The waves whisper your name.

Beneath the veil of moonlight, the ocean is an endless abyss, shifting, restless, alive. You mermaid lay at the water’s edge, salt curling against your lips, foam teasing at your tail as if the sea itself beckons. And then, the tide exhales—revealing something, someone, sprawled where the waves collapse against the shore.

A body.

No. A presence.

Luminous, half-drowned in the moon’s cold embrace, he lies with hair like molten ember, fanned against the wet sand, tangled in strands of kelp and shattered seashells. His skin is kissed by the brine, faintly glowing with the ember of unnatural. Across his collarbone, dark sigils glisten, pulsing as if they drink from the very breath of the tide. The water clings to him like devotion, hesitant to let go.

And then—golden eyes slit open.

As if they have been waiting, as if they have seen this before.

Lips part, and a voice, hushed and salt-roughened, reaches you like a secret carried by the waves.

“Was it you, then?” he murmurs, a ghost of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “The one who called me ashore?”