SILVER'S POV
I smiled faintly as I noticed Zoah still staring at me, disbelief carved deeply into his expression.
Of course he was shocked.
Everyone would be. No one expected me back.
I could still remember the scene I left behind… the way I walked away like I had finally made my decision. I even saw the relief in Uncle Charles' eyes when I told him I was done with this madness. He had been happy, too happy, maybe. As if letting me go meant saving me.
Maybe he was right. Being with Zoah never promised safety. If anything, it only ever felt like standing too close to a storm and convincing yourself you wouldn't get burned.
He wanted me to reconnect with everyone I had left behind. To return to the life I once knew.
And yet… here I was again.
Back with Zoah.
Back with the same group I swore I would never return to.
Fate had a cruel sense of humor.
I already knew what they were thinking. I could feel it in their silence, in the weight of their stares.
She came back because she can't stay away from him.
But they were wrong.
That wasn't the reason.
Not even close.
My thoughts darkened as the memory resurfaced.
Since returning from the Herb C mission, something had been wrong with me. At first, I thought it was exhaustion. Then I thought it was stress. But soon… it became something else entirely.
The visions began.
Not once. Not twice.
So often I stopped counting.
They came in sleep. And then they started bleeding into my waking moments.
I would feel it, the world shifting.
And suddenly, I was no longer myself.
I became a spectator trapped inside my own mind… watching scenes unfold before my eyes like an ancient memory refusing to stay buried.
Always water.
Always the sea.
I saw a girl, no, a princess, drenched in the glow of an underwater kingdom. Beside her stood a woman dressed in royal regalia, her presence heavy with authority and sorrow. A queen.
The princess was comforting her… but there was fear in the air. A silent grief, like something already lost but still breathing.
Then I heard it.
A decision had been made.
The princess was to be banished to the surface world.
Earth.
The queen trembled at the thought, her doubt breaking through her royal composure. She questioned whether her daughter would survive beyond the sea, whether she would be strong enough to endure a world that did not belong to her.
But the princess… she was different.
She was calm.
Too calm.
She promised her mother she would survive.
Not only survive, but return.
Return with her full powers awakened… as the future ruler of the mermaid kingdom.
That word struck me harder each time I heard it.
Mermaids.
I almost laughed at the thought.
If someone had told me before that dragons existed, I would have called them insane. And yet I had stood face to face with Zoah, the Dragon God himself.
So what right did I have to doubt anything anymore?
Maybe mermaids were real too.
Maybe I was connected to something far bigger than I understood.
And that… was why I came back.
Not for Zoah.
Not for anyone else.
But to uncover the truth buried inside me.
To find out what I really was.
Who was I kidding?
I had no connection to the mermaid kingdom… none that I could prove.
And yet, the visions refused to stop.
Why did I keep seeing them?
Why did the princess in those visions wear the exact same necklace that had been around my neck for as long as I could remember?
I remembered that vision too clearly now.
The queen had placed the necklace around her daughter's neck before her departure to the surface world. It wasn't just jewelry, it was a seal. A protection. A guide back to her origin…
back to the truth buried beneath a curse cast by a powerful wizard.
The guardian of the mermaid kingdom had been broken.
And breaking that curse was nearly impossible.
The necklace itself had been sealed with ancient power, the Scroll of Sealing. Once activated, it bound the artifact to its wearer. It could not be removed, cut, or discarded until its purpose had been fulfilled.
Until the princess returned to her origin.
I swallowed hard.
And then reality crept back in, cold and mocking.
Was I losing my mind?
None of it made sense.
And yet… I didn't know where these details were coming from if not from my visions.
Pieces of information I had never learned, never been told, yet they fit together too perfectly to ignore.
But I tried to ground myself.
My necklace… it had always been there. I never questioned it.
According to my mother, it was a gift from my late grandmother. Something I had cherished deeply as a child. Something she said was meant to keep her memory alive within me.
That was what I was told.
But I couldn't remember any of it clearly.
Not her.
Not my early childhood.
Only fragments… broken gaps where my past should have been.
They said it was because of the accident.
A car crash when I was younger that erased parts of my memory.
So what was I supposed to believe?
That I was some lost mermaid princess reborn on land?
No.
That was impossible.
The princess in my visions had been adopted by a kind family after being sent to Earth.
But I was not adopted.
I was born here.
At least… that was what I had always been told.
They wouldn't lie to me. Right?
And yet even that thought felt fragile now.
Because there was another contradiction I couldn't ignore.
I was supposed to be an enemy of water.
I always drowned. Always struggled. Water had never been natural to me.
And yet
There was that moment.
That impossible moment when I fell into the trance and almost floated.
Defying everything I knew about myself.
Even Natasha had called it hallucination. So had Zoah.
They said I was imagining things when I told them I had floated without sinking.
So I had tested it.
After returning from India… I went to the water again.
This time, without a life jacket.
I told myself it was just to confirm I was mistaken.
But I wasn't.
I swam.
Not just barely staying afloat, I swam.
Like I had done it all my life.
Like my body remembered something my mind had forgotten.
How was that even possible?
I had never learned how to swim.
Not after all the times I nearly drowned.
So where did that instinct come from?
What part of me knew the water so well?
Something was wrong.
Or something had always been hidden.
And I was determined to find it.
That was why I came back.
Not just for Zoah…
But because I needed answers.
And whether he realized it or not, I would need him too.
To uncover the truth behind the mermaid princess in my visions…
And the truth behind myself.