The sea didn't celebrate.
No songs rose from the trenches. No banners of magic or coral flags marked Dominic's name. Even the creatures of the deep—those who once stirred at Poseidon's command—remained hidden, quiet in the shadows of ruined reefs and collapsed palaces.
Dominic drifted slowly through the current, the weight of the First Voice still humming deep in his bones. He didn't know where he was going. Not really. Only that he couldn't return to who he was before.
Above him, faint sunlight pierced through layers of water, casting soft patterns that danced across his skin. But beneath it all, there was something colder.
The silence.
Not just the silence of war's end.
But the silence left behind by those who didn't survive it.
