(Isaac's Point of View)
The surface stinks of metal and lies.
I've been on land for two days now—long enough to know I hate it.
Every breath scorches my lungs. Every step feels unnatural. My tail, hidden beneath cursed human legs, aches for the ocean's pull. But I cannot return. Not yet.
Not until I find the thief.
He stole it—the Coral Heart. A sacred relic bound to the pulse of our world, our very balance. And for that, blood must answer.
I remember my father's words before I left the reef:
"You must not pity them, Isaac. The humans will never understand what they destroy."
But it's not just revenge that brings me to their ugly shores. It's fear.
The Coral Heart isn't just a treasure. It breathes life into the ocean. Without it, the currents will stagnate, reefs will die, and our kingdom will fall. And the one who took it—Adrian Voss, son of the man who once tried to conquer us—carries the same darkness in his veins.
I blend in, mostly. This cursed glamour my kind rarely uses. I pass as one of them, though my reflection in mirrors flickers strangely. I move through their streets, their labs, listening, sniffing for salt, for memory, for guilt.
And then I saw her.
She was walking out of the research center, ocean clinging to her aura like a shadow. Her hair smelled faintly of algae and brine. Her eyes were too wide, too curious. I recognized the shimmer on her skin.
No... impossible.
Half-human. Half-us.
I followed her without knowing why. Just a shadow across the docks, behind crates and nets, invisible but close enough to see her hesitate at the edge of the pier. Close enough to hear the water whisper to her.
She doesn't know what she is, I realized. They've hidden it from her.
And worse? She had seen me. Beneath the trench. The others said no human ever returned from such sightings. I should've vanished. But something in her gaze made me pause.
Familiarity.
Regret.
Or maybe... recognition?
I grit my teeth. She shouldn't exist. Our kind are forbidden to breed with surface-walkers. The last time it happened, it ended in blood. My mother was there. She never speaks of it.
I should turn away. Forget her.
But I can't. She's connected to the Coral Heart. I feel it pulsing near her. As if it responds to her presence.
She could be the key to retrieving it.
Or the reason we lose everything.
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End of Chapter 4