I read it twice more,my mouth dry. “You think…?”
Gavrail leans back, arms folded. “It doesn’t say crest. But ‘sigil’? ‘Sea’s heir’? Zvez, that’s you.”
I frown. “You don’t think it just means, like… metaphorically returning to your roots?”
He flips the page. “That’s what I thought too—until this.”
The opposite page holds a hand-drawn ink illustration. It’s faded and weathered, but clear: a hand held out over a still pool of water, something glinting between the fingers—a coin, or medallion, etched with a faint design too smudged to fully see, but unmistakably round. Concentric ripples flow outward from where it’s poised over the surface.
I pull the crest from my pocket. Without a word, I line it up beside the drawing.
The shape, the size—it matches. The ripple pattern engraved behind the mermaid mirrors the illustrated water, the same rings spreading from the center.
“It wants to be returned,” I whisper. “Not to a person. To the element. To sacred waters.”
Gavrail straightens slowly, brow furrowing in thought.
My breath leaves me in a rush as I close my eyes, hearing the whisper of it even now. “I know where we need to go.”
CHAPTER 50
To seek what is hidden beneath still water is to risk drowning in what it remembers.
—Bloodlines of the Deep and the Art of Water Magick
We walk in silence, fear and hope clashing together in my chest. I want the truth, but I’m also afraid of what I might find. Gavrail is just ahead, his shadows cloaking us as they did earlier. We don’t even leave footprints behind.
I’ve never been to the Cavern this late at night. It’s dark. Quiet. The cave opening looks like a silent scream, with a depthless pool beyond that’s been swallowed by the night. Besides our torches, the only other light comes from the slight glow of my ring as it reflects the stars above.
We step into the second chamber—the Crystal Cavern. Our torches flicker against the walls, casting iridescent glints across the room where semi-precious stones gleam faintly like frozen stars. Gavrail moves to light the rest of the torches.
The pool in the center whispers to me, the way it always does. Its surface is smooth and mirror-like, reflecting nothing and everything. Above it, the crumbled rock wall bears the three ancient crests carved in stone: Thalrien, Virellan, and Morvaine—marks of the old water families. My blood. My inheritance.
I kneel at the edge, heart pounding as I hold the Thalrien crest in my hands. A tremor of awareness ripples through me. This pool isn’t just a spring. It’s an archive. A test. A vault.
And now, I have the key.
The pool pulses with an ancient, bittersweet warmth, something almost like—sentience. Watching. Waiting.For me.
The Thalrien crest warms slightly in my palm, its silver filigree catching the light like veins pulsing beneath skin—glowing faintly, as if it too has waited a long time for this.
I glance at Gavrail, fear pressing tight in my lungs. He’s watching the pool like it’s a threat. His shadows curl slightly closer as he takes my hand in his, his warmth and strength steadying me, my breathing syncing with his. His heartbeat matches my own. I know without a doubt that he would be the one to enter the pool if he could. That he would drown beside me if it meant I wouldn’t have to be alone.
With a deep, steadying breath, I step into the pool.
I feel a sense of déjà vu as the water climbs around me, cool but welcoming. I lower myself beneath the surface, the crest cradled in my hands.
The moment it hits the water—the pool reacts.
Light blooms from the center of the spring, soft blue radiating outward: eight spires, almost like a star, with me at its center—the same symbol I saw when I touched the water the first time back in December. The sacred water carries whispers of long-forgotten memories, cold, vivid, ancient.
Ripples begin to unfold outward like roots under ice, curling around me, caressing me. Accepting me as one of its own.
The air pulls taut in the cave above me, and under the water, the crest glows as the past begins to unfold before my eyes.
* * *
My father standsat the edge of a wooden dock, wind tearing at his coat. Rain slashes the lake, the water behind him churning—but the vision remains sharp. His hazel eyes are fierce, tired, set with a refusal unyielding as iron, ringing clear in his gaze.
