Chapter Text
CHAPTER 1 - “A Whisper on the Atlantic Wind”
The MS Balmoral smelled nothing like the Titanic.
Evelyn knew this before she even stepped aboard, but the realization still hit her, sharp and unexpected, as she paused at the gangway with her suitcase in one hand and a bundle of ritual offerings pressed tightly to her chest in the other. The salt wind of Southampton harbored a century of change, diesel instead of coal smoke, polished steel instead of iron plates, laughter instead of the low, trembling excitement she’d read about in diary fragments.
She breathed it in anyway.
The ocean was the ocean. Some things didn’t change.
Her red lipstick, her personal armor, shone darkly in the early April light as she lifted her chin, feeling her heart thrum too fast, like she stood not on a gangway but on the edge of a myth.
It’s just a ship, she told herself.
But that wasn’t true.
Not today.
Not for her.
The centennial memorial voyage.
The closest the world would ever come to repeating a ghost’s footsteps.
A couple passing by smiled at her, perhaps thinking she was simply overwhelmed by the occasion. Evelyn nodded back, though her stomach fluttered with something far older than nerves.
Hades had been quiet for weeks.
Persephone too.
Even the small signs, coins disappearing during offerings, candles burning in strange patterns, had stilled.
As if the gods were holding their breath.
“Excited?” a crewman asked as he scanned her ticket.
“Yes” Evelyn answered. It wasn’t a lie. “And… reverent.”
He gave her a puzzled look, but waved her through.
The ship vibrated beneath her feet as she stepped onto the deck, a living, humming beast of metal and memory. The sea stretched out past the rail, dark, cold, ancient. Waiting.
A whisper of wind curled around her ear, too cold for spring.
You came, it almost seemed to say.
Evelyn tightened her grip on her offerings.
For the first time since her family died, since she’d buried herself in the study of a ship that could not be saved, she felt something unfamiliar bloom in her chest.
Anticipation.
Or dread.
Or both.
She walked forward anyway.
The dead had waited a century.
This week, she would honor them.
And somewhere beneath the calm surface of the Atlantic, the gods were beginning to stir.
Evelyn wandered the promenade deck with slow, deliberate steps, letting every detail settle into her memory. She told herself it was for her research, that the historian part of her brain was cataloguing the layout, the engine vibrations, the subtle sway of the Balmoral beneath her boots.
But really, she was stalling.
The ocean stretched endlessly ahead, a glossy sheet of blue-and-steel that reflected thin currents of sunlight. She drifted toward the rail, fingers brushing the cold metal.
“Careful there, miss! Not planning on falling in this early, are you?”
Evelyn startled slightly, blinking at the man who appeared beside her, a tall, sandy-haired fellow in his early thirties with a broad, friendly smile. A woman joined him an instant later, dark curls tucked under a knitted cap, balancing a toddler on her hip.
“Oh! No, I wasn’t… sorry” Evelyn said, stepping back. “I was just… looking.”
The man leaned casually against the rail. “You look like someone who’s taking this whole adventure quite seriously.”
“She does” the woman agreed warmly. “I’m Anna, by the way. This is my husband Erik. And this little monster is Neil.”
Neil, about three, was bundled in a bright jacket and determinedly chewing on the zipper. He stared at Evelyn with huge grey eyes, curious, unafraid.
Evelyn’s heart softened. She always melted for children, even if she kept her distance out of habit.
“I’m Evelyn” she said, giving a small wave to Neil. “Nice to meet you all.”
“You traveling alone?” Erik asked.
“Yes.”
“Then you’re spending lunch with us” Anna declared before Evelyn could protest. “You have the look of someone who knows far too much and speaks far too little.”
Evelyn flushed. It was uncomfortably accurate.
“Oh, really, I wouldn’t want to intru…”
“Nonsense” Anna interrupted. “We insist. Unless you already have plans?”
Evelyn hesitated. Her rituals would be tonight, not now. And she hadn’t expected… kindness. Or company.
“No plans” she admitted quietly. “I’d like that.”
Anna beamed. “Wonderful! Neil, say hello to the nice lady.”
