The calm did not break.Days melted into one another, slow and golden, until even the gulls seemed to forget how to cry.
Callista found herself speaking less to the gods and more to Theron.He filled the silence too easily — with stories, with laughter, with the quiet rhythm of his presence.
Sometimes he helped her mend the cracked stone along the temple wall. Sometimes he followed her down to the tide pools, where she gathered coral dust for the rituals she no longer believed in.
There were moments — fleeting, fragile — when she forgot that the world beyond the cliffs still existed.
But beneath the peace, unease lingered.
Theron's disappearances had not stopped. If anything, they had become part of the rhythm too — like the tides themselves. He never said where he went, only that "the sea calls sometimes."
At first, she tried not to mind. He always returned, after all. But lately, when he came back, his skin carried the faint shimmer of salt that didn't seem to wash away.
Once, when she reached out to touch his wrist, she felt the pulse there — strong, but not steady. It seemed to echo the sound of waves against stone.
"You're cold," she said quietly.
He smiled. "You're always saying that."
"Because it's true."
He laughed softly, but the sound didn't reach his eyes.
One evening, as twilight folded over the horizon, she woke to the sound of footsteps.Theron was gone again.
She found him at the edge of the shore, standing knee-deep in water. The sea was glass-still, yet he stared into it as if something beneath called his name.
"Theron," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.
He turned, startled — too quickly — as though caught in something he shouldn't be doing.
"I couldn't sleep," he said. "The tide's strange tonight."
She joined him, her robe brushing the waves. "You said that yesterday."
He gave a faint smile. "Then perhaps the sea has something on its mind."
The words should have made her laugh. But they didn't.The horizon was wrong — too flat, too silent. Even the air felt held.
Later that night, as they sat by the brazier, she finally asked what had haunted her for days.
"When you go," she began, "where is it you truly go?"
He was quiet for a long moment, the fire painting his face in shifting light.
"Sometimes," he said finally, "I walk the cliffs. Sometimes I just… listen."
"To what?"
He hesitated, then met her eyes. "The sea."
She frowned. "You make it sound as if it speaks."
"Doesn't it?"
Her heart gave a small, traitorous flutter — not from fear, but from the strange conviction in his voice.
After that night, she began to notice things she couldn't explain.
Shells appeared on the temple steps that hadn't been there the day before — perfect spirals, glimmering like glass.The tides rose higher than they should have but never touched the temple walls.And when she dreamed, she heard the low murmur of waves whispering her name.
Theron grew quieter, as if something was pulling him inward.
Once, she caught him tracing a pattern in the sand — a spiral of seven circles that glowed faintly before the wind erased it.
"What does that mean?" she asked.
"An old symbol," he said. "For balance."
"Of what?"
"Of the sea and the sky. The living and the drowned."
She stared at him. "You speak like a priest."
"Perhaps I was one," he said softly. "Once."
The calm stretched on, but it no longer felt like peace.It felt like waiting — like the whole world was holding its breath.
Theron vanished again on the seventh night after the moon turned full.
This time, he didn't return by morning.
Callista stood at the edge of the cliffs, the wind tearing through her hair. The sea below was too still, its surface a dark mirror.
She called his name, her voice swallowed by silence.
Only the tide answered — a single wave, slow and deliberate, breaking against the shore as if to remind her of something she'd forgotten.
When she turned back to the temple, she thought she saw movement in the doorway — a faint shimmer, like water where none should be.
But when she blinked, it was gone.
That night, she didn't sleep.The temple, once warm with his presence, felt hollow again. Every sound — the creak of stone, the sigh of the sea — seemed to echo with his absence.
She told herself he would come back. He always did.But as the hours passed and the tide began to rise unnaturally high, she couldn't shake the feeling that this time was different.
Somewhere beneath the waves, something was stirring.Something that had been silent for too long.