Most people think all mermaids come from coral castles and pearl-spun beds beneath the sea.
Not me.
I was born in the mist-swept reefs of Nirellon Cove, a little coastal province on the eastern edge of Aqulia's Sapphire Coast.
Small noble family. Fished. Fought. Paid taxes.
Didn't glamorize our fins. We were doing well, but only just.
My mother worked in maritime diplomacy, and my father was a storm conjurer for the local weather guard.
Our name meant something in Nirellon. But beyond that? I was just another girl with scales and ambition.
I worked harder than the others.
Every day, every dusk, even during the moon-soaked tide hours when I was supposed to be singing or sleeping.
While others shaped water into art, I shaped it into armor.
While they sang lullabies, I studied siren scripts and ancient relics, whispering the old words until they answered me back.
Because I wanted Silver Mist.
The academy that trained legends.
The place that forged monsters into myths.
If you were serious about power—or proving something to yourself—you aimed for the Mist.
And I got in.
Not through recommendations or coin, but through grit.
And to my surprise, I wasn't just admitted—I was recruited by the Academical Hazard Oversight Division, the infamous AHOD.
All because of one thing: my resistance to mental attacks.
It's something in Aqulian blood, especially mermaids. Our minds don't break easy.
They put me to work researching cursed artifacts, testing seals on possessed weapons, and decoding magical items that whispered sweet nothings—and deadly somethings—in your ear.
It was terrifying. And I loved it.
Sometimes I slept on a velvet bench tucked between containment tanks and enchanted sigils.
I bled on more than one relic.
I lost a strand of hair to a dagger that could taste magic.
The AHOD became my second home. It was cold, secretive, and riddled with danger.
Perfect.
Some days, our research team got sent on retrieval missions outside the school.
We'd venture to old ruins or crash sites where cursed heirlooms stirred, sometimes with ghosts still attached.
We were the kind of students who didn't get seen in the hallways much.
The ones who carried iron gloves and muttered protective runes in our sleep.
And yes, I had friends.
My favorite? Velaria Estelwyn.
Even though she was a year ahead, Velaria and I clicked the way seafoam clings to driftwood.
She had that dry kind of humor that made even lectures feel like gossip.
Elegant, terrifyingly brilliant, and just reckless enough to make me look sane.
She once flirted with a cursed mirror just to make it shut up.
She's been my partner on three missions now. Trusted her with my life—and my lunch.
So, yeah. Life at the Academy?
It was tight. Busy. Dangerous.
But it was mine.
And today, was just like any other day, my morning classes had blurred into formulas, theories, and defensive chant-work.
The usual.
After the final chime, while others flocked to lunch or the courtyard, I made my way down the long, spiraled corridor to where I really belonged—the lower west wing, the sublevel of Silver Mist Academy where the Academical Hazard Oversight Division made its roost.
AHOD wasn't glamorous.
It hummed. It buzzed. It breathed like a slumbering beast.
Crystalline walls reinforced with silverweave runes.
Tanks with spectral mist locked behind reinforced obsidian.
Paperwork enchanted to scream if filled out incorrectly.
Every step inside the department came with a whisper of danger, a challenge to your mind.
And I loved it.
My workspace—Station Delta-Veil—was dimly lit, on purpose.
Cursed items didn't like direct light.
Today, I was elbow-deep in a spectral evaluation chamber, carefully rotating a floating dagger using a glove spelled with fourteen wards and a stabilizing enchantment.
The blade was a recovered artifact from the wreckage near Noct Vale: a whispersteel dagger said to feed off the will of its user.
Its aura pulsed softly—like it was watching me.
I wasn't scared. But I wasn't careless either.
My other hand scribbled notations into a floating scriptpad—sigil reactions, aura resonance shifts, and
Click.
The chamber door hissed open behind me.
I didn't look up immediately—only a few persons had override clearance to walk in without knocking.
And sure enough, a moment later:
"Lune," said a warm voice, tinged with mischief.
"You look like you're flirting with the knife again."
I turned—and grinned.
Velaria Estelwyn, in all her serene glory, stood at the entrance.
