"The tide does not ask permission to rise, nor do those who were born from it."
The ocean turned restless beneath the looming sky. Waves clawed at the jagged rocks like spirits crying to be freed. I stood at the highest battlement of Pearl Castle, the salt wind slicing through my robes, and I knew the storm was not of nature's making. It pulsed with something darker, older. The Deep One stirred and my hand curled instinctively around the hilt of the ancestral blade at my side. Caelan stood behind me, silent as always, the warmth of his presence anchoring me in the chaos that raged beyond the horizon. I did not turn, but I felt him steady, unyielding, the only truth I had left in a world of betrayal.
"They're coming," I murmured. "Nerisca, Zynarion, Kallion. I feel them like rot in the tide."
Caelan stepped beside me, his fingers grazing mine. "We've held them off before."
I shook my head. "This is different, they're not just coming to fight, they're coming to end me."
