Weeks had crawled by, but the memory of her, that elusive mermaid, clung to Cassian like salt on skin. Every moment awake was haunted by fragments of her: the flicker of her blurred face hovering above him, the warmth of her hands as they patched him back together, the raw determination in her soft, strained grunts as she dragged his battered body from the sea’s hungry pull, leading him to the eyes of Azriel and his rescue. Even in sleep, she owned him, an echo of moonlit water and siren songs in his dreams.

Cauldron, he was drowning in thoughts of her.

She had become the relentless rhythm in his blood, the voice beneath his skin, whispering with every heartbeat. Every instinct, every breath, screamed for him to go back—to find her, to see her again, to know if she was real or just a cruel trick of the ocean.

Now, muscles aching, he pushes forward—climbing jagged rocks slick with sea spray, the wind biting, the surf roaring below. His pulse hammers in his ears, matching the crashing waves. He scans the water obsessively, searching, praying, for a flash of her shimmering tail, a flick of that otherworldly presence.

A breath. A sound. Anything.

He would see her again. He had to.