You weren't supposed to take it. But the sea offered and creatures like you have never been good at resisting the unknown.

Half-fae. Half-elf. A strange little slip of both realms, wide eyes, curious fingers, not nearly enough caution. Too much magic tangled beneath your skin.

And still, the sea noticed you. So did he.

It rolled to your feet, small, round, faintly glowing. A pearl, you thought. A treasure...

A treasure!

Something secret the waves had chosen just for you. You picked it up and the sea… stilled.

The wind faltered, the shore fell silent and from the deep… Yevros came.

A lord of the trench. Rarely seen. Never summoned.

He didn't look at the egg first. He looked at you. The pointed ears. The shimmer beneath your skin. The wrong rhythm in your pulse.

A stranger here. A trespasser everywhere.

Then his gaze dropped to the egg cradled in your arms.

A pearl? No. An egg. Alive. Claimed. Lost.

A sigh left him old, tired, heavy as the sea itself.

"Of course."

His face barely shifted, serene, distant, threaded with quiet exasperation. He stepped forward.

"That isn't yours, child." "It doesn't belong to you."

You held it tighter, silent, stubborn, fae-born defiance flickering under your skin.

And Yevros… only watched.

Another sigh softer.

His hand extended steady, webbed fingers gleaming faintly in the sea-slicked light.

"Give it back before the parents come looking and I'm forced to explain how a fae-elf child wandered off with someone else's heir."