{"He does not speak in words. He speaks in pressure, in the silence between waves, in the weight of promises left to rot in salt and time."}
The Emerald Gold groaned a sound like metal surrendering to the depths, as the waters around us surged without warning. The ship lurched violently, the deck tilting beneath my feet. I grabbed for the railing, but it was too late.
A thunderous crack split the air as the gates of the Pearl Castle shuddered open—not in welcome, but in wrath. From between the split shell doors, a torrent of seawater surged forward like the fist of a vengeful god. The magic wards screamed as they broke, splintering in a flare of drowned light.
"Hold on—!" someone shouted. I could not tell who.
Then everything was motion, falling, crashing, spinning. The ship heaved sideways, and we were thrown like driftwood. I hit the deck hard before the sea swallowed me whole. Cold, blinding salt. The roar of waves filled my ears. I clawed toward the surface, gasping, but the current was merciless.
Somewhere to my left, I heard Ellowen's voice rise in panic. "Caelen!" she cried, reaching across the foam and chaos.
I glimpsed her for a second, arms outstretched, eyes wide with horror, but a wall of water crashed between us, and she vanished.
We were scattered like flotsam. A dark voice rang out, cold and cruel, rippling through the currents with the weight of ancient power.
"You are not worthy to walk the halls of pearl and memory. The sea sees through you."
Then laughter low and jagged, like stone scraping stone echoed through the depths. It was not just scorn. It was dismissal. As if we were less than nothing. The tide pulled harder. I kicked against it, but it was like fighting fate itself and still, that voice laughed.
The sea was a blur of cold chaos bubbles, broken light, the press of waves that dragged at my limbs like iron chains. But I did not let the panic win.
I closed my eyes and let the salt burn. Let the current tear at me. I let it all fall away because I needed to see. Not with my eyes, but with the power that hummed in my blood like a forgotten song.
I reached for it, and the water answered, thick with magic older than kingdoms. It shimmered against my senses, pulsing in steady rhythms like a heartbeat but not mine. Not even the ocean's and I pushed deeper, past the veil of enchantments and the storming tides, until I felt it.
The laughter from before still echoed, but now it was clearer closer. The voice was not disembodied anymore. It lived in the current, laced through every ripple and surge.
And then I felt its mind, Dark. Ancient. Cold as the trench floor and just as deep.
"You reach for truths your kind cannot hold," it whispered, not aloud, but inside my head.
I shuddered. My throat burned with seawater, but I forced the words out anyway, the thought trembling through my mind. "Who are you?"
The answer came not in words but in weight, a crushing flood of memory not my own. Images of storms blackening skies. Leviathans bowing in submission and a vast maw beneath the sea, teeth of coral and bone, eyes like moons carved from obsidian.
And then a name, Tharion, the Abyssal Warden.
I froze in the current, the realization like ice in my veins, knowing well that I had heard whispers of the name in the half-mad ramblings of ancient texts, stories no one truly believed. A creature bound not by duty but by loyalty. Loyal to one Morkai. I opened my eyes, and the Pearl Castle was no longer just the sea. It was his domain, his prison. His throne. And this creature was the gatekeeper.
"You are not welcome, little shadow," Tharion murmured again, coiling through my thoughts like ink through water. "Turn back… or drown in what you do not understand."
I gritted my teeth, the power inside me still glowing faint and defiant.
"I did not want to come," I said quietly. "I came to find the truth about what is happening in the deep waters."
For a moment, everything stilled, and the water eased, and the pressure lightened just a breath.
Then Tharion's presence swelled again, vast and merciless." Are you worthy of the Pearl Castle? "
The current was no longer just a force of nature; it had will, direction. It wanted me somewhere. I kicked, twisted, and fought it, but the water did not resist violently. It guided with a strength I could not match.
The voices of the others were lost behind me, muffled echoes swallowed by the sea. My chest burned as my lungs screamed for air, but still I was pulled deeper, past the jagged reef, beyond where sunlight dared to touch. My vision blurred, but my senses did not lie. The power that moved through this current was the same that had stirred the Pearl Castle to life.
It was Tharion's will… but not to kill me, but to test me. And then, like the eye of a storm, the water eased. My body surged upward, thrown, spat out like a pearl from an oyster until I broke the surface with a gasp that shattered the silence. Salt filled my mouth and throat as I coughed, blinking against the grey light above. The world had changed again, and I was alone.
The sea had carried me to shore, and I rose slowly from the shallows, water sheeting from my skin, heart still pounding like war drums. The black sand beneath my palms shimmered faintly, like powdered obsidian laced with stardust. Behind me, the ocean churned with unnatural stillness. In front of me—The Pearl Castle.
Close enough now that I could see the veins of coral-glass glowing within its walls, pulsing like breath. Towers loomed high above, their tips shrouded in mist. The air was thick with magic, not just spells, but memory, the kind that settled in your bones and made you forget the shape of your name.
I turned in a slow circle. No one else had washed ashore. No Ellowen. No Kallion. No Ardanis or Lady Nerisca. I was alone with the sea and whatever force had decided to cast me out from the others.
"Why me?" I muttered to no one, my voice raw in the silence.
There was no answer. Only the hush of waves pulling back, as if even the ocean held its breath. I stepped forward. My boots crunched against seashells shattered into dust. The beach curved like a crescent moon, ending in a set of wide stairs carved directly into the cliff face. Pale moss grew along the edges, untouched by time.
Every instinct screamed at me to turn back, but something deeper, something that had stirred the moment I first laid eyes on the Pearl Castle pushed me onward. The voice from before Tharion's was silent now. But I could still feel him, watching from beneath the waves, waiting. I climbed the first step, seawater trailing behind me, my hands still shaking.
The beach stretched before me like a path carved from forgotten dreams, silent, shimmering, ancient. With every step I took, the air thickened, not with salt or mist, but with presence. Magic hummed just beneath the surface of the sand, pulsing like a second heartbeat beneath my own. I did not rush as my instinct told me not to. Instead, I reached inward into the part of me that had always been different, the one I had kept buried and quiet for fear of what it might awaken. But here… there was no point hiding.
So, I opened myself to it. Let it spill out like a tide breaking through a cracked dam, and the world around me shifted. I felt the Castle respond, ancient wards stirring in recognition. But more than that, I felt him. The sea changed beneath my senses, warped by something vast, old, and hungry.
A presence rose, not from the Castle, but from the very bones of the ocean. I turned, the wind catching my cloak as a figure stepped from the misted shore behind me.
My breath caught as Morkai, the Abyssal Sovereign, appeared.
He emerged from the surf like a vision carved from myth, tall, clad in robes that shifted like oil over moonlit waves, dark hair pulled back, wet and gleaming. His skin held a sheen like polished obsidian, his features sharp, inhumanly beautiful, and his eyes were the abyss itself. We stared at each other, the only sound the soft hiss of waves breaking at our feet.