The sea had quieted.
But it had not gone silent.
In the years since Quinta Quiz became the Voice Beneath the Waves, the world had shifted. Not all at once, but like tectonic plates grinding against each other—slow, inevitable, and irreversible.
Brinemere had become a place of pilgrimage.
Not for gods.
Not for saints.
But for those who felt the pull.
The ones born with signs.
The ones who dreamed of water even when they'd never seen the shore.
And the ones who woke up screaming from dreams of something vast and waiting beneath the stars.
They came from all over now.
Some seeking answers.
Some seeking power.
Others just trying to understand why their skin shimmered in moonlight.
And Frank Frownwater—no longer man, no longer quite Veythari—was the only one left who remembered everything.
He stood on the cliffs as he often did, watching the horizon where sky met sea in an endless line of possibility.
Behind him, the lighthouse burned—not with fire, but with something older.
Light pulsed through its glass in rhythmic waves, as if the tower itself was breathing.
Inside, the new council gathered.
They were young.
Eager.
Unformed.
One of them, a girl named Mira, approached him hesitantly.
Her skin carried the glow.
Her voice echoed strangely when she spoke.
"You said she might come back," Mira whispered.
Frank didn't turn.
"She is already here."
Mira frowned. "I mean… truly back."
He finally looked at her.
"There are ways to return," he said. "Even from the deep."
She stepped closer. "How?"
He smiled faintly. "By remembering."
That night, Mira dreamt.
She stood in the city beneath the sea—Veythra—its towers grown taller, its streets filled with light that pulsed like living veins.
At the heart of the temple, the great mirror still floated in silence.
She reached out.
Touched it.
And the reflection changed.
Not her face.
But something deeper.
A memory stirred.
A voice rose from the dark.
Not Quinta's.
Something else.
Older.
Distant.
Calling.
And then—
A song.
Low.
Slow.
Beautiful.
Terrible.
It was not sung by any voice.
It was felt .
As if the ocean itself had learned to sing.
And in that moment, Mira understood.
Quinta was not lost.
She was only listening .
Waiting for someone to call her home.
Back in the waking world, the tide pulled back further than it ever had before.
Exposed rocks carved with symbols no one could read.
Fishermen found strange shells washed ashore—shaped like hands.
Like eyes.
Like mouths.
And in the lighthouse, the pulse of light grew stronger.
More insistent.
More urgent.
Frank knew what it meant.
The cycle was beginning again.
And this time…
Someone else would answer the call.
Far beneath the waves, in the deepest trench where Quinta had sealed the Hollow God, something stirred.
Not hunger.
Not rage.
Just movement.
A whisper.
A question.
A name.
Mira.
And from the darkness, a response.
Not in words.
Not in thought.
But in rhythm.
In echo.
In shape.
Four hearts beat gently in the black.
Waiting.
Remembering.
Changing.
And somewhere, far above, the sea began to sing.