They reset the circle.
Again.
Nova rinsed each stone in the sea before placing it back down, careful and deliberate, as if the ground itself could notice impatience. Isadora followed behind her, smoothing the sand with her palms, whispering words I couldn't hear. Wherever her hands passed, the grains settled unnaturally flat, like glass ground fine.
I stood just outside the hollow, watching.
The place felt different now.
Not heavier. Not darker.
Aware.
The sea stretched farther into the rocks than before, its edge creeping forward and pulling back in slow, thoughtful breaths. Foam lingered longer. The air smelled sharper, cleaner, like rain that hadn't fallen yet.
"This will feel different," Nova said, finally turning to me.
Different how? I almost asked—but didn't.
I nodded instead.
I stepped into the circle.
The sand shifted immediately, firming beneath my feet like it had been waiting. The stones glimmered faintly, their markings waking one by one as seawater soaked into them.
I closed my eyes.
Breathe.
At first, it felt familiar.
Warmth bloomed in my chest, gentle and steady, spreading outward like sunlight through shallow water. My shoulders loosened. My jaw unclenched.
Okay, I thought. I can do this.
The glow followed—soft at first, like a quiet hum beneath my skin. It didn't hurt. It didn't scare me. It felt… right. Like slipping into something I'd been missing without knowing it.
Then the rhythm shifted.
Not suddenly.
Subtly.
My breath caught.
The warmth deepened, sinking lower than before, heavier now, pulling instead of spreading. I frowned, trying to stay calm, but my fingers curled on instinct.
This wasn't what I expected.
The sea responded.
Water slid over the sand and wrapped gently around my ankles, cool and steady. I opened my eyes just as the glow intensified, spilling outward in a rush of light—
Gold.
Bright and warm, threaded through with turquoise that faded in and out like breathing color.
My legs tingled.
Then they didn't.
The sensation was strange—not painful, not numb. Just… changing. Pressure replaced weight. Movement replaced balance. I gasped as my knees weakened and the water lifted me before I could fall.
"What—" My voice broke. "What's happening?"
Light flared brighter.
My legs blurred, stretching, drawing together as if the space between them no longer existed. Heat rushed downward, then cooled instantly, solidifying into something new.
I looked down.
A tail.
Golden, luminous, its surface catching the light in shifting waves. Turquoise highlights faded along its length, glowing softly where the gold deepened, like sunlight dissolving into the sea.
I stared, stunned.
Before I could even process that—
I felt something else.
A ripple ran along my calves. Then another, higher this time. I inhaled sharply as thin, translucent fins unfurled where skin had been moments ago, catching the glow, moving when I moved.
"No," I whispered, half laughing, half terrified. "That's not—"
I twisted slightly, and the water moved with me instantly, responding without resistance, without effort.
Something brushed behind me.
I turned my head.
A long fin curved from my lower back, luminous and fluid, adjusting itself naturally, like it had always known where to be. Faint lines of light traced my arms when I lifted them, echoing my movements.
I wasn't sinking.
I wasn't floating.
The sea was holding me.
My heart pounded, but my body felt… calm. Balanced. As if it understood what I didn't yet.
"I don't understand," I said softly.
The glow pulsed once—stronger—then began to settle, dimming into a steady radiance beneath my skin. The water lowered me gently until I hovered just above the surface, tail drifting slowly, unfamiliar fins moving with instinct I didn't remember learning.
Silence.
Then—
Isadora stepped forward.
Her face had gone pale.
Not frightened.
Shaken.
"This wasn't supposed to happen," she said quietly.
My chest tightened. "What do you mean?"
Nova turned to her sharply. "Isadora?"
Isadora looked at me, eyes shining—not with pride, not with fear—but with something heavier.
Recognition.
"I tried to change this," she said.
Change what?
She took a breath.
"Hope," she said gently, "you are a mermaid."
That part, somehow, didn't shock me.
"But," she continued, voice unsteady, "you are also something else."
The sea stilled completely.
"Aurelith," Isadora said.
Nova gasped.
The word meant nothing to me.
But the way she said it—like a confession, like a truth pulled from deep water—I knew it mattered.
"They were believed to be myths," she went on. "Creatures of balance. Memory. Presence. Not rulers. Not destroyers. Simply… unavoidable."
"They aren't bad, just – powerful," Nova added
My fingers trembled as the faint lines of light along my arms flickered.
"I was one," Isadora said. "My mother was one before me. I tried to free myself from it—to live only as a queen, as a mermaid."
"I thought it would protect my child."
She swallowed.
"It didn't disappear. It waited."
My gaze dropped to my tail—gold and turquoise, unlike anything I'd seen before.
"And now?" I asked quietly.
Isadora met my eyes.
"Now," she said, "it has awakened in you."
The sea exhaled.
And for the first time since stepping into the circle, I realized—
Nothing had gone wrong.
Something ancient had simply remembered me.