It was a time before Harahel and Gadriel washed ashore—before Antioch ever wore the guise of Finnegan.

The tide whispered its secrets to the shore, but Leucosia no longer cared to listen.

She sat alone on the cold, moonlit sand, her knees drawn to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around them as if her own embrace was the only warmth left to her.

The others had gone inland for the night, but she remained behind. She often did.

Imprisoned.

That was the word she never said aloud, not even to herself. But it was always there, ringing like a bell in the marrow of her bones. The daughters of the Muses were not meant to be caged. And yet they had been—on this island, this beautiful tomb, for what felt like centuries.

And what was worse?

The waiting.

Waiting for a sign. A whisper. A key that might never come.

Eventually, the lull of the waves became too much. Her eyes drifted closed, the pull of sleep soft and heavy.

She dreamed.

And in that dream, the sea stilled. The wind hushed.

And the world seemed to hold its breath.

Leucosia stood—though she didn’t remember rising—and found herself no longer on the beach but surrounded by darkness and mist. The sand was gone. The sea was gone. Only shadow and silence.

Until she heard the voice.

“My daughter.”

She turned.

And there she was.

Melpomene.

She emerged from the mist like a silhouette cut from midnight—tall, regal, terrifyingly still. Her gown was black as void, layered in long flowing silks that moved as if underwater. Atop her face rested a mask, equally dark.

And yet—despite the mask, despite the shadows that seemed to curl around her like a second skin—Leucosia felt something stir in her chest.

Warmth.

Not the gentle kind that lulled children to sleep. No. This was the warmth of a winter fire—sharp, consuming, edged with danger. The kind that could burn as easily as it could comfort.

The kind only a mother could give.

“Mother…” Leucosia breathed, taking a step forward without realizing it. Her voice wavered between awe and something deeper, something wounded. “Is it really you?”

Melpomene tilted her head. The mask didn’t move, didn’t shift, and yet Leucosia could feel the eyes behind it watching her—measuring, memorizing, mourning. Her voice, when it came, did not echo. It sank.

“I am the part of myself that remains,” Melpomene said. “The fragment that still remembers how to dream. The piece that loved you before the cage, before the silence.”

Her voice was ice wrapped in silk. Cold, and yet Leucosia didn’t shiver. It was familiar. Bone-deep.

“Why didn’t you stop father?” Leucosia asked. “Why leave us alone for so long?”

Melpomene did not move. But the mist thickened and folded behind her, like wings unfurling in the dark.

“I did not have the power to stop him,” she said, her voice low but resonant, each word measured like a funeral drum. “Not then. Not after the seal cracked. Not after the Korybantes gave their lives to bind what your voice unbound.”

Leucosia flinched. “You know then”

“I know,” Melpomene said. The mist rippled. Faint, spectral images shimmered within it—the sister Sirens, wild-eyed and beautiful, dancing along cliffs, their songs ringing through the sky like bells at war with thunder. And then—fire. Smoke. Screams, swallowed by silence. “It was you who tricked your sisters into singing that song.”

Leucosia looked away. The weight of her mother’s words sank like stones into her chest, threatening to pull her under.

“I never told my sisters where the song came from,” she whispered. “It found me in a dream—called to me like it had been waiting. I woke with the melody already in my mouth, as if it had always been there, just waiting to be sung.”

She swallowed hard, her voice beginning to tremble. “And when I sang it… it was like nothing I’d ever felt before. Like power stirring in my blood. Like something ancient waking up inside my bones.”

Melpomene’s mask dipped in what might have been sorrow. Or understanding. Or both.

“Do not be ashamed of what you did,” Melpomene said, stepping closer. The mist curled around her ankles like dark ivy. “You were born with a gift meant to stir gods and shake the firmament. A song like that—untamed, ancient, divine—always comes with a cost. Its power cannot be controlled by any who did not create it.”

Leucosia’s brow knit in confusion. “Then… who did create it?”

A long silence stretched between them. The mist thickened, dense with memory. When Melpomene spoke again, her voice was low—reverent, like a prayer whispered in a ruined temple.

“It belongs to Azrakul.”

A perplexed expression crossed Leucosia’s face.

“I’ve never heard that name before,” she said.

Melpomene’s voice lowered further, her tone shifting from cold precision to ancient reverence.

“Azrakul,” she said ominously. “Your ancestor. A god long forgotten—buried not just by time, but by fear. The old pantheon grew terrified of his power and sealed him away. His name was stripped from mortal tongues, erased from memory, as if he had never existed at all.”

