Selene watched as Raidne and Rhaemisia seized Finnegan by the arms, dragging him toward the center of the space like a netted beast. The old sailor’s guise remained intact—he grunted and cursed with convincing resistance.

The ground between the two circles—between Selene and Gadriel—had been cleared and shaped with care. Lines of ash and salt traced a rough outline, something between an eye and a gateway, pulsing faintly beneath the moonlight.

With unceremonious ease, they forced Antioch onto his back. Four wooden stakes, already driven deep into the sand, awaited him. Rhaemisia and Raidne moved with grim efficiency, binding each of his limbs with silver cord—not ordinary rope, Selene realized, but threads like those woven into her circle. Sacred. Sealing. Final.

Gadriel’s expression remained unreadable—cool, composed, every line of her face held in careful restraint. But her eyes betrayed her. They were locked on the man she still believed to be Finnegan, steady and unblinking, with a strange, quiet intensity. It wasn’t pity. Not yet. But it hovered close, like a shadow waiting to take shape.

Antioch let out a grunt as they pulled his arms wide, lashing them to the stakes. “Easy, I’ve got a bad shoulder!”

Raidne didn’t look at him. She tied the final knot and stepped back, brushing the sand from her hands like it was ash.

Then Leucosia raised her hand.

Her voice was quiet but unmistakable, the syllables of the incantation flowing like dark water: “Veretash umbrae thalor.”

The chain wrapped around her wrist trembled, then loosened. It slithered from her arm like a living thing and drove itself into the ground with a sound like a sigh and a hiss, anchoring itself at the edge of the circle.

Leucosia turned, crossed the space to Gadriel’s side, and lifted her hand once more.

“Veretash umbrae thalor,” she intoned again.

This time, the earth responded first. A length of chain erupted from the sand beside Gadriel, coiling like a serpent before lashing around her torso. It tightened with practiced precision, locking her in place.

Gadriel flinched but didn’t speak. Her breath was measured, her gaze sharp.

Leucosia stepped away. She moved back toward the ritual's center with devious grace, her blade glinting faintly in the dark.

Antioch’s head lolled slightly to the side, the cords at his wrists creaking as he adjusted just enough to get a better view of Leucosia.

She stood a few paces away, her profile cast in silver and shadow, the moonlight catching on the fine strands of her dark hair and the gleam of the ritual chain.

Antioch swallowed back a sigh. There was something unshakable in her—something regal and relentless. He’d always admired that. Even when she was small, her quiet intensity had made her seem older than her sisters. Older than him, even.

Ever since he was told about the vision—the image of a siren driving a blade through his heart—he’d turned it over in his mind a thousand ways. Which daughter would it be? Which of his beloved girls would finally choose to silence him?

At the top of the list was Leucosia.

She had his fire. His ambition. His taste for control. And worst of all, she had grown beyond needing his approval.

She began to circle the ritual site again, her blade glinting in the dark. Leucosia’s hand remained steady on the chain’s anchor point. Not a flicker of hesitation—not even when her gaze passed, briefly, over the staked body at the center.

“You’ve got the flair for drama, sweetheart,” Antioch muttered, just loud enough for her to hear.

Leucosia turned then, slowly, like a statue brought to life. Her eyes met his.

The faintest crease formed between her brows, and for the barest breath—Antioch thought he saw something flicker behind her gaze. Recognition? Regret?

No. Resolve.

She stepped forward.

Antioch let his smile widen, teeth flashing beneath his salt-stiff beard.

“This isn’t how a sailor should die,” he said flatly.

Leucosia didn’t flinch. “You pictured something more dramatic, didn’t you?”

Antioch gave a dry chuckle, more exhale than laughter. “I was thinking more like… drunk in an alley.”


The wind roared past Aglaope ears as she cut across the island’s spine, its cliffs and forested ridges blurring beneath her. The moon had climbed higher now, its light pale and watchful, painting silver veins across the trees below.

She scanned every shadowed ridge, every ravine, every copse of trees.

Aglaope circled low, her wings nearly brushing the treetops. “Himerope!” she called. “Rhaemisia!”

Nothing answered her but the wind.

Aglaope circled once more, her breath tight with frustration. Her voice had grown hoarse from calling names into the dark, but still she pressed on, wings beating against the thickening air. Just as she began to descend again toward the narrow ravine, two shadows broke from the tree line below, ascending toward her.

Parthenope and Molpe.

They reached her altitude quickly, wings gleaming faintly under the moonlight as they fell into formation on either side.

“We found nothing,” Parthenope said without preamble. Her breath was even, but there was a tightness in her jaw that betrayed her unease. “Corilato and Arrieciane are sweeping the cliffs again, but it’s the same—no signs of a struggle, no broken foliage, no tracks.”

“Not even a trace of scent,” Molpe added. “It’s like they vanished.”

Aglaope frowned, glancing toward the treetops below. “They didn’t vanish,” she said. “They’re here. I can feel them.”

“Then why can’t we find them?” Parthenope asked, exasperated.