Neil blinked once, solemnly, then reached out a hand to offer her his soggy zipper. It was, apparently, a great honor.
Evelyn took the zipper with exaggerated seriousness. “Thank you, sir. A treasure.”
Erik laughed. Anna did too, tilting her head at Evelyn with a knowing sort of fondness.
“You came because of the Titanic,” Anna said, not a question.
Evelyn found her throat tightening. “Yes. I… dedicated a lot of my life to her. To the people aboard.”
“A lot of people on this cruise did” Erik said gently. “It’s good that they’re remembered.”
Evelyn focused on the blue stretching endlessly beyond the rail. The ocean felt deeper today. Older. Listening.
Anna shifted Neil to her other hip. “We were saying earlier, it feels strange, celebrating something born out of such a tragedy.”
“I don’t think it’s a celebration” Evelyn murmured. “More like a vigil that took a hundred years to reach the surface.”
Erik hummed. “Poetic.”
“I’m a historian” she replied with a faint smile. “We get carried away.”
A call sounded across the deck, an announcement that lunch service would begin shortly.
Anna’s eyes lit up. “We should get something before Neil decides to eat the furniture.”
Neil, very proudly, gnawed harder on the zipper.
“Walk with us?” Erik asked.
Evelyn almost said no. Reflexively. Automatically. The part of her that had grown accustomed to being alone braced for it.
But she remembered the silence of her apartment, the empty place at her dinner table, the ghosts she felt closer to than the living.
And she said, “Yes.”
The three of them smiled as if she’d gifted them something.
They turned toward the dining room, chatting easily about the trip itinerary, their home in Norway, the way Neil had inherited stubbornness from both parents.
Evelyn listened, something warm and unfamiliar blooming slowly in her chest.
As they walked inside, a cold draft brushed the back of her neck.
She paused.
For a heartbeat, she could have sworn she heard someone whisper her name, soft, distant, a voice that carried the weight of the deep:
Evelyn…
When she looked back over her shoulder, the deck was empty.
Except for the sea.
Always the sea.
But as she rejoined Erik, Anna, and Neil, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had just… noticed her.
Or remembered her.
The dining room was charming in a modern way, nothing like the first-class saloon she had studied for so many years, yet large enough that she could imagine the faint echoes of Edwardian laughter beneath the steady hum of contemporary life.
Erik found a table near a window and motioned her into a seat. Anna settled beside him with Neil on her lap, offering the toddler a small bread roll to keep him distracted.
“So, Evelyn” Anna said after ordering. “What’s your story? You seem… interesting.”
Evelyn laughed softly, pressing a fingertip to the rim of her water glass. “Is that code for ‘strange’?”
“Charming” Erik corrected with a grin. “Mysterious. A little haunted, maybe.”
At that, Evelyn’s heart skipped. People rarely saw her that clearly.
“I’m just passionate about history” she said. “Especially maritime history. My thesis was on the Titanic, its construction, the cultural myths around the disaster, the human stories. I’ve been studying it since I was a child.”
Anna’s gaze softened. “That’s a long time to carry a tragedy with you.”
“It didn’t feel like a tragedy” Evelyn murmured. “It felt like… trying to honor people no one alive remembers anymore.”
Erik nodded thoughtfully. “I can respect that.”
Neil, having finished his roll, slapped both hands on the table with great enthusiasm. “Boat!”
“Very good, darling” Anna cooed. “Yes, we’re on a boat.”
“Ship” Erik corrected automatically.
“Boat” Neil insisted with toddler certainty.
Evelyn couldn’t help smiling. “He’s right, you know. Technically everything that floats is a boat.”
Erik mock gasped. “Traitor.”
“Historian” she corrected, lifting one brow.
Their laughter felt warm, disarming. Evelyn let herself sink into it, momentarily forgetting the cold whisper she’d felt on deck.
Lunch passed pleasantly. Anna asked for photos of Evelyn’s previous research trips, Erik told stories about Norwegian winters that made Evelyn shiver just imagining them. Neil demanded bites of everyone’s meals indiscriminately, which soothed some small, aching place in her, one that missed messy, everyday moments of family life.
