#egrene

In an age past, before Nytheris took her waters, in a village along what is now known as the Old Coast, there was a devout follower to Caltheris. Every morning he refilled the oil in the lantern lit the entryway to his home, and every night he sat an hour in prayer, so that Caltheris might guide his hands and light his path. The man was also father to most lovely daughter in the village. She was tall with dark hair and darker eyes, she sang sweetly as she went about her tasks, and was known to cry when helping to clean and gut the fisherman’s catches for she felt such sorrow for the little creatures.

During one winter when food grew scarce and coin light, and nets came up empty more often than not. The man sat before his altar and prayed to Caltheris to show him the path forward for his people. The vision he was granted was unclear, shadowed as if the path had not yet been set, but in it he saw himself sat before his alter praying before his own daughter set upon him with knife and tooth. He knew not what to make of it, his daughter was as gentle as the morning sun, had never once raised hand nor voice to anyone. He could not believe she would do something so terrible, and so believed it was a trick, perhaps Kasareth or Vaelith's meddling and tried to set it aside.

Every night for a moon’s turn he prayed again to Caltheris, asking to be shown the path forward, and every night the vision became more clear. His daughter, armed with a knife made of black stone, teeth grown sharp, falling upon him as he prayed. He asked of Caltheris how he might avoid this fate, what he must do so as to save his daughter. The Guiding Lantern showed him the path as he had so many times before, the man taking not only his own daughter but all the girls in the village unto their largest ship and taking them far from shore, and casting them into the water. This Caltheris tells him is the only way he might save his daughter.

Had the man been clever or less devout, he might have realized that Caltheris had answered but one half of his prayer. Were the man less rigid in his belief he might have prayed to Nytheris for reprieve for relief from the famine his village faced. But the man was neither clever nor flexible, and so when the sun dawned he went from house to house through the village and told his fellows of his visions.

That night as the sunset father’s led their daughters onto the largest ship in the village’s fleet and sailed until the shore was but a distant smudge against the horizon. And then one-by-one they cast their daughters into the freezing waters below.

Be it fate or luck Nytheris was watching. She had seen men throw many things into her waters before, nets, and lines, and hooks, but never this. This confused her even as it angered her, she did not know what a daughter was, but knew these children had done naught to earn her ire.

She swam up from her trench and scooped the drowning into her arms, wrapped them in furs fashioned from moonlight and taught them to breathe in rhythm with the tides, to ride her currents, to see within the darkness of her domain. She named them hers and soothed their tears, she asked from whence they had come and why they swam her waters so ill prepared.

The eldest of the girls, dark of hair and eye, explained they had been given over to her waters by Caltheris’ decree so that their village might survive.

Nytheris already angered felt the storm within her rise, these poor girls had done nothing to earn the deaths their father’s had consigned them to, and worse they had been left within her waters by the word of another god. And so she taped each girl on the chin and gave them sharpened teeth as well, so that they might never be defenseless again.

She told the girls that she would herd the bounty of her waters into the nets of their village, so that their mother’s and sibling might not starve. But first she would have the blood of those who turned first to the god of fate to solve their every problem. If Caltheris wished them to take blade and fang to their fathers, who was she to gainsay him.

Nytheris helped them to don their new coats, and sent them on swift waves back towards the village of their birth.

Within the alter chamber of his home the man sat in prayer. He lit a single candle in mourning for his sweet daughter and asked Solvaris to keep careful watch over her soul, and to lead her to a gentle afterlife.

Then, as he had every night for the last moon cycle he prayed to Caltheris and asked him to guide his hands and light his path and asked how he might end the famine that plagued his village.

With his head bowed he did not see the door swing open, and the hinge made no noise. When no vision came and his eyes lifted he saw standing over him his lovely girl, dark hair stained with salt and eyes dark as the midnight sky. He had not time to call for help before she fell upon him, a fish knife made of black stone in hand and sharpened teeth against his throat.

Across the village similar tableaus played out. Each house who had throne a daughter to the waves was visited, and each father found himself caught by his fate.

