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“I didn’t go back. Icouldn’t.Because by the time the war ended... I’d broken the court’s sacred law.”

The eel watches, unmoving.

“I betrayed the Siren crown,” I whisper. “To save a human fleet.”

“You chosethem.”

“I chosemercy.”

“And she cursed you.”

“Yes.”

Silence falls like a tidal wave.

“Why?”

I laugh bitterly. “Because I couldn’t stomach more blood. Because I watched children drown, and I had the power to stop it. And I used it.”

The eel circles me now, slow and deliberate.

“Your voice was the blade.”

“And the balm,” I murmur. “And the bond. It was everything. Until it wasn’t.”

“You loved her.”

“I still do,” I whisper.

“Not the one who cursed you.”

“No.”

“The one who might leave you.”

My stomach turns.

Because that’s the worst of it, isn’t it?

I feel it slipping already—Luna’s presence, her touch, the spark in her when she looks at me like I’mmorethan the silence.

I don’t know how to hold on.

I don’t know if Ishould.

The eel pauses inches from my face. “You gave your truth. Now take mine.”

I brace.

“You do not lose her by loving her,” she hisses. “You lose her byfearingthat love.”

The cave brightens—just once, a pulse of moonlight from nowhere.

Then all goes still again.

I stand there a long time.

Alone.