The Sea Remembers Even What the Gods Forget
"the damn Emerald Sanctuary," I murmured under my breath, letting the word bleed into the tides. "A lie dressed in celebration and the fucking bastards who cant wait for my death."
The ocean air was heavy with incense and song, curling with the salt-slicked breath of the deep. Lanterns carved from mother-of-pearl floated across the surface of the bay, their lights shimmering like stars lost beneath the waves. The Sanctuary Festival had begun, and I stood at the edge of the coral dais, the tides whispering at my feet, cloaked in robes spun from abyssal silk and the shadows of the sea. My crown, no longer a symbol of hope, but of command, rested cold on my brow.
"My lord," Thalia's voice was soft beside me, her seafoam hair glittering like starlight caught in a wave. "You don't have to endure this alone."
"I do," I said, turning my gaze toward the gathered assembly. "That is the burden of a Sovereign."
The first to approach was Lady Nerisca, the Sea Witch, gliding across the coral with elegance forged from power. Her gown of dark kelp and barnacle silk clung to her like a second skin.
"Morkai," she purred, voice smooth as oil on water. "Still brooding, even when the realm remembers peace?"
"Peace is a delicate mask," I replied, inclining my head. "And masks crack under pressure."
She laughed, rich and sharp. "Let's hope it holds, at least until the wine runs out."
From the Fae delegation came Lord Ardanis, his golden antlered crown casting long shadows across his ancient face. Behind him trailed Elowen, her fingers ink-stained, her eyes already drinking in the glyphs etched into the sanctuary stones.
"Vaelan," Ardanis greeted, his voice a wind-etched blade. "The sea honors its debts, as always."
"And the Fae never forget their politics," I returned, with a smile that did not reach my eyes.
"It is politics that keep war at bay," he said, eyes narrowing.
Then came Zynarion Lae, once a prince, now draped in melancholy and rusted silver. The sea had taken his kingdom, and I had taken his crown. He approached me slowly, his trident glinting like bone. "Your Majesty," he said, the title a bitter wave on his tongue.
"Zynarion." I met his eyes. "Still swimming in the wreckage of the past?"
"Still wearing the ruins of mine," he said quietly, and passed without another word.
The air shifted and cracked and Lysander arrived like a storm contained, lightning threaded through his cloak, eyes the color of a coming squall. He knelt briefly, then rose.
"Sire," he said. "All sectors report calm seas. No disturbances."
"No signs of what stirs in the deep?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"Nothing yet. But the silence grows… tense."
Fenris, the shape-shifting ranger, lounged against a shell-pillar nearby in his human form dark-haired, silver-eyed, mischief barely caged.
"I caught a sea wyrm stalking too close to the border reefs," he drawled. "Its mind was… wrong. Fractured. Something's pulling at the old threads."
"And?" I prompted.
He grinned. "I slit its throat. Of course."
The last to join was Kallion, my once-general, now cloaked in the weight of retirement. He walked with a limp, but his eyes missed nothing.
"I should've died before seeing you like this," he said gruffly.
"Still dramatic, I see," I replied.
"You used to be fire. Now you're ice."
"I am the abyss now," I said. "There is no room for warmth in the dark."
He studied me for a long moment. "Then we'd better hope something survives to carry the light."
The festival continuedas the wine flowed and the music wove through the currents, and then Lady Nerisca walked over and stood beside me, ready to speak, and then something in the water changed, like a current brushing the back of my neck. A cold ripple across the mind. I had felt it once before, long ago, when the magic of the Old Tongue had grazed my soul in warning.
But this wasn't magic, but someone.
"Gods, how do you stand the scent of her?" The voice rose inside, not around the room, but within. Masculine. Smooth. Amused. It slid through my thoughts like smoke through keyholes. I stiffened as my hands curled into fists at my sides as I scanned the chamber. No one else reacted as the courtiers drifted out through the shell-encrusted gates. Nerisca leaned into a quiet conversation with one of her spies, and that made me sure that she had not heard it.
"She smells like rotted pearls and ambition. If I were you, Sovereign, I'd rather drown."