Leucosia’s voice came out small, uncertain. “How do you know all this? About him?”

Melpomene was silent for a moment. The mist coiled around her like smoke held in place by will alone. When she spoke again, her words dripped with old fury.

“Because I searched for him.”

Leucosia blinked. “You searched for him?”

Melpomene’s head inclined. Slowly. “When Antioch took you and Ligeia—when he cast you to that island and locked the sea around you—I burned with grief. But grief became rage. I could not strike him. I could not reach him. Even my fury was shackled.”

Her voice darkened, and the mist thickened until it nearly blotted out the stars of Leucosia’s dream.

“So I turned my rage elsewhere,” Melpomene continued. “I thought—if I could not punish the jailer, then I would punish the one who gave him the key. I searched for the source of that cursed song, the one that damned you and your sisters. I tore through the veil of dreams, through songlines forgotten by the living. And that is when I found him.”

Leucosia leaned forward. “Azrakul?”

Melpomene’s chin dipped again. “Not him, exactly. What remains—a whisper in the dark, an echo of a god too powerful to kill, too dangerous to unbind. His body was scattered, sealed in pieces across the broken corners of the world. But his will—that still lingered. Waiting.”

Leucosia's heart pounded in her chest. “You spoke with him?”

“I did,” Melpomene said. “And I made a pact.”

The mist pulsed.

“I would help free him—piece by piece, note by note. And in return, he would help me get back what Antioch stole. He would help me reclaim my daughters. And he would help me destroy your father.”

Leucosia recoiled as if struck. “Kill Father?”

“More like break him,” Melpomene corrected. “To unmake his dominion, his silence, his tyranny. He would not listen to my grief. He would not answer my prayers. So I turned to a god who would.”

Leucosia’s voice wavered. “But if Azrakul is freed, won’t he bring ruin again? Isn’t that what the pantheon feared?”

“Yes,” Melpomene said simply. “He is ruin. But he is also rebirth. The first singer. The one whose voice shaped the stars. Even the gods feared that kind of creation.”

“But if we unseal him…”

Melpomene stepped closer. “Then we take back what was stolen. Our voices. Our names. Our place in the song of the world.”

Leucosia’s breath caught. Deep in her bones, the melody stirred again—ancient, wild, familiar.

She looked up into her mother’s masked face. “How can I help you?”

Melpomene paused, letting the silence stretch. When she finally spoke, her voice carried the edge of something dark—cold, and laced with grim satisfaction.

“First, I will teach you a new song.”

Every muscle in Raidne body screamed with impatience.

The minutes dragged on, and the jungle around them grew darker, the sounds of night creatures rising into a humming chorus.

Raidne glanced again toward the cave. “How long does it take to drop off a prisoner?” she grumbled.

Teles, ever the cautious one, put a hand on her sister’s arm. “We should leave this alone. Whatever’s inside that cave, it’s not meant for us.”

Raidne turned her head just slightly, her voice low and biting. “That’s exactly why I want to see it.”

Before Teles could argue, a flicker of movement caught their attention. Ligeia emerged from the cave at last. She didn’t look at them as she approached Leucosia.

“Well?” Leucosia asked, her voice clipped.

“He’s secured,” Ligeia replied.

Raidne took a step forward, her voice thick with sarcasm. “Charming. Should I be worried you’re getting so good at handling prisoners?”

Ligeia didn’t rise to the bait. She simply glanced at her. “You should be worried about why we need to,” she said.

Raidne narrowed her eyes. “Then tell me. What’s in that cave?”

There was a beat of silence. Leucosia’s gaze flicked to Raidne, a silent warning in her eyes.

“Freedom” Leucosia answered

“Freedom?” Teles echoed.

“From what?” Raidne pressed, stepping closer.

“From this prison our father put us in,” Leucosia replied

Raidne blinked, and for the first time in a long while, she didn’t have a snarky comeback.

Leucosia turned her back to Raidne and began walking toward the jungle path. “We’ve wasted enough time,” she called over her shoulder. “We must find these women before our sisters do.”

Raidne stared after Leucosia, the older sister’s commanding presence already melting into the shadows of the jungle path. Her jaw tightened, irritation flickering in her eyes as she called out, “And why exactly must we hide this from the others?”

Leucosia stopped mid-step.

Teles winced.

Ligeia turned just slightly, her expression unreadable—but not surprised.