Come the dawning the girls gathered along the rocky shore and danced among the waves as they washed blood from their hands and jaws. The sea foam stained pink from their play. Then one by one they pulled their gifted coats around their shoulders and slipped back beneath the waves.

He did not truly wish to leave his mother’s domain, but he could not help but wander. He learned that his fear of straying too far abated if he brought his skin with him, slung across one shoulder so that the smell of salt and spray was still close at hand.He spied on ships, climbed anchor lines, and lingered in village shadows. He heard stories never told beneath the waves, and songs from distant shores. But he also learned bitter truths: mortals cursed his mother when storms came, and offered gifts not from love but from fear—so that she might leave them alone. One night, pressed against the hull of a ship, he heard sailors singing. They told a tale of Nytheris as a greedy mistress, demanding coin or treasure for calm seas, mocking those who bent the knee. In their songs she was not a goddess but a thief, a storm in seaweed skirts who must be bribed into silence. The Seal-Son bit salt from his tongue to keep from answering. When the last verse laughed that she might yet be wed to a mortal bold enough to claim her, his hands ached for the feel of a knife. The knowledge curdled like a stone in his chest. Mortals lived on his mother’s bounty, yet treated her as a burden to be endured. He did not know hate—it was not something Nytheris had thought to teach him, one did not hate the storm or curse the rocks, you endured them. But he looked on mortals and found them wanting. He knew she did not hear such words, for beyond the tide mark, her dominion ended. The sand was no more her ear than stone her hand. What men whispered and sang by firelight, what they shouted in taverns or temples, was lost to her utterly. Only those who could walk between tide and shore might carry such knowledge back. And only he was bold enough to make such a trip.

He thought it must be some sort of festival. The fires were stoked higher, and there were so many more people about long into the night. Torches ringed the village green, casting the air thick with smoke and shadow. Drums beat loud enough to mimic thunder, though the skies above were clear. Men swung mugs high, boasting of nets full to bursting, of ships heavy with mussels. Woman sang bawdy verses, clapping hands as children darted through the crowd. Some raised cups in mock salute, thanking not Nytheris, but their own strength for the bounty spread before them. The Seal-Son felt the knot beneath his ribs twist tighter. It was here, among the press of mortal bodies, that Kasmyr found him—laughing, asking if Nytheris knew how far her smallest pup had strayed.

The Seal-Son startled. His sisters had told him of Kasmyr—of his ever-laughing mouth, of how he was not always nice, though he could be kind. He asked why mortals celebrated. No winds whipped, no skies rumbled, no storm pressed the shore. What feast was this? Kasmyr rolled his eyes: “You think too much like the tide. Mortals do not. One of their fleet has returned with fish enough for a moon. They celebrate your mother’s bounty, yet call it theft—praising their nets while forgetting she might drown them all with less than a thought.” Kasmyr’s smile went feral, a shadow the Seal-Son recognized in his own reflection. “One sailor claims to be master of the sea, and vows to wed Nytheris whether she wills it or not. Tell me, little tide—how should such boasts be answered?”

The Seal-Son thought on what Kasmyr had told him. He had known mortals to be disrespectful, had known they did not show his mother proper deference, and had abided it because they were fragile, foolish creatures. But this he could not forgive—this mortal who would speak so of his mother.

And so he turned his dark eyes to Kasmyr and said this sailor should meet his bride, for if he was truly master of the waves, she could pose no threat to him. These mortals already celebrated—why not let it be a wedding feast as well?

Kasmyr laughed, bright and sharp, eyes glinting with mischief. He said he thought he might like him after all, before fading into the shadows.The Seal-Son knew his mother had not heard the sailor’s claim. Spoken on dry land, it was no more than air to her, no matter how grave the insult. She would never know unless he carried the words back to her tides. His anger burned hotter at the thought: mortals spoke freely where she could not hear, safe in their ignorance. But this one, this mortal, was not safe—for the Seal-Son had heard.

