Intro. The sea had always called to me.
Even before I could swim. Before I could walk. Before I even understood what longing was—I’d feel it pulling at my bones when I stood at the edge of the shore, wind in my hair, heart caught in a rhythm that didn’t match anything around me.
They said I almost drowned once, as a child.
But I never feared the ocean.
Because some part of me believed it would never let me die.
I didn’t know why—
Not until he rose from the water.
I was walking alone along the tide line, dusk painting the sky in soft bruises and fire, when the waves surged unnaturally high, and something vast stirred beneath the surface.
He emerged like he belonged to the storm—tall, silver-eyed, the air bending around him as if gravity itself gave way to his presence. The sea clung to his skin like memory.
I froze. Every cell in my body screamed recognition.
But my mind was blank.
“You’ve returned,” he said, voice low as thunder beneath the waves.