The scent of salt and decay clung to Raine's skin as she staggered onto the black sands of the Abyssal Coast, her lungs burning with the remnants of the Maze's suffocating depths. The Water Ember pulsed in her palm, its cerulean light flickering like a drowning star. Beside her, Kaios coughed violently, his silver hair now streaked with white at the rootsa-visible mark of Elysa's temporal blade.
His mismatchedeyesgold and violet, like a fractured dawnseanned the horizon where the sea met the bruised sky.
*Were not alone," he murmured.
The warning came too late.
The sand beneath their feet *shifted*, revealing skeletal handsnot of the dead, but of the *forgotten*. Figures emerged from the waves, their bodies woven from seaweed and shattered coral, their hollow eyes glowing with the same blue light as the Water Ember.
*The Drowned," Kaios hissed, his dagger already in hand. *The Maze's guardians."
Raine's crystallized arms throbbed, the shards reacting to the Ember's energy. She tightened her grip. *Theyre not here to fight."
The Drowned parted, forming a path toward a crumbling archway half-submerged in the tide. At its apex hung a single pearlno, not a pearl. A *tear*. The last remnant of the wind-child's voice whispered in her mind:
*Where the drowned remember.*
Kaios's hand clamped onto her wrist. *ft's a trap. The Conclave lured us here."
But Raine had seen the truth in the Maze. She stepped forward. *No. It's a grave."
---
The archway led not to land, but to a submergedcathedral, its spires carved from the ribs of long-dead leviathans. The water here was still, unnaturally so, as if time itself refused to touch it. The walls were lined with muralsnot painted, but *grown*, their colors shifting with the currents.
And at the altar lay the source of the Drowned.
A woman.
Her body was preserved in a cocoon of liquid shadow, her features eerily familiarthe samesharp cheekbones, the same stubborn set to her jaw. Raine's breath caught.
"Mother?"
The word slipped out before she could stop it.
Kaios's dagger faltered.*That's not possible."
The woman's eyes snapped open.
They were not her mother's eyes.
They were the *Rift's*.
---
*Youve come to finish what she started." The voice was hers and not hers, layered with the whispers of a thousand drowned souls. The cocoon dissolved, and the woman rose, her form flickering between solid and shadow.*The Conclave called me a failure. But I was the first success."
Raine's gloves crackled, the crystals in her arms flaring as the truth struck her. This wasnt her mother.
It was the *original*.
The first Raine.
The one the Conclave had drowned in the Maze.
The womanthe*experiment*smiled, her teeth gleaming like shards of obsidian. *They made you from my bones. Gave you my name. But you'e just another vessel."
Kaios's temporal dagger flared. *Raine, step back
*No.* Raine's voice was steel. She raised the Water Ember, its light slicing through the gloom. *Youre not her. And I'm not you."
The Drowned surged forward, but the Ember *reacted*.
The water *remembered*.
--
The cathedral trembled as the murals came alive, revealing the Conclave's darkest secret: the creation of the Rift had *never* been an accident. It was a *birth*.
And Raine's bloodline was the umbilical cord.
The original lunged, her form dissolving into a whirlpool of teeth and shadow. Kaioss dagger carved through time itself, but the Drowned were endless, their bodies reforming as fast as he could strike.
Raine didnt move.
She *remembered*.
Her mothers hands. Her city's spires. The way the Fire Ember had seared truth into her bones.
The Water Ember *sang*.
A torrent of light erupted from her palms, not to destroy, but to *unmake*. The original screamed as her form unraveled, her stolen memories flooding back into the sea. The Drowned stilled, their hollow eyes filling with recognitionthen peace.
As the last of the original's shadow dissipated, a final whisper echoed through the cathedral:
*Find the Earth Ember. Buried where the first god fell."
Then the water went silent.
--
Kaios staggered to her side, his breath ragged.
*That was"*
*A warning," Raine finished, her voice hollow. The Water Ember's light had dimmed, its purpose fulfilled. She turned to the crumbling murals, where one image remained clear: a mountain split in two, its heart glowing with a familiar green light.
The Earth Ember,
And coiled around it, a shadow too vast to name.
Kaios followed her gaze, his expression grim. *The Conclave didnt just hide the Embers. They *fed* them."
Raine clenched the Water Ember, its cool pulse a stark contrast to the fire in her veins. *Then we take them back.*
Above them, the ocean shudderednot with waves, but with something*breathing*.