"He dared to claim what was never his, and I became the wrath of the gods." — Morkai.
The castle trembled beneath my feet. Not from the tide or the wrath of a god but from something older. Deeper. The magic in my veins, the ancient pulse of the sea that had long whispered warnings, now roared with urgency. I knew it then.
The Deep One had not come for us; he had come for what lies beneath. A groan echoed from the stone floor, low and sickening, like the seabed cracking open. The tides roared higher around Pearl Castle, dark and churning, and the sky above had turned the color of bruised blood. But it was below, below in the hollows of the sea, in the bones of the castle that I felt him pressing in.
"No," I whispered, stepping forward. "He's reaching for it."
"Reaching for what?" Thalindra called behind me, her voice strained with grief and fury.
