The temple was quiet—eerily so. The waves outside had grown still, as if the entire ocean held its breath. Dominic stood near the altar, the shard of abyssal coral pulsing in his palm. It was warm, almost... alive.
Maelora circled him slowly, her seaweed-wrapped fingers trailing through the air. "It chose you," she said, her voice a whisper that seemed to echo from nowhere and everywhere. "The shard. The inheritance. Do you feel it?"
Dominic narrowed his eyes. "Feel what exactly?"
"Your soul remembering what it once was."
The air shifted.
For a brief second, he saw something—a flicker—a memory that wasn't his.
A roaring tide.
A kingdom built from obsidian reefs.
A throne of coral and blood.
And a hand... his hand... holding a trident made not of gold, but of raw oceanic power, black as the deepest trench.
He stumbled back. "What is this? I don't understand."
