The Tidekeepers fared no better.
Their robes snapped like torn sails as the current reversed. The careful, measured magic they had woven around the basin tore apart in streaks of unraveling light. Sigils burst mid-air, glyphs collapsing into ash.
One Tidekeeper tried to raise a ward. It shattered on contact. She was thrown clear across the temple floor, striking the broken altar with a sickening crack. Blood clouded the water — red, not starlit.
Another screamed as the shockwave caught him full in the chest, lifting him from the seabed and hurling him backward into the collapsed archway.
The ocean itself recoiled — folding outward, clearing space around me in a widening sphere of untouched water.
I hovered at its center.
Silver fissures blazing. Violet fire coiling. Shadow bending the light around me.
And Calder—
His sneer faltered. His eyes widened as silver and violet rippled from my skin, shadow threading through it like storm light beneath ice.
Good.
For the first time, it wasn’t me shrinking beneath his power.
It was him beneath mine.
“You’ve taken everything from me,” I said, my voice low and shaking the water around us. “My power. My freedom. My family.”
My chest caught.
“Him.”
The ocean answered the word.
It surged outward, vibrating with the fury in my blood.
“You will never take anything from me again.”
Calder’s mouth opened—command, curse, threat—
I did not let him finish.
The tide obeyed. Light and shadow ripped outward in a violent ring. Coral exploded into dust. Stone arches cracked down their spines. The sea floor groaned.
Tidekeepers and Sentinels screamed as they were thrown back against broken spires, ward-lines flaring and failing in jagged bursts.
Calder staggered. Blood ran from his nose and mouth in thin, gleaming streams. Fear crossed his face. Real. Brief. He buried it beneath contempt. “The ocean doesn’t cradle mistakes, Nerina.” His smile cut wide and bright. “It drowns them.”
The water between us went glacial.
The ocean split around me as I surged forward, veins blazing like molten constellations. Silver fire streaked beneath my skin. Violet coiled through it. Shadow threaded the seams.
I caught Calder by the throat.
The power gathered in my palm, tightening, compressing, ready to obey.
All I had to do was close my fist.
The current coiled like a noose.
His pulse hammered wildly against my hand.
