In the stillness beneath the crushing pressure of the abyss, the deep choir stirred. Their eyes—milky and ancient—glimmered like pearls soaked in shadow. Lyrielle stood upon the jagged throne of bone and coral, her hair flowing like tendrils of ink through the water. Her voice was soft, a haunting hum vibrating the very currents around her.
"Go," she whispered, and the choir obeyed.
They rose like a wave of ghostly shadows, a procession of sirens long lost to the world above. Each one bore scars of time and battle, their forms twisted yet beautiful—half memory, half myth. As they passed through the ancient ridges of the ocean floor, their songs began to weave a melody no sea creature dared defy.
Above them loomed Maelora, the silent watcher. Her form materialized for but a moment—eyes glowing with a sapphire fire—before she dissolved once more into the dark. A warning, perhaps. Or a silent approval. No one could tell.
The choir flowed like an eel through ravines and sunken ruins, heading straight for Queen Naerida's palace. There, crystal towers gleamed under the filtered light, unaware of the storm slipping through their defenses.
Inside the palace, the waters buzzed with murmurs. The Queen's attendants noticed slight changes—currents that felt off, patterns that broke—but dismissed them as seasonal shifts. Only the old guard, those who once knew the legends, stirred uneasily.
Back in the trench, Lyrielle turned to the great mirror of tides, watching her creations swim with elegance and menace.
"They must see what the deep has remembered," she murmured, "They must hear what the depths will not forget."
One of her most loyal, a siren with blade-like fins and a voice sharp enough to slice steel, floated beside her.
"Shall we prepare the second wave, my Queen?"
Lyrielle smiled faintly, her teeth pearled and sharp.
"No. Let them hear the prelude. Let them wonder. Let fear sing the first verse."
As the choir neared the outskirts of Naerida's realm, their voices began to rise. High and keening. Beautiful. Horrifying. Like mourning and war, tangled into one song.
Somewhere deep in the palace, a child began to cry.
A guard dropped his spear, mesmerized.
And above it all, in the silent drift of the sea, Maelora watched—and vanished once more.
The sea was restless.
Beneath its surface, Lyrielle stood before an obsidian throne carved from ancient reef and the bones of forgotten beasts. Her long, dark hair drifted in waves, eyes glowing with cold fire. The deep choir behind her had gone quiet—watching. Waiting.
They had obeyed her first order. A test. A warning.
Now came the second.
"They'll think it was just a storm," Lyrielle said softly, her fingers trailing over the edge of her throne. "Let them believe it. Let them sleep."
A thick mist curled around her feet, weaving through the coral court. From the shadows emerged her loyal warden—Mournscale, a twisted sea creature bound in armor of cracked pearls and kelp-wrapped steel. His face was a horror of flesh and shell, his trident trailing wisps of venom.
"They spotted the choir near Maelora's trench," he rasped. "But she vanished."
Lyrielle didn't look surprised. "Of course she did. Maelora always did know how to hide when the water grew cold."
She turned, her cloak of translucent scales flowing behind her like smoke. "Let the queen believe she's safe. Let Dominic chase answers in the vault. We move with the tide."
Mournscale bowed. "What of the others?"
Lyrielle's gaze sharpened. "Send the siren twins to the northern ridge. Let them lure Naerida's scouts deeper into the current. I want whispers to spread. I want fear to fester before the blood spills."
She stepped forward and raised her hand. The water trembled.
High above, near the broken ruins of an ancient sea gate, something massive stirred. A slumbering leviathan coiled in the dark blinked awake—its eye a glowing orb of rage.
Lyrielle didn't flinch. "You've slept long enough, Leviath. You will rise when I command it."
The beast gave a low growl that shook the coral pillars. It did not resist.
Below, the deep choir sang again—a low, ghostly hum that vibrated through bone and shell. Every siren, every creature bound to Lyrielle's power, began to stir.
They were ready.
But Lyrielle's eyes were fixed beyond them all—towards the shimmering light of Naerida's palace.
"They forgot our song," she whispered. "They forgot what silence bought them. Now... we remind them."
---
Back in Naerida's territory, tensions stirred.
A guard post at the border reef fell eerily quiet. No distress call. No trace.
The water itself felt different. Colder. Sharper.
And still, Naerida slept—unknowing.
The palace of Queen Naerida shimmered like a dream above the ocean floor.
Its silver spires caught the filtered light from the surface, casting long beams down over the glasslike domes and archways that pulsed with protective sigils. From afar, it looked like peace. Harmony. Untouchable beauty.
But beneath it all, something was breaking.
Naerida stood alone in the Whispering Pool, the water around her unusually still. Her reflection—normally calm—was rippling. Distorted. A faint tremble passed through her fingertips as she dipped them into the pool.
"The current is too quiet," she murmured.
At her side, her closest attendant, Siren-Captain Thalen, approached. He carried with him an expression of forced calm—tight shoulders, clenched jaw.
"My Queen," he said, bowing low, "three of our watchtowers at the coral rim have gone silent."
Naerida turned slowly, pale hair drifting around her shoulders. "How long?"
"Three tides now. We sent scouts… they never returned."
She looked past him, her voice hollow. "Did you feel it too?"
Thalen nodded. "The water hums with… something. It's not natural."
A chill passed between them. In the corner of the room, one of the palace sirens let out a low note of worry, sensing the change.
Naerida stepped away from the pool and crossed toward the eastern balcony. She stared out into the endless blue.
"The sea has always whispered. But now," she said softly, "it's holding its breath."
Then—suddenly—the sky above darkened. Not from a storm, but from the mass of shadows swimming in unison just beyond the reef. Slender shapes. Sirens. Dozens. Hundreds.
And among them, a strange harmony. Not a song of joy. Not even a warning.
A song of challenge.
"They're singing the Old Tongue," Thalen whispered, his face paling. "No one remembers it. Not anymore."
"I do," Naerida said grimly.
She pressed her hand to the balcony's crest-stone, activating a glow that pulsed through the palace's walls.
"Wake the royal choir. Seal the lower vaults. Call back every scout. No one swims alone—not anymore."
Thalen hesitated. "Do you believe it's… her?"
Naerida didn't answer right away.
She turned slowly, eyes locked on the horizon where the dark mass of Lyrielle's followers faded into the deep.
"I buried her centuries ago," she said. "But death in the sea is never final."
---
Meanwhile…
High in the waters above, a young royal messenger tore through the current at impossible speed. His fins were tattered, his face marked with cuts, but his eyes were wild with purpose.
He never made it to the palace.
Something fast—unnatural—caught him mid-flight.
Only his broken conch drifted through the waters, echoing a scream that no one heard.