Her striking lavender eyes glimmered, and her silvery uniform cape was draped over one shoulder in her usual half-regal, half-chaotic fashion.
But this time… she wasn't alone.
Behind her stepped in a boy.
And not just any boy.
He had snow-white hair—not the dull kind, but the kind that shimmered like powdered crystal under moonlight.
His skin was so pale—unnervingly pale—it made him look like something between a ghost and a vampire, like someone who hadn't seen the sun in years and wore that as armor.
He didn't just walk in; he appeared, like a ripple in reality had spat out something too sharp, too silent, too self-contained.
His face—sharp angles and quiet fury—was unreadable, yet you couldn't stop reading it.
Brows slightly furrowed. Lips neutral but somehow defiant.
And those eyes—those damned eyes—burned like frostfire: distant, knowing, tired.
He looked like someone who'd lived twice, died once, and didn't plan to repeat either.
And his clothes?
They weren't regulation.
A dark, high-collared tunic, clasped diagonally across his chest with three silver buckles, sleek and clean-cut.
His pants, fitted and charcoal-grey, shimmered faintly with intricate stitchwork down the sides—runes, maybe?—like secrets sewn in silk.
A thin, metallic belt held the ensemble together, subtle but strong.
Draped from one shoulder was a half-cloak, black outside and lined with pale silver on the inside.
It moved when he moved—like mist trying to flee.
He looked like a problem.
The handsome, deadly, absolutely-my-type kind of problem.
"Oh, you finally brought me a pretty boy," I teased, nudging Velaria gently with my hip as I pushed a tray of rune-burnt tools aside.
"What's the occasion? Does he grant wishes, or is he here to distract me from the screaming skull on table three?"
Velaria chuckled, folding her arms.
"You tell me. He's got that mysterious, broody aura. Maybe he's your type."
I was about to fire back something wickedly clever when he finally spoke.
"I'm just here to deliver this," the boy said flatly, lifting a thick manila folder with one hand — but even that small motion felt deliberate.
Sharp. Controlled. "From Miris."
His voice was like smoke—low, smooth, but with that undercurrent of something volatile.
And that folder… I blinked. The air around it felt dense. Wrong.
I took it instinctively, and the moment my fingers touched the paper, the runes inked across my workstation flickered.
Yeah, definitely cursed. A dull throb pulsed at the back of my head.
"You delivered this barehanded?"
I asked, raising an eyebrow, half-impressed, half-mortified.
He shrugged, pale hands falling to his sides.
"Didn't exactly come with a warning label."
I turned the folder slowly in my hands, letting my enchantment-sensitive nails drag lightly across the seal.
This thing had teeth. Not literal ones—hopefully—but the energy soaked into it was feral.
Tamed by threads of enchantment, but only just.
I glanced back at him properly now, letting my eyes drink in the image.
He stood with a kind of stubborn grace.
Slender frame, but not fragile—like a blade drawn but not swung.
Velaria smirked, clearly enjoying my stunned silence.
"That's Eden. First year. Dangerous. Broody. Has a twin sister that has a brighter personality than he does."
"I heard that," Eden muttered, but didn't really argue.
I stepped back, folder in hand, still tingling faintly.
"Well, Eden, if this cursed brick eats me alive later, I hope you'll at least pretend to mourn."
"Or avenge your death," Velaria added helpfully. "Dramatically."
I held up the folder.
"We'll get this opened in containment.
If it leaks shadow essence again, tell Miris I'll be sending it back with a fire rune next time."
He nodded once, then shifted like he was ready to leave already.
So serious.
Still… there was something about him.
A ripple beneath still water. Something cold and quiet that might scream if you listened long enough.
Velaria watched him too, though she masked it with a playful lean against my desk.
"You're not going to thank him?" she asked.
I gave a mock-curtsy.
"Thank you, mysterious handsome boy, for possibly delivering a cursed relic straight to my heart."
He didn't smile, but there was the ghost of something in his eyes—amusement, maybe. Or exasperation.
And then, just like that, he turned to go.
