"Dominic!" a voice called, one he barely registered as Prince Rykas—Naerida’s most trusted battle commander—trying to catch him. But Dominic was already gone, already diving past the trenches, past the dying coral towers, and into the dark channel that led to the heart of the storm.
And there she was.
Lyrielle.
Hovering in a current of black water, strands of her hair drifting like ink in the sea, eyes closed as she sang—not to the warriors, not even to the sea—but to sothing beneath it.
Her voice wasn’t a weapon now.
It was a key.
Dominic halted a few paces from her, floating still. "Lyrielle."
Her eyes snapped open. They were no longer fully her own. One glimred with the old warmth, the defiance, the mories they shared. The other glead with an unnatural shine—silver and storm-wreathed, like moonlight trapped in a blade.
"You followed ," she said softly.
"You’re calling to it," he replied. "The thing beneath Thalorenn."
She tilted her head. "I didn’t an to. The song... it keeps bleeding into . I thought I could command it. I thought I was the siren queen."
"You are."
"No," she whispered. "I’m sothing else now."
The trench below them cracked, sending a roar of bubbles upward as if the sea itself had scread. An ancient pulse radiated from the depths, rippling through the water and striking them both like a blow. Lyrielle flinched, but did not retreat. She turned toward it, voice trembling.
"I can feel it waking," she said. "Not the Choir. Not the Mirror. It. The one sealed by Poseidon before all nas. My voice reaches it because part of it... is inside ."
Dominic’s blood ran cold.
"No," he said. "You’re not its vessel."
But Lyrielle’s expression was unreadable. Torn between certainty and fear. "Then why has it been waiting for ?"
The current shifted.
A rumble echoed from the trench, like the grinding of massive chains or the shifting of tectonic plates. The water temperature dropped. From the darkness below, a shape stirred—vast, indistinct, miles long. Its presence sent every living thing within miles fleeing in blind panic.
Even the sirens fell silent.
Lyrielle sank slowly downward, toward the edge of the abyss, as if called by it. Her voice had stopped, but her eyes were glazed in trance.
Dominic surged after her and seized her arm.
"You’re not going down there," he said, voice shaking. "Whatever’s beneath that seal, whatever Poseidon buried—it doesn’t deserve to be awoken."
Her lips trembled. "And if it’s already awake?"
A second tremor answered. Stronger.
Below, sothing began to rise.
A single limb breached the trench—a tendril the size of a palace, made of coral and shadow and a material not ant for mortal sight. It was not a god.
It was before gods.
And it was hungry.
Dominic pulled Lyrielle back as the thing surged closer. His instincts scread to retreat—but sothing in her gaze had changed. The second her feet touched the ocean floor, she began to chant—not sing. This was no siren’s lody.
It was a seal.
A binding spell.
The abyss roared in outrage. The trench walls split open like ancient jaws. Water surged. Lyrielle scread in pain as blood trickled from her ears, but she didn’t stop chanting.
Dominic watched in horror and awe as ancient runes glowed around her—runes only Poseidon could’ve written. Runes that should have died with him.
"You rembered?" he whispered.
She smiled faintly through the pain. "I rembered what I used to be before the Mirror. Before the Choir. Before the war."
Dominic gritted his teeth. "Who were you?"
Lyrielle raised her hand, runes burning bright.
"I was the Warden of the Deep. And I will be again."
The creature scread.
The ocean buckled.
And everything shattered.
Where Gods Bled
The silence afterward was not silence at all.
It was the holding of breath.
The entire ocean seed to hesitate, caught between two heartbeats, uncertain if ti had fractured or if sothing older than ti had been pulled from its slumber.
Dominic floated amidst the wreckage of currents, his eyes fixed on the sealed trench, now lit with smoldering runes—runes that still bled Lyrielle’s voice. She hovered before him, barely conscious, her body suspended by the lingering magic of the invocation.
Her lips were blue. Her limbs trembling.
But the seal held.
At least... for now.
He swam closer, gently catching her before she could sink.
"Lyrielle," he said, shaking her. "Stay with ."
Her eyelids fluttered open, pain writ across her face. "It’s not over... I slowed it, but I couldn’t finish the seal. It’s too fractured. My voice isn’t enough anymore."
Dominic’s heart sank. "Then what happens now?"
She gave him a sorrowful smile.
"We buy ti. That’s all we ever do in war."
---
Scene II – The Deep Choir Retreats
Far above, Naerida’s palace still trembled with the shockwaves of the battle. The Deep Choir had retreated into the shadows of the deeper trenches, their voices quieted—temporarily muted by the shock of their queen’s defiance.
So of them had heard the binding spell and recoiled.
Others... whispered.
They whispered of betrayal, of fear, of sothing worse than gods returning. Lyrielle had invoked a na from the ancient vaults of their mory—a title buried under centuries of blood and song.
The Warden of the Deep.
It had not been spoken in millennia.
And now it would not be forgotten.
---
Scene III – The War Council Reconvenes
Back in Naerida’s Hall of Depths, the war council reassembled, shaken and bloodied.
Prince Rykas stood with a bandaged shoulder, his voice grim as he addressed the gathered nobles, warriors, and commanders. "The seal did not fully hold. The creature remains, but it now knows we live. And worse—it knows Lyrielle."
Athena stood nearby, arms folded, a heavy silence radiating from her. Her hair flowed like quicksilver in the tide, eyes narrowed with calculation. "You should have let bring the Aegis. We can’t fight myth with steel alone."
"No," Naerida said firmly. "If we awaken Olympus, the whole world will drown in prophecy. This war belongs to the sea."
The chamber quieted.
Until a voice cut through like a blade.
"What if the sea itself turns against us?"
It was Varun, newly returned, his eyes shadowed. Behind him trailed four tide-walkers bearing scrolls and weapons of ancient design.
Dominic and Lyrielle arrived monts later, both visibly wounded. Lyrielle’s aura was flickering, unsteady—her song drained.
But she stood tall beside Dominic.
"There’s no more ti to argue," Dominic said. "It’s waking. We either finish what Poseidon started... or we get erased like the others who tried."
"And how do we do that?" Rykas demanded. "We barely survived a fraction of it."
Athena stepped forward.
"You rember how Poseidon sealed it?" she asked.
Dominic nodded. "With the Vault... with the Three Choirs... with sacrifice."
Athena’s gaze sharpened.
"Then we’ll need all three again."
---
Scene IV – The Monster Beneath the Sea
Far beneath the layers of shifting pressure and crumbling trench walls, the creature stirred. It had no true na, only whispers.
The Leviacryx.
The Abyssal Root.
The First Hunger.
It did not dream.
It rembered.
And now, sothing in its prison had changed. A sliver had cracked. Enough to allow one thought to pulse from it like a sonar of madness:
"She rembers ."
Its limb, still chained, twitched.
Its eye—a vast, hollow abyss—opened.
Above, the sea quaked with tides of fate.
---
Scene V – The Gathering of the Last Choir
In a hidden reef, far beyond the charts of even the wisest sea scribes, a ripple passed through a ruined amphitheatre long forgotten.
A siren sat alone at the edge of it.
Not part of Lyrielle’s choir. Not part of Naerida’s realm.
She was ancient. Her tail covered in runes. Her eyes sealed with kelp bindings.
She felt the seal break.
She opened her mouth—and began to sing. Not to summon, not to charm.
But to warn.
And across the waters, others like her began to stir.
The Last Choir was awakening.
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