Page 77 of Siren Problems
And I just stand there, shaking, heart cracked wide.
“I’ll try,” I say too late, to no one.
But I mean it.
If I can find my voice—if I can still choose, I’ll meet her.
At the altar.
Where fate waits to be rewritten.
CHAPTER 25
LUNA
The sea’s growl is louder tonight.
There’s something feral in the way the wind bites at my cheeks, salty and sharp, like it’s trying to warn me away from what I’m about to do. Too bad for it—I’ve always had a problem with authority. Especially when that authority is a pissed-off ocean and a moon that’s too bright for its own good.
The supermoon casts silver shadows over the sand, turning the beach into something from a fever dream. Waves pound the shoreline like war drums, and somewhere in the middle of it, I’m standing in thigh-deep water with a relic in one hand and my heart in the other.
"You're insane, Luna!" Kai had shouted before I left the shack. "There’s no proof this’ll even work!"
I turned back, only once. "Proof’s overrated. Besides, since when did we need permission to do the impossible?"
Now, I’m alone. Well—me, the crashing tide, and the ghosts of every bad decision I’ve made in the last three months. I’ve got my boots buried in the wet sand, soaked to the knees, the chill creeping up like a dare. Mira’s relics are strapped to my belt, my custom chant carved into the slip of sea parchment tied to my wrist. The air tastes like static and old magic.
I draw a breath that rattles in my ribs and lift my arms. The chant rolls out of me like it’s always been there, waiting just under the surface.
"By moon’s command and sea’s deep heart?—
Unbind the voice, let fate restart?—"
The ocean hisses. The relics spark.
I keep going, louder now, the words vibrating in my bones.
"Where love was crushed and vows undone?—
Let storm and song restore the one?—"
The wind howls, but I don’t stop.
"Let him be free!"
And then—I hear it.
Not a crash of thunder. Not the roar of waves. But a note.
Low. Haunting. Carved out of centuries of silence.
I turn.
He’s there.
Calder stands at the edge of the surf like a shadow peeled out of myth—dripping wet, shoulders squared, eyes locked on mine. His shirt is half torn, hair wild from the wind, and his mouth—God, his mouth—is open in a note so pure it cuts the air like glass.
He’s singing.