Leucosia didn’t turn around. Her voice, when it came, was calm. Icy. “Because I said so.”

Raidne’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, well. That’s convincing,” she said, throwing up her hands. “Why didn’t you lead with that?”

Leucosia turned slowly now. Her gaze found Raidne’s and pinned her like a hawk catching a rabbit in its talons. “Stop asking questions,” she said, her voice low and hard. “And do as I tell you.”

Raidne folded her arms. “And when, dear sister, have I ever dutifully followed orders?”

Leucosia didn’t answer.

She sang.

It was a single note at first—low, strange, and sharp as breaking glass beneath the sea. Then came another, layered atop it, softer and warmer, pulling like a tide under the ribs. Her voice wrapped around them in a melody unlike any Raidne had ever heard.

It wasn’t the seductive lull of a siren’s usual tune. It was older. Wilder. It shimmered like memory and struck like prophecy.

Raidne blinked, the smirk fading from her lips. Her arms slowly lowered from their defiant cross, falling to her sides. She tried to look away, to scoff, to say something snide.

But she couldn’t.

The sound held her—not like chains, but like a memory she'd forgotten she missed. Her breath hitched. Her heartbeat slowed. The world around her dulled.

This should not have been possible.

Sirens were immune to each other’s voices. Immune to enchantments spun from the same blood.

Raidne gritted her teeth, summoning every shred of defiance in her body. No, she thought. No, no, no. Her jaw clenched, her fingers curled into fists at her sides as she forced herself to turn her head, to break her sister’s gaze.

It was like trying to swim against a riptide.

Her vision blurred, the edges of the world softening, melting into Leucosia’s voice.

But she managed it—barely. Her eyes darted sideways, desperate for something real, something not made of song and shadow.

Ligeia.

Still. Watchful. Unmoved.

She stood with arms crossed, her eyes locked on Leucosia with something like reverence—but not submission. Her mind was her own.

Then—Teles.

Raidne’s breath caught.

Teles stood frozen, eyes wide and unfocused, her lips parted just slightly as if caught mid-breath. Her shoulders sagged, all tension gone, and a dreamy smile touched the corners of her mouth.

“No,” Raidne whispered, the sound barely more than air. “Teles…”

The song shifted again—just slightly. The melody dropped into a minor key, deeper, older. A whisper of grief laced through it, and with it came something beautiful and aching: longing. Raidne’s breath hitched.

And then it happened.

Her resistance cracked.

It was small at first—a single thought, quiet and treacherous: Would it really be so bad to let go?

Then her muscles softened. Her jaw slackened. The world blurred further, until she could no longer remember why she was fighting. Only the song remained. The voice of her sister, but more than her sister—something ancient, divine.

The melody wrapped around her, a tide pulling her gently beneath the surface.

She didn’t fall to her knees.

She didn’t speak.

She simply… let go.

Leucosia’s voice faded, the last note hanging in the air like a silver thread, shimmering and still. The jungle held its breath.

Raidne and Teles stood motionless, bathed in the hush that followed. Their expressions had softened, the tension in their limbs vanished. Both wore the same serene, faraway smile—unsettling in its peace. Like waves smoothed over glass.

Leucosia’s eyes, cool and calculating, moved from one to the other. She studied them in silence, watching for the twitch of resistance, the flicker of thought behind their gazes. But there was none.

“Are you going to be any more trouble?” she asked.

Raidne responded first, her voice light, dreamlike. “No, sister. We will not trouble you.”

Teles echoed her a moment later, her words slower, almost reverent. “We will do as you command.”

Leucosia gave a slow nod, satisfied. “Good,” she said, stepping forward, her presence now fully assumed—queenly and unyielding. “We’ve wasted enough time squabbling. There is a purpose here, and I will not see it undone by petty pride or misplaced rebellion.”

Raidne inclined her head like a priestess before an altar. “We understand.”

Teles said nothing else. She simply watched Leucosia with wide, unblinking eyes—utterly silent, the smirk long gone, replaced by tranquil obedience.

“Good,” Leucosia replied. Then she turned, her voice sharp with command. “We head north. Now.”

Without hesitation, Raidne and Teles fell into step behind her, their movements graceful and automatic—like dancers in a procession, like waves answering the moon.

Ligeia followed, silent and shadowed.

And with that, the daughters of Thalia stepped after the daughters of Melpomene, the cave’s secrets trailing behind them like ghosts.