I went back to cataloging the last glyph pattern on the blade's hilt—those same shifting sigils that rearranged themselves whenever someone looked away—when Eden made a quiet movement, stepping back toward the door.
His pale hand hovered for a second on the metal handle, that oddly elegant posture of his catching my attention more than I liked to admit.
Then, with a sudden thrum, the blade on my desk began to vibrate.
Not the cautious, cautious hum of an artifact reacting to magic.
No, this was different. A low, resonating snarl that crawled across the glass, a tension that lifted every hair on my arms.
The runes on the blade flared to life, not in their usual cold blue but a violent red—a color they had no reason to ever be.
Velaria leaned closer, eyes narrowing.
"...Lune? Is it supposed to do that?"
My heart skipped. "No. No, it's not."
I barely finished the sentence before the blade screeched across the desk with unnatural speed, lifting off like it had a target—and it did.
Straight at the boy leaving the room.
"Eden—!" we both called out, but the warning hadn't even left our lips before—
He moved.
Not even turned.
Just—shifted.
His left hand came up behind him in a motion too fast, too precise to be casual.
Fingers snapped tight around the dagger's hilt mid-flight, mere inches from his neck.
The runes on its surface flickered violently, then dimmed—like it recognized something. Or someone.
Velaria's jaw dropped open. "What... the hell...?"
Even I, trained in reacting to cursed object surges, found myself frozen.
Not just by the reflexes, but by how clean the movement was.
No wasted motion. No surprise. Like he had done this a thousand times before.
Eden finally glanced down at the dagger in his hand, tilting it slightly.
The thing gave a final twitch—then stilled, entirely drained of light.
He turned his head just enough to speak over his shoulder, voice cool and low.
"You might want to teach your artifacts not to get touchy."
Then, with a flick of his wrist, he placed the dagger neatly on the empty corner of my desk—and walked out.
No pause. No backward glance.
Velaria exhaled sharply. "...Okay, what was that?"
I blinked down at the cursed blade.
"Either that dagger has a type... or we just let something walk out of this room that scares even cursed weapons."
I stared at the dagger now in its containment case, now still, now silent.
But the aftertaste of its magic lingered like static on my skin.
That wasn't just residual energy. It had reacted — responded. To him.
To Eden.
Velaria stood to my right, arms crossed, her gaze fixed on the door he'd just walked out through. The echo of his last words still lingered in the air.
"You might want to teach your artifacts not to get touchy."
He hadn't even looked back. Just caught a flying cursed dagger like it was a tossed pencil and walked out without a single question.
Velaria finally spoke, voice low.
"You think he knew?"
I didn't answer right away.
My fingers curled slightly around the edge of the table, eyes still fixed on the dagger.
My gills fluttered once beneath my ears — faint, involuntary. I only did that when I was unsettled.
"No," I murmured. "He didn't know. He felt it."
Velaria raised an eyebrow. "You mean like sensing its magic?"
"No." I shook my head slowly, hair brushing my shoulders.
"I mean... like the blade wanted to stab him, and he heard it decide."
A beat of silence.
The containment runes still glowed faintly. My lab should've felt like home again. Safe. Familiar.
It didn't.
Velaria clicked her tongue. "I don't know if that's terrifying or impressive."
"Both," I said, barely above a whisper.
I glanced toward the door again, like maybe I'd see a shadow of him lingering there. But he was gone.
And yet, the room still remembered him.
"He didn't even flinch," I said.
"That blade was from Noct Vale. It reacts to the intent to kill.
You can't fake your way around that. It wanted to harm him."
"And he just… stopped it."
My voice grew quieter.
"No hesitation. No panic. Just... reflex."
Velaria pushed away from the table, shaking her head.
"He's either crazy, cursed, or something else entirely."
I didn't answer. I was still thinking of the way he moved, how fast he'd been.
The stillness in his face, the precision. It wasn't luck. It wasn't training.
It was instinct.
Something deep. Old.
And as I turned back to the dagger and began re-checking the containment runes with trembling fingers, one thought nestled coldly in the back of my mind:
Who the hell are you, Eden?