Casimir
When I woke, the world was soft and blurred. The scent of herbs and salt clung to the air. Light spilled through the small window, pale and uncertain, glinting across the glass jars that lined the shelves. My body felt heavy, weighted with exhaustion and something far older than pain.
I shifted, the sheet rough against my skin. My arm throbbed where the light had torn through it, but the searing fire was gone. In its place was a faint warmth, steady and strange, like the feel of another heartbeat pulsing beneath my own.
Then I saw her.
Ava slept beside the bed, her head resting on her arms. Strands of her hair had fallen loose, golden against the shadowed wood. She looked nothing like the woman who had faced the storm. She looked breakable, peaceful, too human for the power that had flared between us.
I watched her breathe. Every rise and fall of her chest matched the rhythm that lived under my skin. It should have unsettled me, but it did not. It felt right, in a way I could not name.
When she stirred, the faintest sound escaped her lips. My name.
It broke something in me.
Her eyes fluttered open. For a heartbeat, she looked lost, caught between dream and waking. Then she saw me, and color rushed to her cheeks. "You are awake."
"So it seems." My voice was rough, unsteady. "You stayed."
"You were burning up." She sat up, brushing her hair from her face. "The light would not stop. I had to keep it from spreading."
"You should not have touched me."
"You would be dead if I had not."
Her tone was soft, but there was fire in it. The kind that came from someone who had already decided she would not apologize for saving a life. I looked down at my arm. Faint silver lines still glowed beneath the skin, tracing the path the Veil had taken.
"What did you see?" I asked.
Her gaze flicked toward the window. "A memory that was not mine."
The room fell silent. Outside, the sound of the sea deepened, the waves breaking harder against the rocks.
"You saw the fire," I said quietly.
She nodded. "And the loss."
I wanted to ask how much she had seen, if she had felt the grief that still lived in me like a scar. But the words caught somewhere between my throat and my heart. Instead, I said, "The Veil took something from me that day. It seems intent on giving it back through you."
"That is not how healing works."
"It is not healing," I said. "It is binding."
Her lips parted as if to speak, then closed again. The light from the window slid across her skin, catching the faint shimmer that still lingered on her palms. The same silver that burned beneath my flesh.
She noticed my gaze and drew her hands into her lap. "You should rest."
"Rest," I repeated, a quiet laugh escaping me. "The last time I closed my eyes, I saw an entire world burn."
Her expression softened. "Then stay awake."
I did. For a long time, neither of us moved. The distance between us was small, but it felt endless. The air shifted, charged again with that same fragile energy that had flared the night before. I could feel her pulse, could almost taste the magic still clinging to her.
"You should not look at me like that," she said finally.
"How am I looking at you?"
"Like you know me."
"I do not." I paused. "But it feels as if I should."
Her breath caught. For a moment, neither of us looked away. The silence stretched until the sound of waves broke it apart.
The door creaked open, and Nicholas stepped inside. His face was drawn tight. "The harbor," he said. "Something is wrong. The water has gone black. The people are falling ill."
Ava rose immediately, all hesitation gone. "How many?"
"Half the docks," Nicholas said. "Maybe more. They say the sickness spreads through touch."
Her eyes met mine, fear and defiance mingling there. "I can help them."
"No," I said. "The last time you touched what came from the Veil, it nearly consumed you."
"It consumed you," she said sharply. "And yet you live."
"That is not living." I stood, ignoring the pain that followed. "It is surviving."
She stepped closer. "Then survive with me. You know this better than anyone. If the Veil has reached the sea, we cannot wait."
Nicholas looked between us, unease written in every line of his body. "The corruption is spreading faster than anything I have seen. The tide itself feels wrong."
Ava turned to me again. "You said the Veil reacts to me. Maybe I can stop it."
"You do not know what it will take."
Her voice trembled, but she did not back down. "Then let me find out."
The pull between us flared again, the same invisible thread tightening until it was hard to breathe. Every instinct told me to keep her from the sea, to keep her from the thing that wanted her blood. But the Veil's pulse inside me beat faster now, echoing hers. Whatever bound us had already decided she would not be kept away.
I reached for her hand, my fingers brushing hers. "If you hear the sea whisper your name, do not answer."
She looked up at me, her eyes wide and bright. "Why?"
"Because it will not be the sea."
For a moment, the world stilled. Then the floor beneath us trembled, faint but real. The sound of the waves grew louder, closer. Nicholas cursed and ran to the window. "The tide," he said. "It is rising."
We stepped outside together. The air had turned heavy, the scent of salt sharp enough to sting. The water moved against the wind, climbing the rocks in slow, deliberate waves. The sky had darkened again, though no storm gathered.
Ava stood beside me, her eyes fixed on the horizon. "It feels alive."
"It is," I said. "It always was."
A sound drifted through the fog then, soft at first, almost like a song. It threaded through the air, weaving between the crash of waves. The hairs on my neck rose. I had heard it before, in dreams, in the quiet before battle, in the spaces between my heartbeats.
My name, whispered through the tide.
I took a step forward, the sound growing clearer, pulling at something deep inside me. But then it changed. The tone shifted, low and melodic, and the voice that rose through the water no longer called for me.
It called for her.
The sea whispered her name.
Ava.
She gasped, a hand pressing against her chest. I caught her before she stumbled, the warmth of her body against mine sparking that same silver light beneath our skin. The waves rose higher, curling like hands reaching for the shore.
Nicholas shouted something behind us, but I could not hear it. The world had narrowed to her heartbeat and the whispering sea.
"Do not answer," I said again, my voice barely a breath.
She looked at me, eyes wide with fear and wonder. "I was not going to," she whispered. "But it already knows me."
The wind howled, carrying the whisper through the fog once more. It wrapped around us like a promise.
And it spoke her name again.