Chapter 326
Five years later
The air smells like salt and sunscreen. The kind of perfect summer day where the breeze barely tugs your hair and the sun hangs suspended like it knows it’s not allowed to set just yet. Waves roll in slow and even, licking the edge of the shore with lazy patience. Our daughter, Isla, squeals as they rush over her feet, then looks up at me, eyes wide.
“Is it time?”
I crouch beside her and nod. “It’s time.”
She bounces in place, arms jittering with nervous energy. Her hair’s still wet from the splash fight with her cousins, curling in dark sea-slick spirals around her face. She’s wearing one of those silly starfish-print swimsuits she insisted on picking out herself, and she’s already dusted half her arms with sand.
Wake steps behind us, towel slung around his neck, a quiet smile on his lips. He presses a kiss to the side of my head as he leans in close.
“She’ll be fine. She’s more graceful than you were at that age,” he murmurs.
“She’s going to have the advantage of gills,” I whisper back with a grin.
Behind us, the beach stretches in every direction—bright umbrellas, towels in a mess of colors, folding chairs half-buried in the sand. My parents are there, lounging together with matching sunglasses and those ridiculous sun hats. My mom waves at us with a fruit cup in her hand. My dad's reading something, but he peeks over the edge to smile.
Peter and Delphi sit under the shade of a striped canopy a few yards off, watching their twin boys wrestle near the tidepool. Delphi looks radiant, her skin kissed golden by the sun, her dress fluttering like petals caught in the breeze.
Life on land has treated her well. Peter has treated her well. He’s got one hand on her knee and the other shading his eyes as he watches the boys shout about a crab they swear is magical. It probably is.
This world—the one we made, fought for, barely survived—is quiet now.
But not small.
In fact, it’s infinitely bigger than either species could have hoped.
Because here, on the shore of a world reborn, the old gods of the sea are finally at rest, and the world is striking a new balance. Anything feels possible.
I take our daughter’s hand. “Are you ready?”
She looks out at the water and chews her lip. “Will it hurt?”
Wake kneels beside her, his voice soft. “It might feel strange. But you won’t be alone. We’ll be right there.”
She glances between us. Then she nods.
We walk together toward the edge of the sea.
The sun glitters off the water, and for a moment, it’s easy to believe we’re back in the Ether again—everything too bright, too clear, the way reality sharpens right before it changes forever.
Just as we step ankle-deep, the ocean bubbles.
I blink.
Bubbles become ripples. Ripples break into waves.
And then, in a burst of spray and laughter, two figures rise from the sea.
Cora’s the first to breach, her braid whipping around her as she twirls through the air and lands lightly in the shallows. Khale follows, less dramatic but no less striking, lifting his arms in mock surrender like he’s expecting applause.
They get it.
Delphi laughs and claps. The twins shout and run toward them. My mom hoots from her towel, already reaching for her phone.
“You’re late!” I shout, hands on my hips.
Cora’s grin is pure mischief. “Fashionably.”
Khale steps beside her and shrugs. “Ruling two kingdoms is exhausting. As if the one weren’t enough.”
I raise a brow. “Not my fault your queen also happened to be the perfect woman to whip Estellis into shape.”
Cora rolls her eyes. “I can’t imagine that ruling Atlas is any less work.”
Khale points a finger at me, mock-accusatory. “And splitting your time between land and sea?”
I bow slightly, hand on my chest. “What can I say? It’s all part of the job.”
Cora smirks. “The official LandSea Peace Ambassador.”
“It’s a mouthful,” Wake adds with a grin, “but she makes it look good.”
Our daughter tugs on my hand. “Mom?”
I kneel again. “You ready now?”
She nods once. Serious. Brave.
I touch her forehead, just over the spot where the Ether first woke in me years ago. Then I take her hands and guide her into the shallows. Wake joins me. Together, we hold her between us.
She takes one breath.
The water swirls.
Her legs shimmer.
Then split.
Where there were knees and toes and sand-dusted calves, there’s now a glowing iridescent tail, the scales glinting pink and green and blue, shifting like sunrise on water.
She gasps in delight, spinning in the water with giddy grace.
“I did it!”
“You did,” Wake says, lifting her into the air, water cascading off her like light.
Cora and Khale cheer. Delphi wipes a tear. Even Peter looks a little misty-eyed.
Behind us, the twins come bounding into the water, scales flickering to life, laughing as they shift effortlessly, racing out toward the deeper blue.
Wake sets our daughter down, and she takes off after her cousins, her tail cutting clean through the water.
And I just watch, my heart too full to speak.
Somehow, we did it.
We found love in the most impossible of places.
We turned war into peace.
We turned survival into hope.
And now, our children get to inherit not just the burden of responsibility, but freedom.
Cora swims past, bumping my hip. “We’re going to need a bigger dinner table.”
I smile, watching the kids vanish beneath the waves, bubbles trailing behind them like tiny silver stars.
“Yeah,” I whisper, patting my belly. “We are.”
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
