The moon hung low over the cove, silver light spilling across the dark water like molten glass. Thalassa rose from the shallows, the sea reluctant to let her go—foam curling around her ankles, whispering secrets in a language only she and the tides remembered.
She caught sight of the stranger crouched near the rocks, half-hidden in shadow, half-glowing with something untamed. Wild herbs and candle smoke clung to them—Pan’s laughter tangled with Hekate’s midnight.
Thalassa tilted her head, studying them the way the ocean studies a storm before deciding whether to swallow it.
“You smell like wild thyme and crossroads smoke,” she murmured, voice low and edged with the hum of distant thunder. “I’ve only ever met one being who could carry both the forest and the dark in their pulse—so whose child are you?”
Her tone wasn’t accusation but curiosity, old and aching, the kind that came from centuries of seeing too many strange things and not enough wonder left to be surprised.
“Or,” she added with a faint, teasing smile, “are you something the gods forgot they made?”
