Chapter eighteen

It wasn’t the smooth silver mirror described in stories, nor the playful tides painted on childhood murals. It was vast and hungry, its waves were blackened by storm-winds and haunted with the breath of ghosts. They reached the coastline in three days, riding under the banner of the Accord, but even that sacred emblem did little to calm the villagers that greeted them.

“Stay off the eastern shoals,” a toothless old woman warned as they secured the boats. “That sea remembers the old ones. It remembers who bled into it.”

Kaelen thanked her politely and moved on.

Lyra paused longer, staring into the foam-crusted surf. The wind tangled her cloak, sent her hair whipping around her shoulders like strands of moonlight caught in a gale. Behind her, Iris stood quietly, her gaze locked not on the horizon, but on the seabirds flying inland as if they were fleeing something they couldn't name.

“Is this where the second seal is?” Lyra asked the girl softly.

Iris didn’t look at her. “It’s underneath. Drowned. Dreaming.”

Kaelen joined them, his hand resting lightly on Lyra’s lower back. “Then we find it before it wakes.”

Their ship was not grand.It was a long, narrow vessel with reinforced hulls and sails designed to cut through magical currents. The Accord had spared no expense in equipping them, but the crew was small by design. Trust was a rare currency, and Lyra would not gamble with strangers.

Their expedition included,

Kaelen, who commanded both strategy and strength.

Iris, who knew more than she should and spoke less than she needed to.

Elias, a former moon-seer turned wave-reader, with ocean symbols tattooed down his spine.

Thorne, a gruff, stone-skinned warrior with a past wrapped in exile and salt.

And Lyra herself. She was the beacon and the blade, the flame no longer cursed.

They sailed with the tide.

On the second night, the stars vanished.

—

Kaelen woke to the scent of brine and decay.

The ship groaned beneath them, rocking in unnatural stillness. The ocean had gone eerily calm, and fog hugged the water so thick it seemed solid.

“Where are we?” Lyra asked, stepping barefoot onto the deck.

Elias ran his fingers along the edge of a magical compass. “Somewhere we shouldn’t be.”

Thorne cursed softly. “No wind. No current. It’s like the sea’s holding its breath.”

Iris stood at the prow. Her voice was a whisper against the wood. “We’re close.”

Kaelen scanned the mist. “I don’t see land.”

“There won’t be land,” Elias murmured. “If the seal is what the records suggest… it’s submerged. Lost in the Drowned City.”

Lyra frowned. “There was a city?”

Elias hesitated. “There was once a city. A kingdom of wolves who turned from the moon and worshipped the tide. They claimed the sea was the first mother. They built temples beneath the waves.”

“And what happened to them?”

“They sank. Or were pulled under.”

—

That night, Lyra dreamed of stone towers growing like coral, of cities made from the bones of strange creatures.

In the dream, she stood at a sunken altar. A child’s voice whispered, “This is where it began.”

When she awoke, her hands were wet with seawater. Not sweat.

Iris was standing at her bedside, holding a pearl.

“It’s calling,” the child said. “You have to go under.”

—

They prepared for the dive with urgency.

Elias performed a ritual with salt, ink, and water to bless the journey. Thorne reinforced the ship’s hull with runes in case the tide turned violent. Kaelen refused to let Lyra dive alone, and Iris—who everyone assumed would stay behind—simply walked onto the raft as if it were her right.

No one stopped her.

Lyra met Elias’s eyes before they descended. “How deep?”

“No one’s ever come back to say,” he replied grimly.

Then they slipped beneath the surface.

—

The water was cold.

Not just cold, it was biting, almost like it was alive. Lyra felt it immediately, like something ancient was brushing against her thoughts, whispering in a tongue she couldn’t understand. Their dive spells kept the pressure from crushing their bones, but it didn’t mute the presence.

Shapes moved in the dark. Not fish. Not predators. Just... shadows. Watching.

They followed Iris.

The girl didn’t swim like a child. She drifted. Pulled by something deeper. Kaelen stayed close to Lyra’s side, his hand brushing hers, keeping her anchored even as the sea tried to unmoor her mind.

