LOGINThe silk in my hands thrummed like a living thing. As I unrolled more of it, the letters slid, blinked, then settled into meaning only I could see. My mouth moved before I could second-guess it. I read.“When flame meets tide and night meets dawn,Let five be bound and breathe as one.To bear the weight and keep from harm,The heart must split to grow an arm.Where kingdoms rot and rings lie torn,A many-blood shall be reborn;Not of one braid but threads of five,To stitch the world back into life.One crowned by storm on sky and stone,One forged in fire, scaled and bone;One born of depths whose songs unchain,One hell-bound heart who guards the flame;One night-kissed soul, from first blood swornTogether, mercy remakes morn.Yet mark this law the gods have setComplete the ring or drown in debt.If one should falter, one should fall,The Soulclaw shatters, burns them all.Three trials test the woven thread:Of Depth, of Silence, and of Red.Pass Depth with trust, let breath be sh
Claudia pointed to the northern trench where the reef-shadow was blackest and said, “If you want the uncut prophecy, you’ll have to take it from the Deep Library’s sealed stacks. They’re shut with song and guarded by something older than my crown.”“Fun,” I said, because if I didn’t joke, I might scream.Dylan was already digging in a pack Henry had kept slung across his chest. He came up with two smooth, sea-glass stones the color of pale smoke. “Breathing stones,” he said, pressing one into Elijah’s palm and keeping the other. “We lifted a handful from a black market runner weeks ago. We planned for underwater, just… not this underwater.”“How long?” Elijah asked.“Twenty minutes per stone, if you don’t panic-breathe.” Dylan glanced at me. “We’re going to need a lift.”Jeramiah nodded. “Lysara, Calen, you’ll tow them. Fast.” Two sirens peeled from Claudia’s guard line, lean and lethal, arms roped with muscle and hair braided tight for speed. They each coiled a silk tether at their h
We stood there with the sea breathing in and out below the cliff, the wind tugging at my hair, the weight of everything pressing behind my eyes. Elijah didn’t speak at first. He just matched my breaths until mine stopped stuttering.“I owe you an apology,” he said finally, voice low. “A real one. Not the half-hearted kind people give when they want to move on.”I glanced up. His gaze didn’t flinch.“I was raised to see magic wielders as a problem to be solved,” he went on. “A rot you cut out before it spreads. It wasn’t just rules. It was… baked into bone. And when the bond snapped into place with you, it ripped all that open. I panicked. I said things to make the old world true again so I wouldn’t have to admit it was already gone.”He huffed a humorless breath. “It was cowardice. I’m sorry.”The words landed like warm stones in cold water, heavy, real, settling where anger had been floating. I didn’t forgive him. Not like that. But I heard him. He looked past me at the surf, softer
Claudia’s gaze swept the room like a storm assessing its battlefield. The firelight danced over her face, deepening the shadows in her expression. Every instinct in me screamed that whatever came next would change everything.“The prophecy,” she began, voice low and resonant, “wasn’t just a warning. It was a map. And every choice you’ve made, every bond you’ve formed, has been pulling us toward this point.”Jeramiah shifted beside me but didn’t speak. Dylan and Elijah were leaning forward, the air between us strung tight with unspoken questions. Elijah was trying to look relaxed, but I could feel the worry humming through our bond. Claudia’s hands rested on the makeshift table, palms flat. “The Soulclaw Mark is older than the Council, older than the war. It’s a tether the gods themselves wove into this world, to bind five warriors into one living weapon. And you…” Her eyes locked on me, unblinking. “…are the catalyst.”I swallowed. “Catalyst for what?”Her lips twitched in something t
LayahThe silence was deafening. They stood in a loose circle now, Dylan, Elijah, Henry, Jordan, my resistance, rubbing sleep from their eyes, all wearing the same expression: dazed confusion giving way to wary disbelief. Jeramiah stood beside me, his fingers laced through mine, quiet but unmoving. Unapologetic. I felt their eyes on our hands. On him. On the mark that now lived on his skin. No one spoke. Until Elijah did.His voice cut through the tension like a blade. “What the hell happened while we were sleeping?”I flinched. It wasn’t just anger in his tone, it was betrayal, hurt, something deeper. I knew that voice. I’d heard it in myself too many times.“Elijah…” I started softly, but Dylan stepped forward.“You disappeared. With a siren prince, who, let’s be honest, none of us trust yet and then we wake up to find you soul-bound to him?”“It wasn’t planned,” I said quickly. “It wasn’t like with you or Kai. I didn’t even know—”“But it happened.” Dylan’s jaw was tight. “You mark
Dylan’s POVSomething was wrong. The world felt heavy, too heavy, like I’d been asleep for days with weights strapped to my chest. My limbs tingled as feeling returned, every nerve sluggish and sparking like I was underwater. My head pounded, my mouth was dry, and my heart...My heart was screaming.“Layah?” I croaked, voice raw. The bond throbbed in my chest, tight and pulsing. She wasn’t close. She wasn’t near. Layah. I reached for her mind, panic lighting me up from the inside.“Where are you? Are you okay? Say something, baby, please...”Nothing. At first, just silence. The kind that made your stomach drop through the floor.“Layah!” I shouted out loud this time, sitting bolt upright with a harsh gasp just as Elijah jerked awake beside me.“Dylan?” he rasped, eyes wide, already scrambling to grab my shoulder. “What’s wrong? Where is she? Is she okay? Is she answering?”“I don’t know,” I said quickly, shaking my head, heart hammering. Elijah swore under his breath, already looking a
We went through air pockets of the kingdom until we were forced to shift, to swim, which I did oddly easy enough. I watched Jeramiah as he moved through the water and I copied his motions. The sea shimmered as we broke through it, my tail shifting to legs with a ripple of power I was still getting
The chamber fell still. Claudia reached into the shell once more, her fingers careful, reverent, as she pulled free a delicate strip of sea-silk. It shimmered like moonlight on water, the ink embedded in its weave dark and swirling, alive with magic, somehow untouched by time. She didn’t speak as s
JeramiahShe was unconscious in my arms, but I’d never seen anyone look so alive. Her skin still shimmered faintly with the aftermath of battle, with the echo of magic that clung to her like a second skin. It pulsed against mine, not just power, but soul. And when I looked at her, I didn’t see an e
I couldn’t stop pacing.The mark still pulsed beneath my collar, a low throb like a second heartbeat. Every time I brushed my fingers over it, something inside me stirred, something ancient, something watching. I knew what it was before I even saw it in the mirror. But it wasn’t until I caught my r