My breath caught, and someone was in my head, not whispering from afar. Not casting a crude psychic spell, no incantation, no trace of magic at all. This was direct. Intimate and personal, as I reached out with my senses slowly, cautiously, the way a deep-sea predator tests unfamiliar waters. I brushed across minds like sonar: lust, greed, fear, hunger, and it was the usual filth of politics and pageantry. And then beneath it all like a sleek shadow darting under still water...I found him, faint but deliberate. A presence coiled just beyond reach. And now, I could feel it like a tether brushing lightly against my thoughts.
"Ah. You fucking heard me. "Wasn't sure you could. You seem... distracted. Probably Nerisca's perfume. Clings to the spine like oil, doesn't it?"
"Who the fuck are you and how dare you use your fucking magic to penetrate what you shouldnt? You?" I pushed the words back through the connection he had created.
Several heads turned at the tension in my posture and I waved them off and descended the coral steps of the dais slowly, as if lost in thought.
"Careful, Sovereign. Speaking out loud makes you look mad. Though you are, in some circles they call you Murderer, monster, or Drowned heir."
I snarled in my mind and shoved back, hard. I had centuries of mental fortification. I'd been trained by tidecallers, shadow-minds, whisper-diviner, and no one had pierced me so cleanly.
"Impressive," the voice mused, genuinely pleased. "You're stronger than they say. But not nearly as untouchable as you pretend."
"Show your fucking self coward yourself," I commanded, voice sharp with Sovereign steel. "
"You wound me, Sovereign, but not yet, and not here, there are too many eyes. Even now, Nerisca watches you like a shark circling a wounded seal."
I glanced toward her. Nerisca no longer spoke. She just stared,lips still, eyes narrowed. Watching me. Sensing the shift, as she always did and I clenched my jaw and turned away.
"You're not alone anymore, Morkai Vaelan," the voice said softly, almost fondly. "And gods help us both, and I can bet that soon or later you're going to need me."
Then he was gone, and his presence vanished like a ripple swallowed by still water. So cleanly it left my mind aching as I stood alone in the Sanctuary, heart hammering for the first time in decades. The taste of brine coated my tongue. Every instinct screamed denial, but the truth burned, seared into my bones: Whoever he was, he did something forbidden by reaching out to me. I lingered near the edge of the sanctuary, the music growing faint beneath the roar in my ears. Laughter drifted through the current like silt, meaningless and far away. My fingers twitched at my side, and my fist clenched and unclenched in the process.
Thalia approached, concern evident in the subtle angle of her shoulders. "You're pale," she said quietly. "Paler than usual."
"I felt something," I said, too low for mortal ears. "Someone."
Her eyes sharpened. "A threat?"
I hesitated. "I don't know."
That was the most dangerous answer of all, and Thalia didn't press. She merely nodded, her seafoam hair drifting in the current like a living thought, and remained at my side, silent, vigilant. A sentinel in pearls and stormlight. I turned my gaze back to the sanctuary. The festival swirled on: courtiers toasting to dead gods, lovers dancing beneath bioluminescent kelp, masked attendants weaving between tiers with jeweled trays and honeyed smiles. But the joy was hollow now
I moved then quietly, deliberately, toward the rear of the sanctuary. Away from the lights, away from the noise and the archives. The guards stepped aside without question and down corridors carved from ancient shellstone and obsidian glass. I descended past tide-sealed doors, past murals of gods long drowned. Into the chamber beneath the Deep Spire, where the Sea Memory hummed.
A pool of still water, black as mourning silk, rested beneath a ceiling of teeth-like coral. The surface shimmered slightly as I approached. The Sea Memory did not lie as it always showed what was, what is, and sometimes, when the tides allowed, what must be. I knelt at the edge and dipped two fingers into the surface. The water rippled outward, and "Show me," I whispered. "The one who touched me." And for the first time in my years, eons and eons, the sea gave me nothing.
The sea memory was empty, and I rose slowly, water still dripping from my fingers. Somewhere above, the festival played on. " Who the fuck are you is this insolent creature?" I gritted my teeth in anger.