Aglaope’s gaze narrowed. “Magic,” she said finally. “Something is cloaking them—hiding them in plain sight.”

Molpe turned toward her, brow furrowing. “You think someone’s using concealment magic strong enough to fool us?”

“I think someone is using ritual magic,” Aglaope said grimly. “Something sacred. Something dark. If the right sigils were carved, the right ground prepared... even a Siren’s senses might be dulled.”

Parthenope exchanged a glance with Molpe. “But that would take time—and knowledge.”

Molpe’s voice dropped low. “Do you truly believe Leucosia and Ligeia are behind this?”

Aglaope didn’t answer right away. She stared out across the dark canopy, her wings catching the wind but keeping her perfectly still in the air.

“If Melpomene is involved,” she said at last, her voice quiet but unshakable, “then so are her daughters.”

Aglaope turned to her sisters, the light of resolve blazing in her eyes.

“Find Corilato and Arrieciane. Tell them to begin searching not just for trails, but for patterns—ritual symbols, altered earth, stones set with intention. Then find Thelxiepe and tell her the same. We’re not hunting bodies—we’re unraveling a spell.”

Parthenope gave a short nod and peeled away into the dark.

Molpe hesitated a moment longer, then followed.

Aglaope hovered for a moment, breath tight in her chest, then angled westward—toward the old stone path that wound from the cliffs to the shore.

But before she could reach it, something pulsed beneath her skin.

She froze mid-flight.

It wasn’t a sound or a scent—but a presence.

A feeling.

It slid beneath her thoughts like a ripple through still water—foreign, yet unmistakably familiar. Not one of her sisters. Not one of the gods she’d known all her life.

This was older.

Calling.

The sensation tugged at her—not with force, but with gravity, as though her very essence were being gently tilted toward it.

Aglaope turned in the air, slowly, letting instinct guide her. Her feathers quivered, the wind whispering through them as she dipped lower, gliding silently through a stretch of moon-drenched trees. The air grew cooler. Denser.

The call grew stronger.

Aglaope descended in silence, her wings drawing tight against her back as she glided through the trees. As her feet touched the earth, the grass bent around her like breath. The wind, which had carried her so far, fell silent.

There—half-buried beneath a cluster of moss-slick stones and curling vines—something glinted.

She crouched low, brushing her hand across the rocks. The ground was damp, as if the earth itself had been weeping. Gently, she pulled the stones aside, revealing the shape hidden beneath them.

A trident.

Its shaft was carved from sea-stone, smooth and gold as sunlight on still water, etched with ancient symbols that pulsed like the rhythm of a distant tide.

Aglaope’s knew this was a god’s weapon.

And it had no business being here.

Her fingers hovered over it, unsure whether to lift it or flee. Something in her heart whispered don’t. Something in her blood whispered you must.

She reached out—slowly, carefully—and laid her hand on the shaft.

The moment her skin made contact, a cold shock ran up her arm and into her chest. Not pain—recognition. A rush of seawater and thunder filled her head. The scent of brine and blood and storm filled her nose.

Aglaope staggered as the vision struck.

The world fell away—trees, moonlight, breath—all swallowed in a tidal surge of sound and pressure. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed to the ground, still clutching the trident.

And then—

She was beneath the sea.

Not swimming. Seated.

A vast throne of coral and obsidian rose beneath her, grown from the ocean floor like the skeleton of a sunken god. Bioluminescent creatures flickered in the dark, their lights swirling around her like stars caught in a slow current.

In her hand, she held the trident.

It glowed with power, its gold surface burning like the sun glimpsed through the surface of the sea. The symbols along its shaft blazed, each one resonating with her heartbeat, matching the rhythm of ancient waves crashing in a forgotten storm.

Around her, silence reigned. No voices. No cries. No music.

Just sovereignty.

She looked down—her reflection mirrored in a smooth, suspended disk of water that hovered in the open stillness before her. But it wasn’t her—not entirely.

The woman staring back wore her face, but refined, sharpened, exalted. Her eyes were no longer the deep green of her childhood but glowing pools of aquamarine, swirling with currents that moved like tides within her irises. Her skin shimmered with a faint luminescence, as though the moonlight of a hundred drowned stars had been woven beneath it. Her hair now drifted in the water like a living veil of dark silk streaked with strands of sea-glass silver.

Adorning her brow was a delicate crown of twisted coral and pearls, and her lips—calm, unsmiling—were tinged with a blue deeper than the trench floor. She held the trident not like a weapon, but like a scepter. A birthright.

She looked like a queen.

She looked like a goddess.

And then—

The reflection shattered.

Pain lanced through her skull.

She gasped—and the world returned all at once.

Air slammed back into her lungs. Wind rushed over her skin. The trees above whispered in sudden agitation.

Aglaope crumpled, the trident still locked in her grip. Her body trembled, slick with sweat, her breath sharp and uneven.

And then, everything went dark.

She collapsed fully, the trident humming faintly beside her like the heartbeat of the ocean itself.