The wind was no longer just wind.
It sang now—low and distant, like a choir buried beneath the world. The kind of sound that made birds fly the other way and made the stones themselves shiver.
Coker stood at the cliff's edge, staring down at the ocean.
But this wasn't any normal sea.
It was still.
Too still.
The waves didn't move, yet the water shimmered with motion. The sky above it rippled like a cloth being gently pulled, and every breath of wind that touched the water made it sing in whispers.
Lilin joined him, her hair blowing sideways.
"This is it," she said. "The Sea That Never Sleeps."
Coker nodded slowly. "Where they locked them away."
"The sleeping gods," she added.
He looked down again, his hand resting on the armband that had once moved on its own. It felt warm.
"They're dreaming... but they're listening too, aren't they?"
Lilin didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
They both knew.
---
They built a small raft—just enough to float across the shore's edge. Not to sail, but to *drift*.
The sea didn't like noise, Lilin warned him. Any sudden splash, any forced movement, and it would know. And if it knew, it might *wake up.*
Coker climbed onto the raft, lying flat, staring at the sky.
He could feel the sea beneath him—not water, not really. It felt like skin. Warm. Breathing.
Lilin sat beside him.
They didn't talk much.
But when the stars began to shift above them—moving, blinking—Lilin finally spoke.
"They're watching you again."
"The stars?"
She nodded. "The same ones that fell when you broke the seal. They're not just lights. They're witnesses."
"Witnesses to what?"
She looked at him sadly. "To what you do next."
---
Hours passed.
Maybe days.
Time here didn't work right.
The sea never moved. But somehow, the raft did.
Until finally, in the distance, Coker saw a shape rising from the water.
A gate.
Huge and ancient, made from two spiraling towers of black coral and bone. Between them shimmered a thin curtain of liquid silver.
He stood.
The raft stopped without being told.
Lilin stayed seated. "This is where I stop."
"You're not coming?"
She shook her head. "This gate… only answers to one name. Yours."
Coker looked ahead.
The silver curtain whispered to him.
**"Come home."**
He stepped through.
---
He didn't feel wet.
He felt *heavy.*
Like every memory he ever forgot clung to his skin the moment he crossed.
The space beyond the gate wasn't ocean. It was a vast hall—endless, echoing, and carved into the bones of something older than time. Giant pillars rose into the sky, each one pulsing with soft blue light. And between them, vast pools of still water reflected *everything*—but not the present.
Each one was a dream.
Someone's dream.
A god's.
He stepped slowly.
Every dream he passed whispered things.
*"The child is back."*
*"He remembers the fire."*
*"He carries the silence."*
*"He must not reach the Deep Altar."*
Coker stopped at the center of the chamber.
There it stood: the Deep Altar.
A giant stone table, covered in ancient runes, and pulsing slowly like a heartbeat.
He reached for it.
And then—
A voice stopped him.
**"Kairon."**
---
The voice was deep.
It didn't echo.
It didn't need to.
It *filled* the space.
And from the far end of the chamber, water rose.
A figure formed.
Half-man, half-ocean.
Eyes like whirlpools. Skin like crashing waves. A crown of coral growing from his head.
He stepped forward, every movement sounding like thunder underwater.
**"You should not be here."**
Coker didn't back down.
"I have questions."
The god studied him.
**"You've forgotten the price of questions, General."**
Coker clenched his fists.
"What am I supposed to do? Everyone keeps calling me things I don't understand. Devourer. Fail-safe. General. Kairon. But no one tells me what I am."
The god stepped closer.
And smiled.
Not kindly.
**"You are the reason gods sleep."**
---
The chamber darkened.
Every dream-pool began to churn.
Storms formed in their reflections.
The god continued.
**"When the First War ended, we did not kill you. We *hid* you. Buried you in a body too small, a life too quiet. We hoped time would drown your memory."**
Coker's eyes narrowed. "Why?"
**"Because you were made to unmake us."**
Lightning flashed in the pools.
The god raised a hand.
**"Leave this place. While there is still something left of you."**
But Coker stepped forward.
"I don't want power. I want the truth."
**"Then you will drown in it."**
---
The sea roared.
The god attacked.
Waves crashed down from nowhere, sharp and heavy as steel.
Coker raised his hand—and the mark on his wrist burst open.
Not with light.
With *memory.*
The sound of a thousand voices crying in unison exploded across the chamber.
The god froze.
And in that instant, Coker moved.
He pressed his hand to the Deep Altar.
And whispered, "Wake."
The chamber cracked.
Every pool shattered.
And in the distance—far beneath even this sea—something massive opened its eyes.
---
The first sleeping god had woken.
And it remembered its creator.
Coker stood at the center of the chamber, panting, his body shaking.
The ocean god dropped to one knee.
And said only one word:
**"Master."**
---
Back on the shore, Lilin saw the sea ripple for the first time.
The sky flickered.
And a voice echoed through the wind:
*"He has returned."*