Dominic didn't stop swimming until he reached the edge of warmth again.
The pulse of the scar still echoed in his spine, dull but steady, like a warning that didn't care if he listened. His breaths were short. Not because of exhaustion—but because the sea around him had changed. The currents had begun to shift. The once gentle water now curled in strange patterns, colder at the center, warmer at the edge, as if the ocean itself had caught a fever.
He reached a sunken ridge near the surface and pulled himself behind a curtain of soft kelp, hiding for a moment—not from an enemy, but from what he had seen.
The seal wasn't just a lock.
It was a prison.
And it was cracking.
He stared at his hands, shaking. Not from fear. From knowing.
If it breaks…
The sea won't just change. It'll collapse.
The gods would try to stop it, sure. Olympus would send lightning. Titans would wake. Monsters would rise.
But none of it would matter.
