The sea did not roar.
It hummed.
As Caelina stepped off the boat onto the black sands of the Soultide Isles, she felt the hum in her bones, like a song her body had once known but forgotten.
There were no wolves waiting.
Only whispers.
The wind spoke in tongues. The waves curled in strange patterns.
And the rocks… the rocks watched.
Seyna led her inland through a corridor of bone-white trees.
"They are not dead," she said. "Just sleeping."
"They feel like teeth," Caelina replied.
Seyna smiled faintly. "Yes."
The Soultide Temple was built into the cliff face itself. No towers. No gates. Just steps—spiraling downward.
As they descended, light thinned.
Torches glowed not with flame, but with bioluminescent ink.
The walls pulsed faintly, as if breathing.
Every step deeper felt like peeling back time.
In the final chamber, the Salt Cradle awaited.
A round pool of brine in which floated a single skull—half wolf, half serpent.
Caelina felt her throat tighten.
"This is the First Split," Seyna said. "The one who chose to breathe both air and water."
"She lived?"
"She became." Seyna's voice lowered. "And she waits for you."
"When a child walks into the story their mother died hiding, the tale changes shape."
Caelina stepped forward, heart pounding.
Her silver veins burned as she knelt by the cradle.
Then, the brine shimmered—
And a voice echoed, not from around her…
but from inside her skull.
"Daughter of ash. Grandchild of tide.
You carry both wounds. You were never meant to survive.
And yet you do.
Now, choose."
Caelina gritted her teeth. "Choose what?"
"The veil. Or the fang. The storm. Or the tide.
You cannot bind both worlds forever."
Images flashed:
Elara, standing alone, blood on her hands, crownless.The coral godwolf, rising again, this time weeping smoke instead of stars.Myra—not dying, but waiting, inside a tomb of silver and salt.
And then—
A final image: Caelina's mother.
Not as a queen.
Not as a wolf.
But as a Soultide sister, robe soaked in seawater, bearing a child across the sand.
"Lycaena was one of us," Seyna said gently. "Before she ever wore a moon."
Caelina staggered back from the cradle.
"You lied."
"No. I protected you from the truth too heavy for teeth alone."
Tears stung her eyes. "So what am I, then?"
"Not just a wolf. Not just a storm."
Seyna knelt and whispered:
"You are the hinge between myths.
The last breath of a dying tide.
The first howl of a rising sea."
Outside, the wind howled—sharp, sudden, like a warning.
The temple trembled.
A new voice—male, ancient, cold—pierced the air.
"The Second Bride has chosen.
The Sea will not share her."
The torches died.
The cradle cracked.
A fissure opened in the chamber floor.
And something rose.
A shape too fluid to hold.
Not wolf. Not serpent. Not shadow.
Something that had once been worshipped…
and then chained beneath salt.
Seyna screamed: "RUN!"
But Caelina stood still.
Her blood hummed. Her bones ached.
And in that moment, she realized—
She did not have to choose.
She was born to bind.
She stepped into the salt fissure.
Held out her palm.
The shape stopped.
And knelt.
Not in worship.
In recognition.
"The one who binds does not bow.
The sea remembers the wound before it fears the storm."
A silver light erupted from Caelina's chest.
It wasn't violent.
It was true.
And in the chamber, the creature whispered:
"Bride of the First Moon.
Daughter of the Drowned Name.
We await your command."
Hours later, Caelina emerged from the depths.
Alone.
Unharmed.
Changed.
The tide itself receded as she walked to the shore.
At the cliffs, Seyna waited, stunned.
"You bound it?"
"No."
Caelina's voice was calm. Clear. Certain.
"I forgave it."
That night, as the stars returned and the sea fell silent, Caelina carved a mark into the sand: a spiral wrapped around a fang.
Two bloodlines.
Two myths.
One path.
She turned to the sea and whispered:
"I know who I am now.
I am not your bride.
I am your reckoning."