The Seal-Son half donned his skin, enough that any who saw him would know he was of the tides. He waited and watched, and when the sailor stepped away alone, he whisper-sang that Nytheris waited for him by the shore, that she had sent him to fetch her groom. His song was low and lilting, voice steady as the waves against the shore: “She waits in the foam where the moonlight lies, bride of the sea with salt in her eyes,

Come, bold sailor, come to her side, She calls for her master, come claim your bride. The Tide shall rise, the shore shall weep, Come claim the bride who rules the deep.”

The words wrapped around the sailor like kelp around an anchor, the man drunk on ale and praise followed without question. As he followed, the sailor muttered half ot himself, half to the night: how he would take Nytheris to his bed, how her storms would bow to his command once she wore his ring, how his children would be kings o both sea and shore. His arrogance was so swollen it made him stumble, yet he grinned as though each word were already true.

Nytheris waits for him. The thought thrilled him, arrogance stealing what little sense he possessed. Of course she would send for him—how could she not? The sea bowed before his ship. Her bounty was claimed with every cast of his nets. So lost to his own importance, he did not hear the sharp edge of amusement hidden in the lilting song. He allowed himself to be led away from the firelight toward the dark embrace of the waiting tide.

And here again the Seal-Son differed from his sisters. They were of salt and spray, and save for the eldest among them, they knew no weapon beyond their own teeth and claws. The Seal-Son, however, had walked the docks and explored ships. He knew the value of a dagger.

The sailor, made stupid by drink and pride, followed him to where the sand met the waves and asked where his bride was.

The Seal-Son answered not with words but with his blade: a single arc across the man’s throat, dragging him into the surf. He laughed as the waves turned red, and the knot in his chest came loose. He was of the waves, born of salt and storm, and though that which lay beyond called to him, he would never forsake his mother’s embrace.He bent close and whispered: “The sea has no master. My mother takes no mate. She is wind and rain, storm and wave—and you can no more bind her than you can save yourself.”

When it was done, when the waters were stained red and the sailor gasped his last breath, the ocean pulled its prize beneath the waves. Come the dawn, all that remained would be bones, buried deep, picked clean by the creatures that made their home in Nytheris’ waters.

As the Seal-Son stood in the surf, his blade slick in his grasp, his heart still thrumming with something fierce. Kasmyr’s laughter uncoiled from the shadows, bright as broken glass. “And will you bring her every fool who names himself her master? Every captain who dares say the waves obey his hand? Every king who taxes fish as though he cast them into nets himself? Every priest who spits her name in anger when storms sweep his altars clean? Oh, little tide-wanderer, there will never be an end to such boasts. The world is thick with mortal hubris. You could drown one each night and still find another the next dawn. What a game it would be, what a game indeed”

The Seal-Son hesitated, then asked, “Would it be wrong to show them how mistaken they are?” Kasmyr grinned wide. “No. Not wrong. But oh, little tide-wanderer—what a long game. There are countless who boast themselves her equals. You could spend a lifetime bleeding them.”

The Seal-Son nodded and smiled in return. He had time—and he did enjoy a game.

Nyxalor’s hands when they find him are gentle, almost reverent, as he leads the son into shadows. As he takes what he believes is rightfully his.

The Seal-Son does not understand at first, does not realize the chains around his wrists are not of iron, but something older, something that binds not just the body but also will.

“It is only fair,” Nyxalor murmurs his voice as smooth as obsidian. “Kasmyr was freed, and so another must take his place. A debt demands repayment, and you, child of shadow and tide, will learn to be still.”

The Seal-Son struggles, his heart beating to the rhythm of the waves, but the chains hold fast. These are not mortal nets to be cut, or hooks to be pulled free.

Nyxalor’s domain is quiet, still, forever the hush before secrets are revealed. The Seal-Son has never known stillness, no like this, where he cannot run, cannot wander where curiosity takes him. Cannot feel his mother’s call to return.

This is not the sea’s embrace. This is a cage.

Nyxalor’s smile is soft, cruel in it’s patience. “You are your father’s son,” he muses tilting his head as he examines the Seal-Son like one might a puzzle. “You hunger for what lies beyond, what is unknown. You should understand then the value of a secret.”