When they finally stood to leave, Anna touched Evelyn’s arm gently. “Dinner with us tonight, too?”
Evelyn opened her mouth to agree…
But something prickled at the base of her spine.
A tug.
Soft, insistent.
Like an unseen hand guiding her attention toward the nearest window, where the ocean glinted vast and dark in the afternoon light.
Her wrists burned. Just faintly. Like a warning or a greeting.
She swallowed.
“Actually… I might have plans tonight,” she said softly.
“Oh?” Anna tilted her head. “Something special?”
“A… sort of personal ritual,” Evelyn answered carefully. “To honor the people we’re sailing over.”
Anna’s expression turned gentle. “That’s beautiful. Of course, we understand. You can join us any other evening.”
Erik nodded. “You’re doing something meaningful. Let us know if you need anything. And you could still join us later.”
“Yes. Yes I think I would like that.”
Neil waved a bread-crumb-covered hand. “Bye Ev’nin!”
Evelyn’s heart melted again. “Bye, Neil.”
They walked away in search of a nap-friendly corner of the ship, and Evelyn remained by the dining room’s exit for a moment longer, hands tucked into her sleeves.
Her wrists tingled.
Under her skin, the faintest traces of ancient characters seemed to pulse, letters she didn’t yet bear, but would, soon enough.
“Tonight” she whispered to herself.
Her voice felt small in the vastness of the ship.
“Tonight, I hope the gods are listening.”
Afternoon sunlight filtered through the balcony windows of her cabin, golden at first, then slowly cooling into bruised shades of lavender and blue as April stretched toward evening. Evelyn stood in the center of the small room, her suitcase open on the bed, its contents arranged with a reverence that bordered on ritualistic.
For anyone else, this would be an odd assortment.
For her, it was the heart of her devotion.
She smoothed the handmade crocheted net between her palms. The soft cotton threads, woven with hours of steady focus, carried the faint scent of lavender from the drawer she stored it in. It looked delicate, almost frivolous, but the knots followed an old sailor’s pattern, something she’d found in a footnote of a maritime folklore book. Symbolic. Protective. A gift for a god whose moods shifted like tides.
“Poseidon,” she whispered, testing the name in the quiet air. It hummed faintly in her chest, as if the sea heard her even here.
She placed the net gently on the center of the dresser and began arranging the rest of her offerings: small shells she had collected on beaches across the world, a vial of sand from a cove near her childhood home, a vial of pure sea salt, a handful of smooth river stones, and finally, the aquamarine.
It gleamed like a shard of frozen ocean.
Like a captured piece of twilight.
Beautiful. Dangerous. Alive.
She held it delicately between her fingers, admiring the way the light fractured through it. Then she retrieved a sterile needle from her bag, ritual tools kept neatly beside her historical notebooks, and pricked the pad of her thumb.
A bead of red welled up.
Bright. Vibrant. Human.
She pressed it to the stone.
A soft crackle of energy shivered up her arm, not painful, but immediate, acknowledging. The aquamarine drank the offering greedily, holding the color for a moment before the red sank beneath its surface, still visible.
“For your favor,” she murmured. “For safe passage. For the souls we honor.”
Was it foolish to offer blood to a god of the sea? Possibly. But Evelyn had never worshiped from a distance. Devotion meant risk. And Poseidon, unlike Hades and Persephone, was not a god who softened easily under gentle prayers. He demanded bravery. He respected sacrifice.
She set the aquamarine at the center of her small altar and lit a single white candle.
The flame fluttered sideways.
Not violently, more like… acknowledgement.
Evelyn exhaled slowly.
Next came the dark half of her worship.
The familiar half.
She laid out two small offerings bowls, rough black clay glazed with gold cracks, kintsugi pieces she had repaired herself, symbolizing things broken and made sacred again.
Into the first bowl, for Persephone, she placed pomegranate seeds, dried rose petals, a sprig of mint, and a folded scrap of paper on which she had written the names of Titanic’s known lost children.
Into the second bowl, for Hades, she placed a coin she had kept from her first visit to Belfast, black salt, a charred piece of amaranth, and a small, neatly stacked list of the officers, captain and shipbuilder’s names.
