Prologue – The Whisper Before
Long before the village of Kalumbayan was built, the sea had a voice. It spoke in waves that crashed against the cliffs, in winds that curled through the coconut trees, in storms that tore roofs from homes. The people learned to fear it, but they never learned to listen.
Legends told of children who could hear the whispers of the wind, but those stories faded into bedtime tales. No one believed them anymore.
Until Lira.
She was born on a night when the tide rose higher than the moon, and the wind rattled the bamboo walls of her mother's hut. As an infant, she calmed only when her thumb was tucked in her mouth. The villagers thought it was a habit, a weakness. But her mother knew better.
For when Lira sucked her thumb, her eyes grew distant, and she seemed to hear something beyond the world. A murmur. A warning. A promise.
The sea had chosen her. And one day, the silence of her thumb would speak louder than all the voices of the village.