The first thing Kairo felt was burning.
His lungs seared as he coughed up seawater, rolling onto his side. Each breath was a blade, cutting in and out. His body was heavy, soaked, as though the tide still clung to him.
When his eyes fluttered open, he wasn't on the pier anymore. He was lying on damp stone beneath the skeleton of a roofless temple, its walls carved with half-faded runes. Moonlight bled through the cracks, painting the ground in silver.
The mark on his arm pulsed.
Kairo gritted his teeth, pulling up his sleeve. The spiral sigil had grown—streaks of light now spread across his veins like rivers of fire. The sight made his stomach twist.
"You should be dead."
Kairo jolted upright. A shadow leaned against the temple's broken pillar: a girl. She couldn't be more than a year older than him, with dark hair clinging wet to her shoulders and violet eyes that caught the moonlight unnaturally.
He coughed. "Who—who are you?"
She tilted her head. "Alive. For now. That's all that matters."
"Did you—save me?"
The girl ignored the question, her gaze fixed on his glowing arm. "That mark… it doesn't belong to you. Not yet."
Kairo covered it quickly. "I don't even know what it is."
"You will," she said softly, almost like a promise. Then she stepped closer. "But know this: the waters won't stop. Not until you choose."
"Choose what?"
Her lips curved into a faint smile that sent a shiver down his spine.
"Whose son you truly are."
Before he could speak, a crash of stone echoed outside the temple. Heavy footsteps—too heavy to be human—thudded against the earth.
The girl's eyes widened. "They've found you."
"Who?" Kairo demanded.
She didn't answer. She only whispered: "Run."
End of chapter 3.