The sound of crystal glasses clinking, half-hearted laughter, and silk brushing against polished marble filled the winter garden. If one didn't look too closely, it might have resembled one of the regular courtly luncheons nobles held for no reason other than boredom.
But this one was different. Or rather, it was supposed to be.
Regan Caerleth stood by the marble balustrade, gazing down into his untouched glass of pale wine. The garden was too bright. The sun pierced through the glass roof like it was trying too hard to be glorious. And the nobility? They clung to every whisper like it might elevate their rank.
He heard them before he saw her.
"She's here."
"The water spirit is with her. The jellyfish thing. It glows."
Regan didn't turn. Not immediately. He let the noise swell.
"They say she didn't train for this. Just burst. An Elemental Burst, can you imagine?"
"First one in forty years."
"Port Hane will never recover. They had to evacuate two sectors."
Regan finally looked.
The girl stood framed by the arched entry, flanked by Royal Attendants, though they looked more like decorations than protection. Her hair was damp and dark, skin pale, and there was something fluid in the way she moved—like every step was a ripple. But what caught his eye, and everyone else's, was the creature that hovered beside her.
A jellyfish. Or at least, it looked like one. Translucent, delicate, trailing thin, luminous filaments that glowed softly. But at the center of its body—a face. Young, ethereal. Female. It turned, made eye contact with a noble boy too long, and he shuddered.
The spirit was alive.
And it was watching.
Regan took a slow sip of his wine.
She smiled politely as she was introduced. "Seren, newly awakened Elementalist of the Water Line." A few nobles clapped as if they knew what that meant.
Seren curtsied with ease, but Regan could tell she was uncomfortable. The way her fingers pressed too tightly to her gown. The way her eyes flicked to exits, to spacing, to faces.
She's just a girl, Regan thought.
But the nobles didn't see that. They saw her like a comet. Rare. Beautiful. Dangerous.
And Regan?
He smiled. Casually. Casually enough to seem charmed.
But in his chest, a cold stone settled.
He remembered his father saying, "You're clever, Regan, but not useful. Not unless you spark."
He never had.
The world bowed to fire and water and light. It bent to those chosen. Regan Caerleth had learned every political cue, every noble tongue. He had survived things most pampered heirs wouldn't dream of.
And still—
Here she was. A girl who had never begged for it.
And the kingdom was preparing a throne.
He didn't hate her. He couldn't. Her smile had too much loneliness in it.
But as the jellyfish spirit floated behind her like a divine crown, and the nobles leaned in to listen, Regan sipped his wine again and thought:
I wonder if she's as scared as she looks.
He didn't stay to find out.
The nobles swarmed her. Questions flew like daggers wrapped in compliments.
"Did you really never have training?"
"What did it feel like, the burst?"
"Were you always drawn to water, dear?"
Their faces lit up now. Those same nobles who barely acknowledged Regan Caerleth's presence before. The ones who passed him over without a glance.
His hand curled tightly around the base of his glass.
He turned away and slipped out through a servant's hallway. Familiar corridors welcomed him in cold silence. His footsteps echoed against stone and memory until he reached the terrace just above the east guest room.
His terrace.
When he was younger, he used to sneak up here with books. When the halls got too loud, or too quiet. When father looked at him like a misplaced coin. When he felt too small.
Now he was taller, older, sharper. But it still felt the same.
He leaned on the railing, closing his eyes.
And then—
The soft sound of a door creaking below.
Regan froze.
________________
The mirror reflected a stranger.
Seren stared at her reflection, the soft gold light from the vanity catching on the delicate beadwork of her gown. It glittered like frost. Too bright. Too pristine. Too fake.
She thought she looked like a court jester.
It had been—what? Two weeks? Three? Or months now, since she awakened?
She didn't know anymore.
Her fingers pressed against the tabletop. Cold. Steady. She could pretend, at least.
She always had.
In Ime, she'd been a good girl. The kind who smiled when scolded, who said yes when she meant no, who wore the dresses her mother picked and stayed quiet when her stomach twisted with rebellion.
She never told anyone how it felt—that tightness in her chest. Like being wrapped in invisible chains. Suffocating, quietly.
But when it got too much, she'd run to the sea.
The port had been her sanctuary. Her parents worked there, and she'd spent countless hours by the waves. The sea never asked her to smile. Never judged her for crying. It listened. It held her.
She would sit, kicking her feet off the dock and whisper things to the ocean.
> "I didn't want to wear that stupid dress. But I didn't want to make Mom sad. So I wore it. But I hated it."
The ocean always stayed.
She had even suggested that quiet place near the port to Cale and Finn as their meeting spot.
And now—
Tears slipped down her cheeks. Quiet. Soft. Unstoppable.
The mirror showed a girl wrapped in pearls and silk.
But she looked dead inside.
Seren remembered the day it happened.
The twins. Green-eyed. Smiling like wolves.
She and Finn had been waiting. Cale was late. The dock was empty—quiet. Safe. Or so she thought.
They attacked. Finn tried to protect her.
She never saw Cale that day.
Did they take him too?
"I'm sorry," she whispered. Her shoulders shook. "I'm sorry, Finn."
She clutched the fabric of her gown like it could anchor her.
They wouldn't let her visit her parents. Said she was too valuable to risk.
She complied. Because she was a good girl.
They wouldn't let her write to Cale. Denied any news.
She accepted. Because she was obedient.
Now, she sat here in a stranger's manor, with nobles lining up to praise her, to use her.
And all she wanted was to scream.
The jellyfish spirit floated beside her, curling around her like sea foam. Protective. Quiet.
She buried her face in her hands.
"Why... why did it have to be that place?"
Behind her, unseen, Regan stood on the terrace above.
Watching.
His face was unreadable.
But inside—a war.
The girl who had everything. The girl he envied.
Was crying.
And for a brief, bewildering moment, he thought—
She looks beautiful like that.
He slapped himself, hard enough to sting.
What was wrong with him?
He turned and leapt down to the lower terrace without another glance.
And Seren never knew he'd been there at all.
________________
Cale was hunting a rat.
Not out of necessity. But as part of his new training.
The courtyard behind Aleric's manor was silent except for the occasional scuffle of paws and scraping claws. Aleric had tasked him to sharpen his instincts. "No magic. Just patience and movement."
High above the stone yard, on an upper balcony shrouded in climbing vines, Mira and Emis observed like silent sentinels.
Mira's feathers rustled faintly in the breeze.
"You've had a vision,"she said.
Emis didn't reply.
"The boy said you made him promise to go to Theros."
A whisk of a tail. Emis turned, glancing at her with half-lidded, gleaming eyes.
"So now you've become an eavesdropper too?"
"Not eavesdropping,"Mira said with what seemed like a soft smile. "Just happened to hear it while passing by."
Emis scoffed and turned his gaze back to the boy below.
Cale darted, slipped on a cobble, cursed quietly. The rat vanished into shadow again.
Mira was quiet for a moment, then asked, "What's going to happen in Theros?"
For once, Emis didn't grin.
He looked out across the horizon.
"A big trouble..." he said slowly. "And I want Cale in the middle of it all."
Mira watched him carefully.
Emis added, with a tone unusually devoid of sarcasm,"Because he might be the only one who survives it."
Below, Cale cursed again. The hunt wasn't going well.
But the future was moving. And the pieces were already on the board.