She hesitated before placing the list.
Smith. Wilde. Murdoch. Lightoller. Pitman. Boxhall. Lowe. Moody. Andrews.
Her fingertips lingered on Andrews’ name. He had always been her quiet hero, the man who walked straight into the disaster he helped build, not out of guilt but out of duty. Out of care.
“I honor you,” she whispered. “All of you.”
The ship hummed softly beneath her feet.
A low vibration, steady, almost like breath.
Evelyn closed her eyes and began the prayers, words she had spoken hundreds of times, but never on water, never on the threshold of such a charged place.
“For Persephone,” she murmured, “queen of renewal, who knows the quiet griefs and the tender beginnings. Guide the lost toward gentle rest.”
“For Hades,” she whispered next, voice dipping into something deeper, steadier, “keeper of oaths and the nameless dead. Hold them with honor. Let them know they are remembered.”
“For Poseidon,” she finished, placing both hands over the offerings, “lord of storms and still waters. Accept this gift. Keep this ship safe. And let my intention reach the depths.”
A sudden knock startled her.
“Evelyn?” a voice called lightly through the door, Anna’s. “We’re heading to the upper decks if you want to join us for sunset!”
Evelyn hesitated. Her rituals weren’t finished, but the candles were burning evenly, the offerings settled, and the air felt… complete. Not closed, but acknowledged.
“I’ll be right there!” she called back.
Hurriedly, she pinched the wicks to extinguish the flames, not blowing them out, and covered the offerings with a cloth patterned like rolling waves.
She slipped on her coat and stepped into the corridor, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“Everything okay?” Anna asked as she and Erik waited, Neil on Erik’s shoulders.
“Yes” Evelyn answered, smiling more genuinely this time. “I just… needed a moment.”
“Good” Erik said. “Because the sunset is supposed to be beautiful tonight. Calm seas, perfect view.”
Calm seas.
Evelyn felt the faintest ripple of unease glide down her spine, like fingertips tracing bone.
Calm seas meant the ocean was watching.
Still listening.
They walked toward the upper decks, Anna chatting cheerfully about something Neil had done, Erik chiming in with dry humor. Evelyn let their voices wrap gently around her as the ship ascended toward open sky.
But when they reached the deck, the moment she stepped outside, the wind shifted sharply, brushing strands of hair against her cheek.
Cold.
Intentional.
Aware.
The kind of wind that carried meaning.
The kind that whispered…
Soon.
Evelyn shivered without knowing why.
The sunset was breathtaking.
The moment felt perfect.
And yet, far beneath the waves, something stirred.
Watching.
Waiting.
Calling.
The sun dipped lower on the horizon, spreading molten orange across the Atlantic. The deck filled with murmuring passengers, cameras clicking, drinks in hand. Quiet awe settled over the crowd, a collective breath held on the edge of twilight.
Anna and Erik leaned over the rail, pointing out pale streaks of cirrus clouds to Neil, who sat proudly on Erik’s shoulders, tiny fingers tangled in his father’s hair.
Evelyn lingered a step behind them, soaking in the warmth of their closeness. Families had always been… complicated for her. But watching them, gentle, teasing, absolutely in sync, felt oddly soothing. Like balm on an old bruise.
Neil caught sight of her and wriggled insistently. Erik lowered him to the deck, and the toddler toddled over with determined little steps.
“Ev’nin!” he chirped, grabbing her hand.
Evelyn laughed softly. “Hello again.”
He pressed a pebble into her palm. Where he had gotten it, on a metal ship in the middle of the sea, was a mystery. But it was smooth and warm from his pocket, and he looked up at her as if he were gifting her a crown jewel.
“For you,” he announced solemnly, then patted her wrist with both hands.
Warmth bloomed there, right where the future brands would soon burn. Evelyn sucked in a quiet breath.
“Thank you, Neil,” she murmured. “This is a very important stone.”
He giggled and plopped onto the deck, kicking his heels, inviting her to sit. She did.
