The chamber did not speak until she was gone.
The echoes of Elara's departure faded like ripples from a broken tide. The soft pulse of the coral walls dimmed. Only then did Mareth raise one hand — fingers glowing with ancient ink — and draw a shimmering sigil across the air.
A veil of silence fell.
Magic sealed the court from spies, whispers, and watching ears.
"Speak," he said. "The sea listens."
"Not just any mark," Theros muttered. "It was Niraya-born. I've only ever seen sketches in banned scrolls. That bloodline was erased by Vaelros himself."
"She shouldn't exist," Vira said. "The Niraya were wiped out to the last drop."
"And yet she stands," Mareth replied softly.
"What of the creature?" another elder asked. "The Selkyn. It follows her. Watches her like a guardian beast."
"They were once bonded to the Niraya," Vira murmured. "But only in myth."
"Nothing about her is ordinary."
"And have you not noticed the prince? He watches her too closely."
"She has his attention," one elder muttered. "The crown's heir shadowing a girl who fell from the sky. That is not a coincidence. That's entanglement."
"Dravion has always followed his instincts," Mareth said. "But loyalty pointed toward the wrong tide... becomes a blade."
Mareth exhaled, slow and deep. "Vaelros is stirring. We've lost two reefs already. Creatures gone. Shells shattered. The old patterns are repeating."
"Then we end it early," said the youngest among them. "Remove her. Seal the mark before it seals us."
Mareth closed his eyes. "You think we still control the tide?"
His voice was grave now. "If the mark has returned… and he moves once more… then our age of hiding is over."
---
Elara didn't speak on the way home.
Kaelen floated beside her, silent but warm, his little fins pulsing soft light with every beat of her heart. He nudged her hand when they reached her coral dwelling — a quiet cave etched with soft light and old stone. She drifted inside without answering.
Once the door was sealed, the silence came down like a curtain.
She curled into the corner of the coral-silk bed and let her body fold in on itself. Her chest ached. Not from the court. Not even from fear.
But from loneliness.
Her fingers clenched the fabric as her eyes burned. A name echoed in her head — a name she hadn't spoken in this realm.
Grandma.
A flash of memory — warm hands brushing her hair, soft humming under the kitchen lights. A lullaby, off-key and full of love.
"Even the lost ones find their way back, my little light. You just wait and see."
Elara wiped her cheek. The tears floated upward like stars.
"You'd know what to do, wouldn't you?" she whispered.
Her voice cracked in the quiet.
"I wish you were here. Or… or he was."
A longer pause.
"I miss my best friend." She gave a hollow laugh. "The one who never left my side. He'd walk me home. Sit outside my school. Bring me hot chocolate when I couldn't sleep after exams due to stress and he was always there wiping my tears when my classmates bullied me."
She turned toward Kaelen, voice dropping.
"Dravion's here… but not with me. He doesn't visit. Barely speaks. He's kind, but it's like… I'm made of glass — visible, but untouchable."
Kaelen nuzzled against her cheek.
"You're the only one who stays," she murmured. "Even when I don't deserve it."
And then… the tide of sleep pulled her under.
---
She stood inside a ruin, half-swallowed by the sea. Coral columns tilted like ancient gravestones. Moonlight streamed in through a broken shell dome.
At the center, something pulsed — smooth, spiraled, golden-blue.
"It was never lost," said a voice that didn't belong to her.
"Only sealed."
Then — the shadow.
Hair like duskfire. Eyes like sorrow.
Watching her from a distance.
She reached for the relic.
---
Elara awoke gasping, the image still pulsing behind her eyes.
Kaelen glowed faintly near the door, fins twitching. He turned toward her and swam slowly, deliberately, out into the current.
"Kaelen?"
He didn't answer. But his movement said everything.
She followed.
There she found ruins — a crumbled reef far beyond the sleeping edges of the coral city. Pale light filtered through jagged stone, dancing across the wreckage of an ancient temple.
It was exactly as she'd seen in her dream.
Elara approached the collapsed archway, heart thudding. The pulse… it was real.
Then a soft giggle.
She turned.
A small mermaid girl floated on the other side of the altar — glowing slightly, eyes unfocused, smile too wide.
"Hello, Elara," the girl said.
"What…?"
"How do you like the sea?"
Elara's blood ran cold.
"How do you know me?"
The girl tilted her head.
"The sea told me. Or maybe the song. It's hard to tell which is older."
Her voice was strange — too slow. Too clear. As if it wasn't truly hers.
"You need the piece," the girl said. "You'll forget again if you don't take it."
She pointed at the coral wall — where a spiraled relic rested, half-glowing.
"Just like the dream, right?"
Kaelen nuzzled the girl gently, glowing with soft warmth — a tenderness Elara had never seen from him.
"Kaelen—?"
He didn't even look back.
Why is he acting like that? He's never left me before.
The girl smiled faintly.
"Speak to it. When your mark hums, it'll answer. It always does."
Then her body jerked suddenly — her eyes flickering clear.
"Where am I…?"
She looked at Elara, panicked, and fled into the shadows of the reef.
Kaelen, who had been pressing close to her seconds ago, pulled back as if released from a trance.
He returned to her side, calm once more. He didn't mention the girl and neither did she ask.
Elara stepped forward.
The coral shifted around the relic — the same one from her dream. Shell-shaped. Silver veins. Warm.
She raised her hand.
Her mark pulsed, soft and glowing.
The relic answered.
A current circled her wrist like a ribbon. The water shimmered with light, curling into symbols too ancient to name.
A whisper touched her bones.
"Sealed… but not lost."
It hadn't been a dream. Or maybe it had — but someone wanted her to remember.
She didn't know what she'd found.
Only that someone — or something — had called her here.
And the sea had whispered her name before even she remembered it.
---