The Seal-Son glares, his jaw tight, body held still against his will— Still. Still when he has never been meant for stillness.

Nyxalor leans closer, his voice a whisper that wraps around him like silk chains, tightening with every word. “For every secret you give me, I will undo one binding.” He trails a finger along the glimmering bindings, effortless in his power. “But every day you refuse? I will add another.”

The Seal-Son does not answer

Nyxalor’s expression does not shift. “Ah,” he sighs, feigning disappointment. “You are young. You think to resist. Kasmyr was the same once.” His hand flicks, and a new chain weaves into place, cold against the Seal-Son’s skin. You will learn, as he did.”

The Seal-Son presses his lips together, feeling the weight settle, but keeping his voice silent.

His sisters had warned him endlessly of Kasmyr’s tricks, his meddling.

But Kasmyr is kind, when it suits him.

Nyxalor is not.

Nyxalor takes and hangs the Seal-Son’s skin just beyond his grasp, it’s sleek surface catching the shifting light of his domain.

Not damaged; not destroyed.

Just out of reach. A reminder. A lesson.

“You are still of the sea,” Nyxalor says, his voice measured. “But in time you will come to know your chains better than the waves.” He steps closer, trailing a finger along the new forged links in the Seal-Son’s chains, watching as the boy stiffens at the touch. “You will learn that stillness is not weakness, obedience is not loss. That knowledge is it’s own kind of freedom.”

The Seal-Son closes his eyes, feeling the weight of his skin above him, and the chains around him. Nyxalor is not cruel in the way the sea is cruel— a force of nature, wild and impersonal. No, he is cruel in the way a story can be cruel, in the way a puzzle with no answer consumes the mind, the way a secret held too long becomes a chain of its own.

“You will come to love your bindings, little tide,” Nyxalor whispers as he steps away. “And when that day comes you will not even think to reach for the sea.”

The Seal-Son does not answer.

But his eyes flicker upwards toward hi skin and knows that Nyxalor lies. ***

Nyxalor comes everyday. He is never rushed, never impatient. He does not demand, does not coerce— he only offers.

A secret for a chain removed. A chain added for his silence.

“I am generous,” he says, running a hand along the bindings. “I do not ask for blood, only knowledge.: He tilts his head, voice soft, almost gentle. “Your sisters call for you, you know.” He leans closer, just enough that the words brush against the Seal-Son’s ear, a facsimile of a tide lapping against the shore. “Your mother rages. The tide is restless. The wind carries your name across the waves.” He smiles. “Can you hear them?”

The Seal-Son closes his eyes, presses his lips tight.

Because he wants to. Gods, he wants to. But there is only silence.

Nyxalor’s smile grows pitying. “No?”

A new chain weaves into place. Cold and heavy.

“Perhaps tomorrow then.”

And Nyxalor leaves him again.

The Seal-Son loses track of the days, the times between when Nyxalor leaves and reappears inconsistent, the brief bursts of unwanted companionship blending together.

And eventually the enforced stillness, and silence begins to weigh on him. More than the chains. And one by one hi secrets come trickling out. Each one a confession, an offer to the dark.

He does not stop to consider— nor to breathe. He spills everything — sharp edges of his life, the glint of knives in the moonlight, the last gasps of those who thought they could claim the sea.

He tells Nyxalor of sails left in tatters, of firelight grown too warm, of fleeting laughter, and the brief moments between temptation and destruction.

The drip from his tongue like salt water, and taste like drowning.

If he must give himself away piece by piece, to return to the waves — Then he will. Then he must.

And when the words drift into silence, when the final thread of his being has been tugged free and laid bare before the god of hidden truths, only then does the Seal-Son lift his gaze.

“Is it enough?” His voice is raw, his breathing shallow. “Have I earned my freedom?”

Nyxalor watches him, silent for once.

Then one by one the chains fall away.

Each link hits the ground without a sound, and vanishes like mist before the dawn.

Until there is only one left.

The Seal-Son shudders, chest rising with the first full breath he has taken in an eternity.

