel, a doorway pretending to be harmless.
Even rain made her uneasy. Each drop against her skin was a reminder that the sky itself held the power to drown her, if it wished.
Yet it was not water itself she hated.
It was the silence beneath it.
When Serenya was six years old, a cousin — older, bored, and thoughtless — had pushed her into a garden pond during a summer gathering. The adults had been laughing nearby, distracted by wine and conversation, and no one had noticed her fall at first.
She remembered the shock more than anything. The way the world seemed to slam shut around her.
Her scream had vanished the moment she slipped under. Sound died instantly, smothered as though the world itself had pressed a hand over her mouth. Her arms flailed wildly, her legs kicked, but every movement felt wrong, slow, as if she were trapped inside a dream she could not wake from.
Above her, the surface rippled and shimmered, sunlight fracturing into cruel, dancing shards. It looked so close. Close enough to touch. Yet no matter how desperately she reached, it pulled farther away.
In that moment, she had thought she was dying.
She had thought she saw heaven itself laughing at her, trembling just beyond her grasp.
Someone eventually dragged her out. She coughed and cried, shaking and soaked, but the response had been mild amusement at best. She was scolded for wandering too close, teased for her tears.
"Tsk, such a dramatic child," they had said. "You're fine."
But she had never been fine.
The fear stayed with her, curling itself deep inside her chest, settling into her bones. As she grew older, she learned how to live around it. How to hide it.
She never walked lakeside without someone beside her. She avoided boats entirely, no matter how fashionable they became. She crossed bridges quickly, eyes locked straight ahead, breath shallow until solid ground lay safely behind her.
Water became something she endured from a distance.
A silent enemy.
And like all enemies, it waited.
Today, the sun was warm, and the lakeside garden bloomed in full splendor.
Petals drifted lazily across the water's surface, pink and white against shimmering blue. Nobles gathered in elegant clusters along the shore, their laughter light, their voices carrying easily across the open space. Silk dresses rustled, polished shoes crunched against gravel paths, and the air smelled faintly of flowers and summer wine.
It should have been beautiful.
Serenya stood among them, hands folded tightly before her, posture perfect, expression carefully neutral. She did not look at the lake. She refused to.
She had been invited, of course. It would have been improper not to attend. And besides, Celestine Marveil was here.
The darling.
Celestine moved through the crowd like sunlight given form. Her smile was radiant, her laughter soft and sincere, her presence effortlessly magnetic. Nobles leaned toward her without realizing it, servants watched her with adoration in their eyes.
She was everything Serenya was not.
Serenya felt eyes on her — curious, judgmental, dismissive. She knew how she appeared beside Celestine: darker, sharper, less forgiving. The shadow cast by someone else's glow.
She swallowed, shifting her weight subtly, aware of how close she stood to the water's edge. Too close.
Her heart beat faster.
She should step away, she thought. Just a little. No one would notice.
Then she felt it.
A presence behind her.
Not abrupt. Not obvious. Just… close.
Too close.
A hand brushed against her back, light as a whisper. For a heartbeat, Serenya thought it accidental. A crowded space, a careless movement.
Then pressure came.
Not rough. Not violent.
Soft.
Delicate.
Almost gentle.
Her breath left her in a sharp gasp as she stumbled forward. Her foot slipped on the gravel path, balance vanishing in an instant. She twisted instinctively, arms flailing as she turned—
—and saw Celestine Marveil's face.
Wide eyes. Pale skin. Lips parted in a silent cry.
Tears glistened, already forming.
"I—!" Celestine seemed to say.
But Serenya saw it. Just for a fraction of a second, before gravity claimed her.
The calm.
The certainty.
Then the lake rushed up to meet her.
The splash was sharp and merciless, icy water crashing over her head as she plunged beneath the surface. Cold wrapped around her instantly, seeping into her skin, her muscles, her bones. It dragged her down, heavier than she remembered, stronger.
Her body remembered.
Panic exploded inside her chest.
She thrashed, arms clawing upward, legs kicking wildly, but the water swallowed every sound. That awful hush returned, thicker than before, sealing her inside it. Her lungs burned as she tried to scream, to breathe, to live.
Above her, the surface trembled.
Always the surface.
That fractured pane of light shimmered mockingly, sunlight splintering across it. It was close. So close. Yet no matter how she reached, it refused her.
Her chest convulsed. Darkness crept in at the edges of her vision.
Her strength faltered.
Her lungs screamed.
She stared upward one last time, the watery sky fractured and trembling above her—
—and the world folded.