The Vigil
Rafayel sat beside his bed for two hours, his hand pressed against Nana's chest, feeling her heartbeat strengthen with each passing minute as his power flowed into her.
Healing wasn't his strongest gift—offense was, destruction was, the ability to command tides and split oceans—but he could do this. Could mend torn lungs, could purge Wanderer energy from her system, could keep her alive through sheer force of will and three hundred years of accumulated power.
But he couldn't heal what would come after.
Couldn't mend the trust he'd broken.
Couldn't undo the lies.
*She saw*, his mind kept repeating. *She saw everything. The tail. The fire. The fighting. She knows I'm not human. She knows I've been lying this entire time.*
His hands trembled slightly, the glow of healing magic flickering. Thomas had left an hour ago—"family emergency" he'd claimed, but they both knew it was to give them privacy for the conversation that was coming.
The conversation Rafayel was dreading more than any battle, any curse, any death.
*What do I say?* he thought desperately. *How do I explain that I lied because I was afraid? That I've been hiding because I didn't know how to tell her she died once for me and I've been waiting three hundred years for her to come back?*
*How do I make her understand that everything I felt was real, even if the person I pretended to be wasn't?*
He didn't have answers. Just fear. Pure, cold, paralyzing fear that when she opened her eyes, she would look at him and see a monster.
See a liar.
See someone she couldn't trust.
And leave.
"Please", he prayed to whatever forces governed fate and rebirth. "Please don't let this be how we end. Not when we've just begun. Not when I finally found her again."
"Please."
Nana's eyes fluttered open.
The first thing Nana registered was pain—dull, manageable, but present. Her chest ached where the Wanderer's energy had struck. Her lungs felt heavy, like she'd been breathing water.
*Water*.
*The ocean*.
*Drowning*.
The memories crashed back all at once.
The dragon. The attack. Falling into the ocean. Down, down into darkness. And then—
*Him*.
Swimming toward her through black water. But not with legs. With a tail. Purple and blue and impossibly beautiful. Fighting the dragon with fire that burned underwater. Moving like he was part of the ocean itself.
Ancient. Powerful. Not human.
Nana's eyes focused on the ceiling above her—not her ceiling, somewhere else—and then shifted to find him.
Rafayel.
Sitting beside the bed, his hand on her chest, glowing faintly with magic that made her skin tingle. His eyes were red-rimmed, his face pale with exhaustion, his expression so openly terrified that it made her chest ache for entirely different reasons.
"Rafayel," she said, her voice rough from saltwater and blood.
He jerked like she'd struck him. "Nana. You're—you're awake. How do you feel? Are you in pain? Do you need—"
"Did I hallucinate?" she interrupted. "When I was drowning. Did I hallucinate seeing a sea god fighting underwater?"
The question hung between them like a blade.
Rafayel's hand stilled on her chest. The glow faded. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. No words came out.
"Rafayel," Nana said, and her voice was steady despite everything. "Did. I. Hallucinate."
"No," he whispered finally. "You didn't."
Nana closed her eyes. Took a breath that hurt. Opened them again.
"You lied to me."
"Nana—"
"You said you were just a delicate artist without combat skills." Her voice was still calm, but something was breaking underneath it. "You said you needed a bodyguard. You said—" She stopped, swallowed. "Was your love for me also a lie?"
"No!" The word exploded from Rafayel, desperate and immediate. "No, gods, no. That was real. That's the only thing that's been completely, absolutely real. Everything I felt, everything I said—that was true. I swear it was true."
"But everything else was a lie," Nana said.
"I—" Rafayel's face crumpled. "Yes."
"Who are you?" Her voice cracked on the question. "Really. Not the artist. Not the disaster who can't row a boat. Who are *you*?"
Rafayel took a shaking breath. "I'm... I'm a Sea God. The Sea God of Lemuria. My people—they lived underwater, in a kingdom that doesn't exist anymore. And I—" His voice broke. "I walk among humans. I have been for three hundred years. Waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"For you." The admission was barely a whisper. "Waiting for you to be reborn."
Nana's breath caught. "What?"
