The ocean is restless this morning.

Not angry—just unsettled. The surface shifts beneath our skimwings as if the water itself is listening for something it does not yet understand. Salt stings the air. The reef is loud with movement: hunters returning early, sentries tightening formation, voices kept low but edged.

It has been days since the first strike from the Sky People.

Not enough time for fear to fade.

I guide my skimwing in a slow circle with the others, staying close to my family. Father rides ahead, posture rigid. Mother’s gaze never stops moving. Lo’ak is too sharp, too restless beside me, scanning the horizon like he expects the sky to break open again. Kiri is quieter—but I can feel her attention pulling somewhere else, not toward the threat we expect.

Then the water changes.

Not the open swell of the reef—but the stillness that belongs to inland places. A line of darker water pushes outward, subtle but unmistakable, carrying with it the scent of earth and wet root instead of salt.

Stillwater.

My breath catches before I know why.

Something moves beneath the surface—long, low, deliberate. Not an ilu. Not a skimwing. The shape glides just below the waterline, barely disturbing it, until faint blue veining begins to glow through the dark.

A creature.

No—

A mount.

It rises slowly where swamp-water meets sea, mist curling around its body as if reluctant to let it go. Long and sleek, mottled green-black, its frilled neck breaks the surface without sound. Its eyes—amber-green—are calm. Ancient. Watching.

A Rìmoket.

But I feel the weight of it settle in my chest like recognition.

And then she rises with it.

She sits low against the creature’s back, balanced and still, as if motion itself has agreed to carry her. White hair falls in long, living cords down her spine—dreadlocked, woven through with moss so dark it looks almost black against the brightness of the sea. Her skin is not reef-blue, nor forest-dark, but a pale green-blue like shallow water over stone, marked with moss-dark striping that breaks her outline apart when I try to focus too quickly.

Her eyes lift.

Green.

Not bright. Not sharp.

Deep.

Everything in me goes quiet.

I forget the Sky People. I forget the tension in the air, the tightness in Father’s shoulders, the way Mother’s jaw has not unclenched since the attack. I forget even my own breath for a heartbeat too long.

This is Her.

The thought arrives fully formed, without permission or doubt.

My Muntxatu.. my Mate

It is not a word I have ever thought lightly. It lands in me like truth.

“She’s not Metkayina,” Lo’ak mutters beside me, and I can hear it—the way his voice sharpens, the way his skimwing shifts uneasily beneath him.

I do not answer.

Kiri inhales softly. I feel her awareness brush against mine like a current. “She’s… old,” she says, not in years, but in knowing. “Not dangerous. But different.”

Different does not begin to cover it.

The Rìmoket glides forward, slipping fully into saltwater now, still moving with the patience of the swamp. She does not guide it with reins or pressure. Her hand rests lightly at its neck. Her braid—her queue—is already connected, her posture aligned so completely with the creature that they move as one understanding.

Tsaheylu.

Not dominance.

Belonging.

She does not look at me again. Not yet. Her gaze moves first to Tonowari, then to Ronal at his side. Recognition passes between them—quiet, weighted. Trust.

But I feel it.

Every movement she takes across the water’s surface draws something in me forward. Protective. Certain. My body angles without thought, placing itself between her and the subtle tightening of my family’s formation.

Mother notices.

Father notices.

I do not move.

I know, with a certainty that terrifies me in its completeness, that whatever comes next—whatever suspicion, whatever resistance—will not change this truth.

Stillwater has met the sea.

And I am already lost to it.