He reaches for his skin— but the last chain holds fast.

Nyxalor hums, tilting his dark head, something almost gentle in his gaze, something almost sorrowful.

“You poor thing,” he murmurs, voice hushed. “I never said I would set you free.”

The Seal-Son stills, his fingers just inches from what he once was, what he still wishes to be.

His breath catches.

“But—“

Nyxalor places a hand over his heart, “I asked for secrets, and you gave them, and so I kept my word and removed one chain for each. But I never promised you your freedom. I never promised you the sea.” He smiles soft and knowing. “You belong to me now.”

The Seal-Son does not scream, does not beg. But the sound that rips from his throat is not human—

It is the cry of a storm breaking, the howl of the wind through tattered sails, the last breath of something that was never meant to be caged.

Nyxalor does not flinch, only inclines his head and disappears once more. ***

The Seal-Son is alone.

Nyxalor does not come again. No more whispered deals, no patient taunts, no measured cruelty.

The single chain is enough.

And in that absence the Seal-Son cries.

Not for escape, not anymore. Not for the world of mortals that once called to him like a song half-heard in the distance.

He cries for the deep. For salt and spray. For the the thunder of waves against the cliffs, for the roar of a storm breaking across the sky. For his sisters, who will call for him and never find him. For his mother, who will rage and be denied.

He no longer wishes to walk the shoreline, no longer wonders about ships and their lights, or the bells that call through the mist.

He longs only for the ocean. For the cold crushing weight of the tide and his mother’s embrace. ***

It is perhaps fitting that it is laughter he hears first.

Not cruel, not sharp — no the dark mirthless chuckle of Nyxalor, nor the razor-edged amusement of Kasmyr.

No, this laughter is different.

Gentle. Sweet. Full of mirth.

A sound like waves lapping at the shore, like warm sun filtering through storm clouds, like the first breath after breaking the surface of the water.

And when he lifts his head weary and salt stung, he sees her.

A too-bright smile, golden eyes alight with mischief, her crimson hair tumbling around her in waves of it’s own.

He knows the fox.

He’s seen her before, when he still walked the shores as a creature of two worlds, unbound and untamed.

He’s watched her dance in the tides, teasing the waves, laughing as his mother chased her with roaring winds and rolling surf.

And now— she watches him, and she is smiling.

He blinks up at the golden-eyed trickster who smiles so easily, as if chains are things to be shrugged off, as if they are naught but a momentary annoyance.

“Why do you cry?” She asks, head tilted comically to one side.

He does not answer at first, because how can she not see?

The chain is wrapped around his wrists, heavy as the deep, as binding as the stillness that has seeped into his bones. His skin sways above him, just out of reach, and every time he stretches for it, the weight pulls him back down.

But Veliflare only laughs soft and knowing. “You are born of shadow and tide,” She says slipping from her perch above to the floor. “And neither can be chained.”

She bends down to look him in the eye, her smile teasing but not unkind. “The sea cannot be bound, and shadows are never caught.” She muses, tapping a finger against his forehead. “You are both, and neither. So tell me, little tide — how is it that a single chain holds you?”

He hesitates, because as her words twist thought him he is not certain he knows the answer.

But he has tried a hundred, a thousand times, to break the chain, to pull against it, to tear free of it as he once slipped through the tides. And yet— it holds, it always holds.

“I cannot, I have tried, and still it binds me.”

Veliflare clicks her tongue, and shakes her head. “You are foolish then.” The words are not unkind but they are not gentle either. “Tell me little tide— what are you?”

The Seal-Son frowns, uncertain. The answer should be simple, and yet, what he is feels distant, disconnected.

“I am—“ He stops, because he does not know what answer she wishes to hear.

“You are sea foam,” She whispers. “You are salt and silt. The crack of thunder, and the spark of lightning.” She leans closer, eyes searching his, bright and knowing. “You are the son of Nytheris.”

A pulse, deep in his chest— like the tide pulling at his ribs, like the call of the deep, the home he cannot touch.

“You are the son of Kasmyr.”