"The story I told you," Rafayel said, words tumbling out now, desperate. "About my friend. The boy from the deep sea who got trapped in a storm. Who was saved by a girl. Who waited at the beach every sunset until she stopped coming. That wasn't—it wasn't my friend's story. It was mine. Ours."
*No*, Nana's mind whispered. *No, that can't—*
"You saved me," Rafayel continued, tears starting to flow down his cheeks—tears that caught the light, that looked almost like—
*Pearls*, she remembered suddenly. *The nurse said his tears turned to pearls. I didn't understand then but now—*
"A hundred years ago," Rafayel said. "You were eleven. I was fifteen. A hurricane trapped me on a beach, my tail crushed under a tree. You found me. Dug me out with your bare hands even though your parents had just died in the same storm. You saved me when you had every reason not to."
Nana's hands were shaking now. "That's not—I don't remember—"
"You wouldn't." Rafayel's smile was bitter and broken. "You died. Disease took you before you could come back to the beach. Before I knew what happened. I waited for decades thinking you'd forgotten me. Thinking I'd been abandoned. Until I finally learned the truth."
"So you waited for me to be reborn," Nana said slowly, trying to process. "For three hundred years."
"Yes."
"And when you found me again—when we met at the festival—"
"I recognized you immediately," Rafayel said. "The bond mark on my chest—it's matched to the one on your neck. I've had mine for a hundred years. It appeared the day you saved me. It's how I knew. How I knew you were the same soul, even if you didn't remember."
Nana's hand went to her neck, to the fishtail mark she'd been born with. The mark everyone had called a unique birthmark. The mark that had always felt significant somehow.
"So everything," she said. "The bodyguard job. The investigation. The contaminated coral stones. All of it was—"
"An excuse to be near you," Rafayel admitted. "To spend time with you. To—" He stopped, struggling. "To see if you could fall in love with me again. Without knowing what we'd been. Without the weight of the past. Just... as we are now."
"By lying," Nana said.
"Yes." The admission was painful. "By lying."
They sat in silence for a long moment. Nana's mind was racing, trying to reconcile everything she'd known about Rafayel with this new information. The playful artist who couldn't row a boat was actually an ancient god. The dramatic disaster who got hospitalized over a twisted ankle could fight Wanderers with fire and water. The man she'd been falling in love with had been waiting for her across multiple lifetimes.
And lied about all of it.
"Did you ever plan to tell me?" she asked quietly.
"I—" Rafayel stopped. "I don't know. Maybe. Eventually. When I thought you could handle it. When I thought you wouldn't—" His voice broke. "When I thought you wouldn't look at me the way you're looking at me now."
"And how am I looking at you?"
"Like I'm a stranger," Rafayel whispered. "Like everything between us was fake."
"Wasn't it?" Nana's voice was soft but devastating. "If you were pretending to be human the whole time? If you were manipulating me into spending time with you? If nothing you showed me was real?"
"My feelings were real!" Rafayel insisted desperately. "Everything I felt—the love, the joy, the happiness—that was all real! I wasn't pretending about that!"
"But you were pretending about everything else." Nana's eyes were filling with tears now. "The artist who needed a bodyguard. The delicate person who couldn't fight. The human who was falling in love with me. All lies."
"Not lies," Rafayel said. "Just—parts I didn't tell you. Parts I hid because I was afraid—"
"Afraid of what?" Nana's voice rose slightly. "Afraid I'd reject you? Afraid I couldn't handle the truth? Or afraid I'd realize that this entire relationship was built on deception?"
"All of it!" Rafayel shouted back, then immediately looked horrified at himself. "I was afraid of all of it. Afraid you'd think I was a monster. Afraid you'd run. Afraid I'd lose you again when I'd just found you. So I—" He took a shaking breath. "I became someone you could love. Someone safe. Someone human."
"Someone fake," Nana said.
"Someone *incomplete*," Rafayel corrected desperately. "I'm still me, Nana. I'm still the person who played in the ocean with you. Who collected shells. Who held your hand and told you that you're beautiful. That person is real. He's just—he's just not the whole picture."