Then they saw it.

A city beneath the ocean. Shattered. Tilted. Grown over with anemone and bones.

And at the heart, there an altar made from fused crystals..

The seal.

Lyra felt it before she touched it. A buzz of power that filled her lungs, her veins, her soul. Her wolf whimpered inside her, but her blood—the part awakened by the Rift—howled in response.

She reached for it.

The world turned.

—

She was back in the Hollow.

No—not quite.

This was older and wilder.She stood in a circle of fire. Around her were figures cloaked in kelp and stormlight. Voices hissed like tide and salt.

“You are not of the deep.”

“You carry the flame.”

“She must choose.”

“She must open—or seal.”

Lyra gasped, “Seal what?”

A figure stepped forward.

It was her.

Not a reflection. A version of her older. Wiser.

“You can’t seal what you don’t understand,” the other Lyra said. “You must become what you fear. Only then will you know the shape of its prison.”

The vision shattered.

Lyra opened her eyes beneath the sea.

The altar was glowing.

Kaelen floated before her, trying to reach her but he looked miles away.

Iris stood beside the seal, her eyes glowing.

She placed her palm on it.

It opened.

—

Water didn’t rush in.

Instead, the ocean parted like a curtain, revealing a staircase of coral.They followed it downward, the pressure unbearable but the magic keeping them intact. Lights shimmered in the walls, and whispers followed them at every step.

At the bottom was a chamber.

In the center was a floating stone sphere, pulsing with pale light.

Elias hissed. “It’s not just a seal. It’s a heart.”

Kaelen frowned. “Of what?”

Iris answered.

“Of the First Gate.”

Lyra stared. “I thought we destroyed it.”

“No,” Iris said. “You destroyed its tether. But the Gates are older than the Hollowed. Older than the Sovereign. They were… invitations. Anchors for things not meant to enter.”

Lyra approached the heart.

It pulsed in time with her own.

“She was chosen,” the voices said again. “She carries the key. She carries the wound.”

Kaelen drew his blade. “If it’s alive, we kill it now.”

“No,” Lyra said. “We listen.”

The heart spoke to her.

Visions tore through her. The drowning of the lost kingdom.The moon torn from the sky by tidal magic.

And then—her own face, older again, staring into the abyss.

“If I seal it, what do I become?” she whispered.

Iris answered. “The gatekeeper. The flame that guards the drowned moon.”

Lyra turned to Kaelen.

“This is bigger than us,” she said.

He nodded once. “Then we do it together.”

—

They placed their hands on the heart.

Magic surged and the chamber roared.

The heart cracked—deliberately—splintering light into the walls, the sea, the sky above.

The ocean trembled.

The seal activated.

The invitation was withdrawn.

The second Gate… was locked.

Not shattered. Not broken. But chained. Bound by Lyra’s magic, Iris’s memory, and Kaelen’s blood oath.

They floated upward, exhausted, changed.

The sea let them go.

—

When they breached the surface, the ship was waiting.

Elias collapsed on deck, sobbing.

Thorne muttered a prayer to a god he swore didn’t exist.

Kaelen helped Lyra onto the wood.

She sagged into him.

“We did it,” she whispered.

Iris stood at the raft again, silent.

But this time, she smiled.

Just once.

—

Days later, back at the Accord, Lyra stood before the Council.

“The Gates are not gone,” she said. “They were never gone. But they’re locked. For now. What lies beyond them… is not our enemy yet. But it will be if we forget what we are.”

Ysara looked weary. Proud. “And what are you, Lyra Thorne?”

Lyra looked out the window, toward the sea.

“I’m the warning.”

Kaelen’s voice echoed behind her.

“And I’m the sword.”

—

That night, under the full moon, Lyra stood alone in the ruins of the old temple.

Iris approached, barefoot, eyes bright.

“What will you do now?” the child asked.

Lyra looked up at the stars.

“Build something stronger than fear.”

And the moonlight caught the sea in silver again.

But this time—it didn’t feel cursed.

It felt like home.