Days passed like distant bells. The storm finally broke, but the world it left behind felt rinsed of colour. The cliffs were veiled in white fog; the gardens dripped quietly, heavy with the scent of wet earth and salt. Lyrielle lived in that hush, waiting.
The manuscript lay always open upon her desk. She had traced its words until she could recite them as prayer. When the heart is faithful beyond death, the sea becomes a mirror… Every evening she walked to the edge of the world, searching the horizon for a sign—some flicker of blood-red light that would herald the promised moon.
It came on the seventh night.
The dusk deepened into wine-coloured gloom, and the air grew still. Then, as if the heavens themselves remembered an ancient vow, the moon rose enormous and crimson over the black water. Its reflection shivered across the sea like spilled flame. Lyrielle felt the pull of it in her bones.
She descended to the shore alone. The path wound through whispering reeds, past the ruins of an old chapel that had long since been claimed by ivy and mist. Each step down the cliffside carried her further from the world of the living, closer to the rhythm of the tide.
At the base, the sand gleamed dark and wet. She drew a circle with her lantern's light and knelt within it. The sea exhaled before her; its foam brushed her hands like breath.
"Seloria," she whispered. The name tasted of salt. "If the sea is your mirror, look into me now. I am here."
For a moment, nothing stirred. Only the steady hiss of the waves, the slow pulse of the moonlight on water. Then the surface rippled—not from wind, but from something beneath. A glow unfurled in the depths, soft as dawn.
The waves parted.
A figure rose through the shimmer, her form woven of light and tide. Seloria's hair flowed like silver seaweed; her eyes were pools of night reflecting the red moon. She stood upon the water as if it recognised her.
"Lyrielle," she said, her voice both near and far. "You should not have called me."
Tears slipped down Lyrielle's cheeks. "I could not endure the silence. Every hour without you was another death."
Seloria's expression was sorrow wrapped in tenderness. "Love such as ours defies the balance. The tide is jealous—it takes what it lends. If I stay too long, the sea will claim you as well."
"Then let it."
The words escaped before Lyrielle could stop them. She reached out, and though her hand touched only water, warmth flared between them—a pulse that bridged two worlds for a breath's span.
Seloria shuddered, radiant and trembling. "If you cross that threshold, there is no returning."
"I have already crossed it," Lyrielle whispered. "Every night since you left."
For an instant the wind died, the sea stilled, and the crimson moon blazed brighter. The light wrapped around them like a tide of blood and rose. Lyrielle felt the pull—the gentle, terrifying weight of the deep calling her name.
Seloria's hand lifted as if to stop her. "Not yet," she pleaded. "The sea still mourns. Wait until its grief is quiet."
The glow faltered. The waves surged, swallowing the shape whole. Lyrielle cried out, stumbling forward, but the water broke against her knees and receded. Only the moon remained, red and vast, its reflection shattered across the retreating tide.
She fell to the sand, gasping, her lantern overturned beside her. The sea hissed softly, soothing, like a promise postponed.
Behind her, in the hollow of the dunes, the old chapel bell gave a single, low chime—though no wind had touched it for a hundred years.