Chapter 1

Three years. Three years since I died.

And Kaelen Thorne, Lord of Blackwood Manor, stood at my grave.

The Nor' easter howled around the forgotten cliffside cemetery, just like it howled the night I died for him.

Suddenly, my voice, a bitter whisper he could somehow hear, cut through the wind.

"You damn hypocrite, Kaelen!"

He flinched, his dark figure stark against the stormy sky.

"Pretending to mourn!"

My spectral voice was filled with the cold of the Grey Wastes I'd wandered.

"When I shielded you from that rogue wave elemental, you were too busy protecting her!"

Seraphina. Always Seraphina.

Kaelen looked around, shaken, his hand reaching for the weathered stone.

"I drank eighteen vials of Lethe's Tears in the Grey Wastes," I spat, the memory of the foul, forgetting liquid still on my ethereal tongue. "But I still can't forget your cursed face!"

He touched the tombstone. My tombstone.

Phosphorescent moss, cold and damp, glowed with new words:

"Resurrection Countdown: Three Tides."

And a little note, just for him.

"P.S. Kaelen, darling, this time, I'm the one who'll break you."

His mind, I knew, would be reeling.

Back to the Elemental Uprising. That magical storm.

I was his lover then, unacknowledged, a secret kept in the shadows of Blackwood.

He was mending an ancient sea ward, trying to protect our town.

The backlash came, a raw, destructive force. I threw myself in front of it, for him.

And Kaelen? He was shielding Seraphina, his favored one.

Not even a glance for me as I fell.

His words from that night still burned: "A pale imitation," he'd called me, compared to her. "A mere convenience."

The memory was a fresh wound, even in death.

He probably thought I was just a vengeful spirit now, come to make him pay.

Good.

Headlights cut through the storm.

Elder Alistair Finch, head of The Sterling Order, stepped out of a car, Seraphina Monroe at his side.

They feigned concern for Kaelen, their faces masks of sympathy.

"My Lord Thorne, are you alright?" Alistair' s voice was smooth, oily.

Kaelen barely looked at them.

"Leave me." His voice was gravel.

They hesitated, then retreated, Seraphina casting a smug look back that I, even as a spirit, wanted to slap off her face.

Kaelen stared at the glowing words on my grave.

The inscription. My promise.

He believed my spirit was wrathful. He thought I wanted revenge.

He would prepare the Mariner's Reckoning, a devastating ritual.

To appease me, he'd plunge the coast into chaos.

The fool. He still didn't understand.