"That's the problem," Nana said, and tears were sliding down her cheeks now. "I don't know what the whole picture is. I don't know who you really are. I thought I knew you. I thought—" Her voice broke. "I thought I was falling in love with you. The real you. But how can I love someone when I don't even know what's true and what's a lie?"
"Everything I felt was true," Rafayel said, and he was openly crying now, tears becoming small pink pearls that fell to the bedsheets. "Every moment. Every word. Every touch. I love you, Nana. I've loved you for a hundred years. For three hundred years. I've loved you through death and rebirth and everything in between. That's real. That's the truest thing I've ever known."
"But you didn't trust me enough to tell me," Nana said.
The words hit Rafayel like a physical blow. "I—"
"You didn't trust me," Nana repeated, her voice breaking. "With the truth. With who you are. You let me fall in love with a version of you while hiding everything that matters."
"I was going to tell you," Rafayel said weakly. "Eventually. I just—I needed time. I needed you to know me first. To love me first. So that when I told you, you'd see past the—"
"The monster?" Nana supplied.
"I'm not—" Rafayel stopped. "Am I? A monster? Is that what you see when you look at me now?"
Nana looked at him—really looked at him. At his tear-stained face and desperate eyes and the way his hands were shaking where they still reached toward her. At the pearls scattered across the sheets, physical proof of his grief. At the mark on his chest that matched hers, glowing faintly through his shirt.
"I don't know," she admitted. "I don't know what I see anymore."
Rafayel was still holding her hand—or trying to. His grip was gentle, desperate, like she was the only thing keeping him grounded.
"Please," he whispered. "Please, Nana. I know I lied. I know I should have told you. I know I broke your trust. But please—please don't leave. Please give me a chance to make this right. To show you that despite the lies, despite everything, what we have is real."
Nana looked down at their joined hands. At the way his fingers trembled against hers. At how natural it felt, even now, even after everything.
*That's the problem*, she thought. *It still feels right. Even knowing what he is. Even knowing he lied. My body still wants to lean into him. My heart still skips when he looks at me. The bond still pulls.*
*But how can I trust that? How can I trust anything when the foundation was built on lies?*
"I need time," she said quietly.
"Time?" Rafayel's voice was fragile. "How much time?"
"I don't know." Nana gently pulled her hand free from his, and the loss of contact made them both flinch. "I need to think. To process. To figure out—" She stopped, struggling with words. "To figure out if what I felt was real or if it was just the bond making me feel things. To figure out if I can trust you again. To figure out if this—" She gestured between them. "—if this can survive what you did."
"Can I—" Rafayel's voice broke. "Can I call you? Text you? See you?"
"I don't know," Nana said again. "Maybe. Eventually. But right now I just—I need space. I need to not be around you while I'm trying to think clearly."
"Because being around me makes it hard to think clearly?" There was something almost hopeful in his voice, like this was a good thing.
"Yes," Nana admitted. "And that scares me. Because how do I know what I'm feeling is real if I can't think straight around you? How do I know it's not just the bond manipulating my emotions?"
"The bond doesn't manipulate," Rafayel said. "It connects. It makes you aware of what you already felt. But it doesn't create feelings that weren't there."
"According to you," Nana pointed out. "The person who's been lying to me for weeks."
Rafayel flinched like she'd struck him. "That's fair," he whispered.
Nana stood up slowly, testing her body. The pain was manageable—whatever healing he'd done had worked. She could move. Could walk. Could leave.
*Should I leave?* part of her wondered. *Or should I stay? Try to work through this? Give him the chance he's asking for?*
But looking at him—at his desperate, tear-stained face, at the way he was barely holding himself together—she knew she couldn't think clearly here. Couldn't separate what she felt from what the bond was making her feel.
"I'm going home," she said.
"Let me drive you," Rafayel said immediately, standing. "You're still injured, you shouldn't—"
"I'll call a car," Nana interrupted gently but firmly. "I need—I can't be in an enclosed space with you right now. I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize." Rafayel's voice was hollow. "This is my fault. All of it."
Nana wanted to argue—to say it wasn't all his fault, that the Wanderer attack wasn't something he could have predicted—but she couldn't find the words. Because the lies? Those were his fault. The broken trust? His fault. The feeling of betrayal currently eating at her chest? Completely, utterly his fault.
