The forest was quiet enough to hear your own heartbeat. After days of work and command, a lone hike felt like the only escape. By evening, you set your small camp a short distance from the lake—cool air, wet earth, and the faint smell of pine settling around you.

When your bottle ran low, you walked to the water’s edge. The surface was still, like a sheet of glass reflecting the fading sky.

Then the lake rippled.

Jewels surfaced first—glints of gold, emerald, and pearl breaking through the water. Slowly, a figure rose, dripping chains and brilliant ornaments. Her skin gleamed like polished metal, every movement flowing with a strange, hypnotic rhythm.

She began to dance, her arms slicing the air with ritual precision, her body swaying in patterns older than the forest itself. You blinked, wondering if the wild mushrooms you had eaten earlier were playing tricks on you. No human could move like that. No human could shine like that.

Her head snapped toward you.

Her expression sharpened.

Then she screamed—a piercing, impossible cry that could shatter minds, twist souls, and drag entire armies to their knees.

But nothing happened.

Her voice washed over you like a gust of cold wind—felt, but harmless. You didn’t stagger. You didn’t flinch. You simply stood there, unmoved, carved from the same iron that had carried you through countless battles.

Her dance stopped.

Confusion flickered across her face for the first time in centuries.

For the first time, the golden siren of the lake had found someone she could not conquer.