{"She did not sail the sea; she summoned it. And in her wake, even the tide remembered who it once bowed to."}
One day later:
The rumble came first, A low, echoing groan that rolled through the stone bones of the Pearl Castle. It vibrated through my feet, up my spine, and into the very breath I held still in my chest. Not a quake. Not a collapse. I rose from the map chamber instinctively, my heart thrumming in rhythm with the water's pull. The others were already moving. Morkai barked an order to the guards. Lysander drew his blades without a word. Thalia whispered something to the waves as if they were an old friend warning her of a reunion. Fenris was beside me, his expression unreadable, but I felt the tension coil in him.
We moved as one toward the eastern gate, where the walls of the castle opened directly onto the cliffs overlooking the open sea.
