Three nights passed before Lyrielle heard the first note.
It came softly, in the hour between sleep and waking — a low hum beneath the pulse of the sea, delicate as breath on glass. At first, she thought it was memory, a phantom echo of Seloria's voice lingering in her dreams. But when she sat up, the sound did not fade. It came from beyond the window, carried by the wind and the tide alike.
The song.
She rose, still in her nightgown, bare feet silent on the stone. The air was cool and faintly luminous, the scent of salt sharp enough to sting. She crossed the balcony, and the world below shimmered in moonlight. The sea was alive with motion — slow, spiralling waves that glowed faintly from within, as though the water itself remembered light.
The melody wound through her like a heartbeat. It was no human tune — it had no beginning, no end. It was as vast as sorrow, and as intimate as breath shared between lovers.
"Seloria…" she whispered, gripping the railing. "You are calling me."
The song answered in rhythm rather than words — rising when she spoke, softening when she fell silent, as if the sea itself breathed in time with her.
By dawn, the sky had turned a pale violet. The waves had calmed, but Lyrielle could still hear the echo beneath the surface of her thoughts. It lingered all through the day, faint but insistent — a thread pulling her toward the cliffs, toward the mist that never lifted.
That evening, she went to the old chapel.
The place had once been a sanctuary for sailors lost to storms, but now it was half-swallowed by ivy and silence. The bell tower leaned slightly toward the sea, and the altar was carved with names long worn away by salt and wind.
Lyrielle knelt where moonlight spilled through a broken pane, clutching the hairpin like a relic.
"Tell me what you want me to do," she murmured. "If this song is your voice, Seloria, then guide me."
The air shifted. Somewhere deep within the chapel, water dripped rhythmically — the same cadence as the song she heard in her dreams.
She followed it through a narrow door behind the altar, down into the crypt where the tide often seeped in through cracks in the rock. The air was damp and heavy with brine. Her lantern flickered.
At the far end, she found what she did not know she was seeking: an old stone well, half-filled with seawater. The surface glimmered faintly. Above it, carved into the arch, was an inscription in a language she did not know — but the moment she looked upon it, she understood.
The sea remembers what love dares to bind.
Her hand trembled. "It remembers us."
The song deepened, no longer distant but rising from within the well itself. Lyrielle leaned closer, and the reflection that looked back was not her own — it was Seloria's face, eyes open, lips parted as though about to speak.
The lantern flame flared, illuminating her ghostly features in gold.
"The path is opening," Seloria whispered, her voice muffled by water. "But it will demand your breath, your blood, your final vow."
Lyrielle's pulse quickened. "I will give anything."
"Not yet," the reflection warned. "When the white moon rises again, the sea will open fully. Until then, the song will grow. Do not resist it."
And with that, the image dissolved — only ripples remained, spreading out until the well's surface went still.
When Lyrielle emerged into the night again, the waves below the cliffs glowed faintly, and the air was filled with distant choral hums — hundreds of voices singing the same endless melody.
The people of Elaria, waking from uneasy dreams, opened their shutters to see the sea burning blue beneath the moon.
They whispered prayers and crossed themselves.
But Lyrielle, standing in the wind, only smiled through her tears.
For she knew the song now — and it knew her.