For three days, the sea had not slept.
Waves crashed against the cliffs like restless thoughts, and the mist no longer drifted gently — it clung, as though unwilling to release its hold upon the land. Lyrielle watched from her window, the stormlight flickering pale against her skin. It felt as if the world itself grieved with her, as if some invisible cord between heart and tide had been pulled taut to the edge of breaking.
On the fourth night, the whisper came again.
Not faint this time, but nearer — threaded through the sigh of rain upon the balcony.
"Lyrielle…"
Her name, breathed like a confession.
The candle beside her sputtered, the flame bending toward the sound. For a long moment, she stood still, heart pounding, every sense sharpened by longing and dread. The voice was unmistakable — soft, melodic, and filled with that same tender cadence she had heard so many times beneath moonlit archways.
"Seloria?" she whispered into the quiet, though the wind nearly stole the word from her lips.
When no reply came, she did not hesitate. She took her cloak, lit a small lantern, and slipped into the corridors. The castle felt different at night — walls stretching endlessly, doors breathing faint drafts of cold air as though the whole structure were alive and listening. The portraits along the hall seemed to follow her with knowing eyes.
Down the staircases, through the western hall, and out into the rain-drenched gardens she went, her lantern cutting small circles of gold through the mist. Every surface glimmered with moisture. The roses bent low, their petals heavy and torn, and the marble statues gleamed with spectral sheen.
It was there, near the heart of the garden — where an ancient willow grew — that she found it.
A faint shimmer of light among the roots, as though the ground itself remembered someone. The air hummed softly, a low vibration that made her skin prickle. Lyrielle knelt and brushed away wet leaves. Beneath them lay a small silver hairpin — twisted into the shape of a crescent moon, the one Seloria had worn the night before her departure.
Her breath caught.
"Seloria…"
As she spoke, the air shifted. The willow branches stirred, though there was no wind, and a soft fragrance of jasmine filled the air — that same scent that lingered on Seloria's letters.
Then came the faintest outline — no more than a shimmer, like moonlight taking human form. It flickered and trembled, fragile as a reflection in disturbed water, but Lyrielle knew. Every line, every gesture, the tilt of the head — it was her.
"Lyrielle," the apparition whispered, and though the sound was faint, it reached straight through the storm's roar and the pounding of her heart.
Lyrielle rose slowly, eyes shining with tears that mingled with the rain. "Is it truly you?" she asked.
Seloria's lips moved, her voice like the echo of a distant melody.
"I am bound to the sea… to its sorrow. But I heard your letters. Every word you gave the wind found me."
Lyrielle's knees nearly gave beneath her. She reached out a trembling hand, though her fingers passed only through the air. The coldness of it burned.
"I thought I was going mad," Lyrielle whispered. "I thought I dreamed you."
Seloria's image flickered, her expression soft with grief and love intertwined.
"You dream me because I still dream of you. But I cannot stay — the tide takes me back when the dawn breaks."
Lyrielle's voice trembled. "Then let me come with you. Wherever you are."
A sorrowful smile curved Seloria's lips.
"Not yet, my heart. Not until the sea stops mourning. Not until you see what I've left behind."
"What do you mean?"
But the mist thickened suddenly, swallowing the shape whole. The light faded from the roots of the willow, leaving only the cold shimmer of rain and the silver hairpin glinting in the mud.
Lyrielle fell to her knees, clutching it to her chest, her tears mingling with the storm.
And as she whispered Seloria's name again and again into the darkness, the sea below the cliffs rose higher — as though answering her call with a grief of its own.