ログイン6Callia’s POVI could barely recognize the sound coming from my own mouth.It was a sound caught between a scream and a sob. It sounded raw, ragged, ripping through the air like a curse torn straight from my gut. I paced the room, naked and seething, my teeth bared like a cornered animal trapped in a cage far too beautiful for its fury.The chamber echoed with my rage. The coral walls didn’t tremble. Of course they didn’t. Nothing down here broke but me.“Do you even care what you took from me?” I shouted, spinning to face the empty space as if he were already in it. “Do gods even feel guilt, or is it all power and prophecy and taking?”He appeared as if I’d summoned him.Tall. Calm. Bare-chested, again. Always that same unsettling stillness, like the tide just before it pulls you under.Thalor stepped toward me slowly, but I backed away, holding up my hand not fear But in fury.“Don’t. Don’t pretend you’re gentle. Don’t act like this is some divine fucking romance. I was stolen.”His
5Callia’s POVThe walls was brightend with light as I stepped inside. It looked soft and glowed iridescent like the inside of an oyster. The air had a pleasant scent I couldn’t name: salt and honey and something floral that lingered just at the back of my tongue. The floor felt warm against my bare feet, it was smooth like polished coral.This was no ordinary chamber. It felt like it was alive.Thalor followed behind me, without saying a word. I didn’t need to see him to know he was watching. His gaze crawled across my bare back, making my skin tighten, my nipples pebbling even before he’d laid a single hand on me.“This is the Pearl Chamber,” he said, his voice sounding deeper than I remembered. “Everything inside obeys me. As do you.”I turned toward him. “Yes.”The word left my mouth before I questioned it.Yes, I obeyed.Yes, I wanted to.He walked round the slowly, his robe falling away as he walked. Naked, powerful, glowing faintly with the same light that bloomed from the wall
4CalliaI was already trembling before he even touched me.The chamber was different tonight. The light had changed. It was much more darker now, with soft blue fire flickering along the edges of the coral walls. The ocean felt like it was holding it’s breath.I stood at the center of the room, bare, my skin still damp from the perfumed bath one of his priestesses had drawn me into without a word. They’d combed my hair until it hung like silk down my back, then left me here without instruction but only a whispered phrase as the door closed behind them:“Trust him.”My heart thudded loud in the hush.He appeared from behind one of the stone arches, wearing a long dark robe that dragged behind him like liquid shadow. The air shifted when he entered. It felt more charged with electricity. His eyes met mine, and my whole body responded with anticipation.He circled me slowly, once, twice. I didn’t move or speak.He stopped behind me, so close I felt the heat of him on my spine.“You’ve ta
3CalliaI woke to silence. It wasn’t the awfully quiet kind of silence but instead it was the kind of silence that hums.I didn’t know where I was exactly, all I knew was that it was soft. It was a bed, or something like it, beneath me. My skin was bare but the water was gone. There was no wetness or cold. It was just warmth, like I was wrapped in heat.The ceiling arched high above me, glowing faintly like danw breaking through milkglass. Only that it wasn’t the sky. Of course it wasn’t. It was a loving stone lined with coral and pearl veins, pulsing faintly with light. The skeets beneath me shimmered. It was impossibly smooth. Silk? Yeah, sea-silk. It had he color of moonlight. I ran my hand across it, watching how it caught the glow and how it rippled with my movement like the surface of calm water.I remembered everything. I remembered being laid at the alter, his mouth on me, the full stretch of him, the way if broken open around him and how he’d spilled himself into me with that
2CalliaThe silk clung to me like a second skin. It was too thin to protect me from anything, and too smooth it would easily tear. It slid over the curve of my breasts, wrapped tight at my waist, then fell in soft, sheer layers down my thighs. For every step that I took, the fabric brushed against the inside of my legs like it was trying to seduce me into surrender.Shells lined the edge of the veil draped over my shoulders, making a little kind of rhythm as I walked. Pearls nestled between my breasts too. My hair had been combed until it shone like water, braided with ribbons and threaded with coral.I had no voice. It wasn’t like they had for ufden me to speak, but instead the sound had fled me, had been swallowed by the temple walls and the anxiety of what was to come.The drums started slowly, sounding low and steady like an heartbeat. Then it slowly grew louder, the ground trembling beneath my bare feet. I felt it in my chest before I even heard it in my ears. A thousand voices r
1Callia“Callianeira of House Velthon.”The High Priestess’s voice rang through the Temple of Salt, echoing off marble and mother-of-pearl.At first, I didn’t move. Surely someone behind me had the same name. Or perhaps it was a mistake. A slip of tongue that she would quickly correct. But then I felt the eyes, dozens of them, from noblemen, priestesses, acolytes, and city guards. They turned, they’re eyes landing on my family and I.My mother gasped but my father didn’t speak at all.It wasn’t a mistake.I had been chosen for the offering. My heart dropped.The Offering happened once every century. A daughter of Thalassara, draped in white and pearls, was given to the sea god to ensure calm waters, fat fish, and safe harbors. A girl whose name would never be spoken again because she would not return.It was supposed to be a symbolic thing. Like a selection from among the common girls. Or so I had always believed. But this time, they chose a noble. Me. I was now a living promise to th