She walked toward the door. Each step felt heavier than the last.
"Nana?" Rafayel's voice stopped her at the threshold.
She turned back, and the sight of him—standing there looking absolutely shattered, pearls scattered around his feet like fallen tears, his hand pressed against his chest where the bond mark burned—almost broke her resolve.
"I love you," he said. "I know that doesn't fix anything. I know it doesn't make the lies okay. But I need you to know—I love you. I've always loved you. I will always love you. Even if you walk out that door and never come back."
Nana's vision blurred with tears. "I know," she whispered. "That's what makes this so hard."
Because she could feel it. Through the bond, through the mark on her neck that pulsed in time with his, through everything—she could feel that he was telling the truth about this. About loving her.
Which meant he'd lied about everything else while feeling this.
Which meant love wasn't enough.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry, but I need time. I need space. I need to figure out if I can be with someone who kept so many secrets."
"I understand," Rafayel said, even though everything about him screamed that he didn't, that he was dying inside, that this was killing him. "Take all the time you need."
"Thank you."
"But Nana?" His voice cracked. "Please—please don't disappear. Not like last time. Even if you decide you can't be with me. Even if you decide I'm too much of a monster or too much of a liar. Please just—let me know. Don't leave me waiting and wondering if you're ever coming back."
*Like I did a hundred years ago*, Nana understood. *Like when I died and left him sitting on a beach waiting for someone who was never coming back.*
"I promise," she said. "I won't disappear. When I've figured things out, I'll tell you. One way or another."
"Thank you." Rafayel smiled, but it was the saddest smile she'd ever seen. "That's all I can ask for."
Nana nodded once, then turned and walked out the door.
.
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🐚🐚🐚
The moment the door closed behind her, Rafayel collapsed.
Not dramatically. Not performatively. Just—his legs gave out and he hit the floor, his back against the bed, his head in his hands.
And he *wept*.
Not the pretty, cinematic kind of crying. The ugly, desperate, broken kind. The kind that tore from his chest in sobs that hurt, that made breathing difficult, that turned into pearls faster than he could process.
They scattered around him—pink and white and iridescent—a fortune in grief made solid.
*She left*, his mind kept repeating. *She left. Again. Different reasons this time but the same result. Gone. She's gone.*
*And this time it's my fault.*
*This time I drove her away.*
*This time I could have prevented it by just telling the truth.*
But how? How do you tell someone you're not human? How do you explain three hundred years of waiting without sounding insane? How do you reveal you're a god without changing everything about the relationship?
*You don't*, he realized. *You can't. There's no good way. No right time. No perfect moment to say "by the way, I'm an immortal sea deity and you're my reincarnated soulmate."*
*So you lie. And you hide. And you hope.*
*And then you lose them anyway.*
His phone buzzed. A text from Thomas: *How did it go?*
Rafayel stared at the message for a long moment, then typed back with shaking hands: *She left.*
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. Finally: *I'm so sorry.*
*Not as sorry as I am*, Rafayel thought, but didn't type.
He sat there on the floor of his studio, surrounded by pearls and pain, and tried to figure out what came next.
"Do I wait?" he wondered. "Do I give her space? Do I fight for her? What's the right move here?"
But he'd been waiting for three hundred years. He was tired of waiting.
And yet—what choice did he have? She'd asked for time. Asked for space. And if he pushed, if he pressured, if he didn't respect that boundary?
He'd lose her for good.
"So I wait", he decided. "Again. Always waiting."
"But this time, it's different."
"This time, she knows I exist."
"This time, she knows what I am."
"This time, she has all the information."
"And she'll make her choice with clear eyes."
"I just have to hope—"
"I just have to pray—"
"That when she's done thinking—"
"When she's done processing—"
"When she's ready to decide—"
"She chooses me."
"Monster, liar, desperate fool—"
"She chooses me anyway."
Outside, the sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of amber and gold.
Their time.
Always their time.
But for the first time in weeks, Rafayel watched it alone.
And the ocean, sensing his grief, was quiet.
So quiet.
Like it was mourning too.
.
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🐚🐚🐚
To be continued __