Athan awoke to the sound of waves brushing against metal. The sky above him was gloomy, heavy with the distant hum of a Velar platform retreating into the clouds. He sat up, coughing seawater, and saw that he was lying on the unevenly cut at the edge of a broken pier, the remains of what was once Port Talon—a coastal town swallowed by the sea during the first Zhurax tide.
Zaryans was nowhere in sight.
"Zaryans?" His voice cracked. Only the sea answered.
And then it moved.
Not the waves but something beneath them. A shadow, very large and slow, glided past the ruins, stirring the water with enough force to lift spray into the air. Athan scrambled backward. His heartbeat matched the rhythm of the crashing tide.
"Don't run," said a voice not in his mind. This time, it was a low, almost human growl.
From the waves of rose a figure, water motion off scaled armor. It was tall, easily over seven feet, humanoid in shape but with sleek gills along its neck, webbed hands tipped with claws, and translucent eyes that pulsed with inner light.
A Zhurax emissary.
"You are the one fighting against us with the Zaryans," it said, studying him.
"I–" Athan stammered. "They are the first inhabitants," he managed to say.
The Zhurax tilted its head. "Humor. An ancient defense. You are not the first to challenge the Triarchs, but you are the first the ocean has not rejected."
Athan stood his ground. "Why bring me here?"
The Zhurax reached into the water and pulled something from the deep—a small metallic sphere, faintly glowing. "We found this in the bones of your old war machines. It is human technology, but coded with our patterns."
Athan frowned. "That's not possible. We don't know your language."
"You didn't. But someone does."
A vision burned into his mind. A child, no older than ten, floating underwater, breathing like a fish, speaking words that weren't human.
His little brother. Kieran.
Dead for years.
Or so he thought.
That night, Athan was taken aboard a Zhurax vessel, if it could even be called that. It wasn't a ship in the traditional sense but a living creature the size of a cathedral, pulsing with bioluminescent light and moving with the currents like a drifting fortress. Inside, he walked through halls made of bone and membrane, walls that shifted as if listening.
The emissary guided him to a chamber filled with pools, each one glowing faintly, humming with memory.
"These are the Sea's Archives," It said. "Echoes of all who entered our waters, willingly or not."
In the central pool, he saw it again, Kieran, suspended in light. Alive.
"No," he whispered. "He drowned when the tides came."
The Zhurax placed a hand over the water. "He was taken. Like others. The Earth was dying. So we saved what we could. Your brother adapted."
Athan looked up, his voice shaking. "Saved… for what?"
"To rebuild. With balance. With memory. He is not your past. He is our future."
Athan stepped back. His legs trembled. Everything he knew was unraveling. First the sky, then the land and now the sea had stolen his blood.
"I want to speak to him."
"You will. But first, you must choose: fight us and lose everything or learn what it means to belong to the new Earth."
Meanwhile, deep beneath the mantle of the continent, a different kind of awakening stirred.
In the caverns of the Drokar, Zaryans opened his eyes.
He was bound in stone and vines, suspended in a temple carved by molten hands. Around him stood warriors, tall and powerful, bearing the marks of Earth's first age.
"Where am I?" he croaked.
An elder Drokar stepped forward, voice like gravel. "You are at the heart of the land."
"I was on the Veyari platform," Zaryans muttered. "You… you pulled me down?"
"No," Drokar said. "The Earth did. You carry its pain. Its fury. And you are not yet broken."
Athan blinked. "You want me to join you?"
"We want you to remember what it means to belong to the ground you bleed on."
Back at sea, Athan sat beside the glowing pool as Kieran slowly rose from the water. His eyes, once brown, were now glowing blue. He smiled, faintly.
"You're here," he said.
"You're alive," he whispered.
"I never left," he replied. "The sea remembered me when no one else did."
Tears burned his eyes. "Why didn't they tell me?"
"Because I'm no longer just yours," he said gently. "I'm part of something greater."
He took his hand. "You can be too. But you need to stop fighting the Triarch. You need to understand them. They didn't come to destroy us. They came because Earth called them."
Athan smirked. "I can't believe this. They have recruited you, so you speak for them even though it's not the truth."
His mind went back to when he had gone to the Reclaimers and was sent to fight the Zoryans. They said almost the same thing.
"Each always has the same thing to say. I may believe the Zoryans but I'll never believe the Triarchs."
Athan's heart was firm, he wasn't going to be swayed in between opinions, not even by his brother.
Kieran continued to look into his eyes, sad and persistent. Athan got a bit puzzled.
"And if I don't?" He asked, voice sharp.
Kieran's smile faded. "Then you'll become one of the Forgotten. And the Earth will forget you too."