They played the simplest of games, passing the stone back and forth, tapping knuckles, Neil telling her stories in toddler babble about a dragon (or a dog?) back home. Evelyn found herself smiling more easily than she had in months.
At one point he pressed his small hand to her cheek and said, very seriously:
“Sad.”
Evelyn blinked. “What was that, sweetheart?”
“Sad,” he repeated, frowning like a tiny stern old man. Then he leaned forward and hugged her, arms barely reaching around her shoulders.
Her throat tightened. “You’re very perceptive for your age.”
He nodded like he understood every sorrow she’d ever carried.
Children often sensed things adults didn’t.
And Neil… Neil looked at her like he saw something.
Before she could dwell on the thought, a shadow passed behind them. Evelyn glanced up.
A crew member, one of the Balmoral’s stewards, stood a few feet away, frozen mid-step, staring at the back of her hand.
At the stone Neil had given her.
Or… no. Not the stone.
Her wrist.
Her bare wrist.
There was nothing visible there. No marks. No words. Not yet.
But the man’s face paled, and he whispered, barely audible, “…those symbols…”
Evelyn’s breath hitched.
“What symbols?” she asked carefully.
He blinked, and the dazed look vanished. “Ah, sorry, miss. Thought I saw a tattoo. My mistake.”
He nodded quickly and walked away too fast, disappearing down the deck stairs.
Evelyn stared after him, skin crawling.
Symbols.
He had seen something that wasn’t there.
Yet.
A cold gust swept across the deck, ruffling her skirt, making the candle smoke she carried still in her hair stir faintly.
Neil pressed closer to her side. “Cold” he whispered.
“Yes” she murmured. “I know.”
The temperature had dipped sharply despite the lingering sunset. A pocket of chill that didn’t move with the wind, didn’t disperse, didn’t belong.
Evelyn stood, lifting Neil into her arms. His small body warmed her chest.
Anna turned. “Everything alright?”
Evelyn forced a smile. “Just got a little chilled.”
Anna reached out to squeeze her arm. “We should go in before Neil’s nose turns pink again.”
“Pink!” Neil declared proudly.
They laughed, but the unease lingered as they made their way back inside. The ship’s hum filled the corridors, a soft mechanical heartbeat, but beneath it, Evelyn thought she sensed something else.
A rhythm.
A distant, echoing pulse.
Like the sea knocking on stone a hundred miles below.
By the time they reached a quieter hallway, the light overhead flickered once, barely a stutter, but enough to make Evelyn’s steps falter.
Anna didn’t notice.
Erik didn’t notice.
Neil did.
He peered over Evelyn’s shoulder, small brow furrowed, staring down the empty stretch of corridor behind them.
“Man” he whispered.
Evelyn’s blood ran cold.
“What man, darling?” Anna asked absently.
Neil pointed.
Straight down the hall.
But no one was there.
Evelyn swallowed. She whispered softly, only for Neil:
“What did he look like?”
Neil tilted his head, searching for words. “Hat.”
“Hat?”
He nodded fiercely. “Hat. Like… old.”
Anna laughed gently. “He’s been obsessed with hats lately. Everything is a hat.”
But Evelyn knew better.
She had seen enough historical photographs to recognize the shape Neil was imitating with his small hands.
A peaked cap.
An officer’s cap.
Her heart hammered.
Not yet.
Not yet.
It wasn’t April 14th.
There should be no ghosts here. No echoes. No crossings.
Unless the world was already thinning for her.
Unless the gods were already opening doors.
Unless something, or someone, was waiting.
Evelyn forced herself to smile and hand Neil back to his mother. “He’s very imaginative.”
But the hallway still felt colder than the others.
Shadowed.
Aware.
As they parted ways near their cabins, Anna hugged Evelyn warmly.
“We’re glad you’re with us on this voyage” she said. “Truly.”
Evelyn smiled, but her gaze drifted back toward the corridor that now seemed impossibly long.
“I’m glad too” she whispered.
But she wasn’t sure if she was saying it to Anna, or to whatever lingered in the dark.
Night had fully claimed the ship by the time Evelyn slipped back into her cabin. The corridor lights glowed with a soft, golden warmth, but the moment she closed her door, the temperature shifted again, dropping, just a fraction, but enough to raise goosebumps along her arms.
