The palace was drowning.
Not in water—though the sea raged through cracked corridors and shattered arches—but in chaos. Ancient alarms screamed through the Sapphire Court, their echoes carried by currents that had not moved this violently in centuries. Coral spires splintered. Bioluminescent glyphs flickered and died. Guards shouted orders no one followed.
Rhen ran.
Not blindly—not like the beast would have—but with Nymera's hand locked in his, pulling him through halls that bent and twisted as the palace tried to decide whether to protect its princess or consume her. The floor beneath them rippled, alive, rejecting the choice.
"Left!" Nymera shouted, breathless. "The Tideway—before it seals!"
They skidded around a pillar as a slab of living coral slammed down behind them, sealing off the chamber where Queen Marethis still stood screaming commands that the sea no longer obeyed.
Rhen's lungs burned—not from lack of air, but from too much. Magic saturated the water, thick as blood. His heart hammered with a rhythm that wasn't entirely his own. The sigil on his arm glowed faintly now, no longer scorching, but warm—steady—like a pulse that answered another pulse somewhere deep in the ocean.
Nymera felt it too.
She stumbled, gasping, her tail flickering in and out of solidity as magic surged unevenly through her body. Rhen caught her before she fell, wrapping an arm around her waist.
"Stay with me," he said urgently. "You said you could breathe on land. Can you—can you do that now?"
She nodded shakily. "Yes. But the Song—it's changing me. I can feel it pulling… everywhere."
They reached the Tideway just as it began to collapse. It was a massive circular gate carved from pearlstone, etched with ancient runes meant only for royal blood. Nymera slammed her palm against it, blood blooming bright and luminous in the water.
The gate shuddered, then split open with a groan like a dying whale.
Cold, open ocean rushed in.
Rhen didn't hesitate. He leapt, dragging Nymera with him, and together they plunged into the dark.
They swam until the palace lights vanished behind them.
Until the screams faded.
Until the ocean grew quiet again—too quiet.
They broke the surface miles from the Sapphire Court, the night air hitting Rhen like a slap. Waves rolled beneath them, heavy and restless, reflecting a moon that looked wrong somehow—larger, closer, as if it were leaning down to listen.
Nymera clung to a jagged rock that jutted from the water like a broken tooth. Rhen hauled himself up beside her, collapsing onto the stone, chest heaving.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Nymera laughed.
It burst out of her—wild, hysterical, edged with tears—and she slapped a hand over her mouth as if shocked by the sound.
"I just destroyed my entire life," she said hoarsely.
Rhen barked a breathless laugh of his own. "You should've seen my face when they chained me up. Pretty sure I've crossed 'unwelcome' off my list of places."
She turned to him, laughter fading into something softer. Something dangerous.
"You didn't run," she said quietly. "You could have. When the guards came."
"I won't," he replied simply.
Nymera searched his face, as if looking for the lie. She didn't find one.
The silence stretched again—heavy now, intimate. The moonlight painted her skin silver and blue, catching in her red hair like fire beneath water. Rhen became acutely aware of the closeness of her body, the warmth of her hand still resting on his arm, right over the sigil.
It pulsed.
Nymera gasped.
Rhen sucked in a sharp breath as images slammed into his mind—too fast, too vivid.
A battlefield beneath a red moon.
A woman with Nymera's eyes screaming his name as the sea swallowed her whole.
Blood on his hands—not human, not mermaid—both.
He cried out, clutching his head.
Nymera mirrored him, collapsing forward, eyes glowing faintly. "I saw it," she whispered in horror. "Rhen, I saw it too."
They stared at each other, terror dawning simultaneously.
"We're sharing memories," Rhen said. "Not ours."
"The past," Nymera breathed. "The first Convergence."
Rhen's voice was rough. "They didn't tell you everything."
"No," she admitted. "They told us love caused the destruction. They never told us why."
The truth settled between them like a third presence.
"Someone made it happen," Rhen said slowly. "The war. The drowning kingdoms. Someone wanted the worlds to collide."
Nymera's fists clenched. "And now they want it again."
A low howl rolled across the waves.
Rhen froze.
It wasn't his.
The sound came from the distant shoreline—a call answered by another, then another. Wolves. Many of them.
"My pack," Rhen said under his breath. "They can feel it. The Moon's pull."
Nymera followed his gaze toward the dark land beyond the surf. "And the sea can feel you," she said softly. "Every current is bending toward us."
The bond was no longer hidden.
They were beacons.
"We can't stay here," Rhen said. "Land isn't safe. Sea isn't safe."
Nymera's jaw tightened. "Then we go where neither side has power."
He looked at her sharply. "You know a place like that?"
She nodded once. "The Shattered Reach."
Rhen frowned. "That's a myth."
"So were mermaids," she replied grimly.
The Shattered Reach was spoken of only in fragments—an ancient borderland where land sank into sea, where magic broke unevenly, where exiles and monsters disappeared. No kingdom claimed it. No prophecy mapped it.
If they could reach it…
Rhen stood, offering her his hand. "Then that's where we go."
Nymera hesitated.
Her eyes drifted back toward the sea—toward her home, her father, the life she had just burned behind her. Pain flickered across her face, sharp and raw.
"I don't know if I can ever go back," she whispered.
Rhen stepped closer. "I don't know if I ever had a place to return to."
She looked up at him then, really looked, and something in her expression broke open.
"Then we face it together," she said.
They sealed the decision not with words, but with touch—forehead to forehead, breath to breath. The sigils flared softly, no longer burning, no longer fighting—aligning.
Far beneath them, something ancient shifted its coils.
Not all watchers feared the Convergence.
Some had been waiting.