Another pulse — a flicker in the shadows, a grin behind a veil, the pull of a game played too long and too well.

The words wash over him like a tide, slipping beneath his skin, sliding into places chains have left hollow.

Veliflare pauses, watching him carefully now, as if seeing the chain for what it truly is.

“Tell me little tide—“ She presses her forehead firmer against his. “What truth is it Nyxalor has bound you with?”

Veliflare steps back, gives him space, though her gaze never leaves his. Her voice is gentle but insistent, weaving around him like a current pulling towards deeper water. “What truth did Nyxalor bind you with?”

The Seal-Son does not wish to answer, because if he speaks it out lout it will be real. “I don’t know,” he tries, though the words taste like lies on his tongue.

Veliflare only shakes her head, “Try again.”

The Seal-Son closes his eyes.

He thinks of the sea— vast and endless. He thinks of his mother’s voice, the roll of her storms. He thinks of his sisters dancing in the waves unbound.

And he thinks of the whispers, the silences, and the chain that refuses to let him go. His swallows. He voice is barely a breath— but still it breaks free of him.

“That I belong to him.”

Veliflare laughs, bright as sunlight, sharp as a blade. It is full of certainty, full of something light and wild and untamed.

Before the Seal-Son can shrink from it, before he can question why she is here at all, she moves—

Swooping in and grasping his face with both hands. Her voice is sure and steady as the moon. “You, belong to no one.”

The words strike like lightning, like thunder rolling through his ribs. Like salt stinging open wounds, like breath after drowning. The chain wavers.

Veliflare laughs again. She pulls back enough to meet his gaze, and grins. “Who owns the sea?”

The Seal-Son shudders, the last of Nyxalor’s truth curling like a dying ember in his chest.

“Who tames the tides?” She presses, and the chain trembles.

Because he knows the answer. Has always known. The sea has no master. The tide bows to no one.

The chain shatters, falling way like a wave retreating from the shore.

He lunges for his skin, pulls it to his chest, his fingers fisting in the familiar softness, pressing it close until his breath is filled with the salt and brine of home.

And he cries again. Not in sorrow. Not in pain.

But because he can feel it again— the pull of the deep, the whisper of tides, the place where he belongs.

And when he raises his head there is still fear in his eyes. “I do not know the way home from here.” He admits, “I cannot hear my mother’s call.”

Veliflare’s smile is warm and knowing, like she has known from the start what his words would be. She extends her hand palm up. “That,” she says, “is why I am here.”

The Seal-Son blinks.

Veliflare’s smile widens, “Your mother knows you got lost.” She wiggles her fingers in invitation. “So she sent me to find you.”

He takes her hand without fear, and is pulled along as Veliflare slips them through the spaces between, moving where not even shadows linger, and gods cannot always follow.

And when Nyxalor discovers his escape, when his voice echoes through the void—

She holds him closer. “Run with me little tide.” She whispers laugher in her voice.

And they run.

Nyxalor calls after them, but Veliflare only laughs all the harder, because she knows— He cannot follow them.

She shows him the stars of the Heavens, bright and burning, endless and old. Where the one that now graces his mother’s neck once rested. She whispers their names to him, names not even Nytheris knows.

She shows him grand cities, full of gold and glass, where stories are carved into the very stones.

She takes him through an endless sea of grass, where the wind rushes and roars, whispering secrets only it can understand.

She leads him over high mountains, where the air is thin, and the sky feel close enough to touch.

And then— Distant, yet undeniable. A sound like a heartbeat, like a lullaby sung in the dark. The call of the tide. The waves striking the shore. His mother calling him home.

Once his feet are once again in sun warmed sands he falls to his knees in the surf, the cold shock of water rushing around him, clinging to him, welcoming him home.

His hands shake as he pulls his skin over his shoulders, breath coming in ragged desperate gasps.

There is no hesitation, he knows the danger now, there is no thought but escape.

No thought but diving deep. The tide pulls at him, urging him forward.

And he can hear them now— his sisters calling, their voices rising over the waves, sharp and urgent, voices pleading for him to come home.