Her ritual altar sat exactly where she left it.
But the air around it felt… different.
Not wrong.
Not threatening.
Just aware.
She crossed the room slowly, setting her bag down with deliberate care. Her reflection in the mirror looked pale but steady, dark lipstick still perfect, hair curling slightly from the sea air. And yet, her eyes glimmered with something new. Something unsettled.
She approached the altar.
The bowls she had prepared were still covered with the wave-patterned cloth, untouched. The candle wick remained bent from where she had pinched it earlier.
But Evelyn stopped short.
The aquamarine, the stone she had blooded for Poseidon, was glowing.
Not brightly. Not like a lantern or any visible light source.
More like it held a pulse.
A faint, rhythmic glimmer.
Like a heartbeat.
Evelyn’s own breath hitched. Her thumb throbbed where she had offered her blood, as though remembering its connection to the stone.
"…hello?" she whispered before she could stop herself.
A soft sound answered.
Water.
A single drip.
Evelyn spun, eyes searching the cabin. No sink was running. The shower was off. Nothing was wet. But the scent had changed, faint salt, brine, something ancient.
Her heart pounded.
She stepped closer and hovered her hand above the altar. Not touching, just feeling.
A current, soft as silk, cold as moonlit water, brushed her palm.
A presence.
Accepted.
The word wasn’t spoken aloud.
It came as a feeling.
A sinking, rolling sensation, like a wave pulling back from shore.
Poseidon had taken her offering.
The gods were listening.
She covered the altar gently, hands trembling, then sat on the edge of her bed, fingers digging into the comforter to anchor herself.
“This is real” she whispered. “You’ve done it a hundred times. It’s never been like this before, but… it’s still real.”
Silence.
Then another faint drip, closer this time.
Evelyn rose again, heart in her throat, scanning the cabin.
And that was when she saw it.
A tiny streak of seawater traced down the inside of her window.
Inside.
Clear, crystalline, impossible.
She stepped forward, breath shallow. The droplet slid slowly downward, like a tear.
The ocean pressing close.
Closer than it ever should on a ship this size.
Closer than physics allowed.
When it reached the sill, the droplet split, one bead rolling left, the other right, before both evaporated like mist.
Evelyn pressed a shaking hand to the cold glass.
“Why?” she murmured. “What do you want with me?”
The ocean stayed silent.
But below her fingertips, the glass felt like the skin of a living thing.
A dull thud reverberated through the ship, probably the engines shifting, she told herself. Or the stabilizers. Or anything normal, mundane, human.
But she knew better.
This was the first true shift.
The first ripple across the veil.
Whatever was waiting beneath the surface of the North Atlantic had turned its gaze upon her.
Evelyn stepped back from the window, suddenly exhausted. The ship hummed beneath her, steady as a heartbeat, but she felt every vibration like a whisper against her bones.
She undressed slowly, folded her clothes neatly, and slipped beneath the blanket, but sleep did not come easily. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw that glowing pulse of aquamarine, the steward’s pale face seeing symbols that did not yet exist, Neil pointing at an empty corridor, whispering Man, cold wind with no source, water trailing down the inside of her window, a voice that wasn’t a voice, whispering Soon…
She rolled onto her back, staring at the dark ceiling.
“I only came to pay my respects” she whispered into the quiet.
Something, somewhere deep in the ship, answered with a low, resonant groan.
Not mechanical.
Not natural.
Like a leviathan shifting in its sleep.
Evelyn swallowed.
“Please” she breathed. “Let me be enough.”
The ship rocked gently, a lullaby and a warning in one.
She finally fell asleep just before midnight, the candle smoke still faint in her hair, the aquamarine still pulsing softly beneath its cloth, and the sea whispering, patient and ancient. Soon. Soon. Soon.
She doesn’t remember falling asleep.
Only that the darkness in her cabin seemed to soften around her, thinning at the edges like smoke caught in a draft. One moment she lay awake, listening to the ship’s hum. The next, she was standing barefoot on something cold and shifting.
Sand.
Evelyn blinked.
She stood on a beach under a starless sky, waves lapping at her ankles, warm one second, freezing the next. The ocean glowed faintly with its own light, not bioluminescence but something older, deeper. Something aware.
A soft breeze touched her cheek.
Then a voice.
“Daughter.”
She spun.
Persephone stood a few feet away.
Her form was unmistakable, even if no face could ever capture the duality of her: soft spring sun and the deep chill of winter, honey-gold skin dusted with shadow, hair like night threaded with the first green buds of April. She wore a gown that shifted from ivory to ink depending on how Evelyn looked at it.
Her eyes glowed gently. Not threatening. Not condemning. Just… knowing.
“Have I died?” Evelyn whispered.
Persephone smiled sadly. “Not today.”
Evelyn’s breath shook as she stepped closer. “My lady… why am I here? What is happening?”
Persephone lifted a hand, brushing ghost-light fingers across Evelyn’s cheek. The touch was warm, comforting. “You called. You have been calling for years. Through study. Through grief. Through devotion.”
“I only wanted to honor the dead.”
“And you will” Persephone replied softly. “But honoring is not always passive, Evelyn Hart. Sometimes to honor the dead is to face them.”
Before Evelyn could ask what that meant, the waves churned behind her.
The sand trembled beneath her feet.
And from the sea’s surface rose a tall, imposing figure draped in shadow and stormlight. His presence swallowed the horizon, stirred the air, made the ocean bow as if in reverence.
Poseidon.
His hair writhed like long strands of kelp caught in a current; his beard foamed with sea spray; his eyes were pale as broken ice. Regal. Terrible. Beautiful in the same way a hurricane is beautiful.
Evelyn froze, heart hammering.
Poseidon looked at her, and the weight of the gaze threatened to drop her to her knees.
Persephone stepped beside her, resting a steadying hand at the small of Evelyn’s back.
Poseidon’s voice rolled like distant thunder.
“Blood-giver.”
Evelyn’s thumb pulsed where she had pricked it.
“I offered it in devotion” she said, her voice trembling but steady.
“And I have accepted.”
Waves surged higher behind him.
“Your path is set.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered.
Poseidon tilted his head, a gesture ancient in confusion or amusement.
“You soon will.”
The sea around him darkened, swirling into a whirlpool that spun silently, impossibly. Shapes flickered beneath the surface, faces she couldn’t quite make out. Uniforms. Lifejackets. Pale hands reaching.
Evelyn stumbled back, horrified.
“No, no, they’re…”
“Not yet” Persephone murmured. “But soon.”
Poseidon’s gaze sharpened.
“The ship beneath your feet sails toward memory.”
A pause.
“And memory is not always still.”
Evelyn’s heartbeat roared in her ears.
“Am I meant to stop it?” she breathed.
A second of absolute silence stretched.
Heavy. Eternal.
Then Hades appeared.
No sound announced him. No ripple, no tremor.
He simply materialized behind her like a shadow stepping forward.
Evelyn knew him instantly: the quiet gravity of him, the calm beyond fear, the presence that made her feel simultaneously seen and measured.
His eyes were the color of deep earth, polished obsidian, the kind of darkness that held warmth instead of void.
He reached out and gently touched her wrist.
Fire shot through her skin, and ancient letters flared beneath his fingers.
Not yet burned into flesh, but glowing in the dream.
A preview.
A promise.
Περσεφόνη
Ἀϊδωνεύς
Evelyn gasped.
Hades spoke softly, his voice the rumble of distant soil shifting:
“You will choose.”
“Choose what?” she whispered.
He met her eyes.
“Whether fate is a river.”
He stepped closer.
“Or a sea.”
Poseidon’s laughter rolled like breaking waves.
Persephone’s touch warmed Evelyn’s spine.
The world tilted.
The sea surged upward, light swallowing dark, dark swallowing light…
And Evelyn fell backward into her own body, gasping awake.
Her cabin was dark.
Her sheets were damp with cold sweat.
The aquamarine pulsed once beneath its cloth.
Outside her window, the ocean whispered like a voice speaking through water and time.
Soon.