Chapter 5 The Name Of The Drowned

The name Virelai burned on Aanya's skin as though the ink had sunk through to her bones. Every time she blinked, she saw the letters carved in light behind her eyelids. It wasn't just a name-it was a calling.

She sat on the floor of her room, both of her mother's journals open before her, their pages rustling slightly from the sea breeze leaking through the cracked window. The candle she had lit the night before had melted down to a stub. The faint smell of salt and beeswax lingered in the air.

> "Virelai. The name of the drowned isle. The key is buried beneath its altar."

But where was it?

She searched the first journal again, combing every page for a clue, a map, even a rumor. Most of the entries spoke of visions, tides, and the strange pulse of the Archive, but one entry near the back caught her eye.

> "South of the reef, beyond the jagged cove-where birds do not fly and time forgets to move. That is where Virelai drowned, and where the altar still whispers."

South of the reef.

She grabbed a map from the kitchen drawer-an old nautical chart her grandmother kept for fishing trips-and spread it across the floor. Her fingers traced the coastline, past the lighthouse and the rocky shoals, until she found a cove unmarked and faded.

Just offshore: a small patch of water labeled "Uncharted."

That had to be it.

Aanya's grandmother found her rolling up the map.

"You're going to sea," she said plainly, eyes narrowing.

"Yes," Aanya replied. "I need to find Virelai."

The old woman exhaled. "Then take the canoe. The motorboat is loud-it disturbs the balance."

"You're not going to stop me?"

Her grandmother stepped forward and gently tucked a seashell into Aanya's palm. "No. But take this. It's from your mother's room. She said it helped her listen."

Aanya closed her fingers over the cool shell. "Thank you."

"Just promise me something."

"What?"

"If you hear your mother's voice out there... don't follow it into the water."

---

The sea was glassy and still when Aanya pushed off from the beach in the narrow wooden canoe. The morning sun had not yet broken the horizon, and everything shimmered in pale silver, like the space between sleep and waking.

She rowed in silence, past the lighthouse and the rocks, guided by instinct more than coordinates. The water grew darker, heavier. The shell around her neck vibrated faintly, like a heartbeat buried in coral.

She reached the edge of the reef by mid-morning. The canoe rocked gently, cradled by the tide. Beneath her, schools of fish darted in rhythmic bursts. Seaweed drifted like long, green ribbons.

But beyond the reef, everything changed.

The color dropped out of the sea, replaced by an inky blue-black. The air grew colder. A flock of seabirds flying overhead turned abruptly, refusing to cross the invisible threshold.

She had found the cove.

She let the canoe drift. Then, lowering the anchor slowly, she scanned the water.

And there-barely visible in the depths-something moved. A shape, square and ancient. A platform.

The altar.

Her pulse quickened. She tied a rope around her waist, slipped on a pair of swim goggles, and took one final breath before sliding silently into the sea.

The water was colder than she expected. It clung to her skin like memory.

She dove.

The descent was slow, dreamlike. Fish scattered as she passed. Strange columns rose from the seabed, part of a crumbled structure now consumed by coral. And at the center of it all stood a raised stone platform, covered in moss, barnacles-and something glowing faintly in its center.

Aanya swam closer, brushing away the silt.

A circle had been carved into the altar, about the size of her palm. Surrounding it were strange markings-like the ones she had seen in the cavern beneath the lighthouse.

The shell around her neck pulsed harder. She pressed it into the circular indentation.

Nothing happened.

Then, slowly, the glow brightened. The stone groaned beneath her hand.

The Archive had heard her.

A vision surged into her mind-not a memory of her own, but someone else's.

She was standing on a ship as it sank. Water poured in. Voices screamed. Somewhere below, a vault pulsed with blue light. A woman-her mother-stood over it, sealing it with her own hands.

"This is the only way," her mother had said. "She'll find it. She'll finish what I couldn't."

The vision shattered.

Aanya kicked back toward the surface, lungs burning. She burst above the water, gasping for air, just as the waves began to shift around her.

The sea boiled.

Waves rolled without wind. The sky darkened even though the sun still hung high above.

Something was rising.

The water near the altar exploded upward. From the depths came a shape-an obelisk, ancient and dripping with seaweed, bearing a crest of a spiral wave etched in gold. At its top, a metal key glistened, suspended in a glass orb.

Aanya stared, heart hammering. This was it. The key to the Archive.

She swam closer, stretching her hand toward the orb.

Then, a voice echoed across the water-not from above, but inside her mind.

> "You are not the only one the Archive has called."

A cold wind whipped across the sea.

A second canoe approached from the other side of the cove.

A boy stood at its edge, cloaked in sea-skin armor, his eyes pale blue. He was young-maybe sixteen-but there was something unnatural in his stare.

He looked at Aanya with calm intensity.

"You don't know what you're releasing," he said.

"Who are you?" Aanya called.

"I'm the Bound," he replied. "Chosen by the Archive. My task is to ensure it remains sealed."

"Then why are you here?"

"To stop you," he said. "Even if it means sinking Virelai again."

The wind roared louder.

The sea responded.

And the tide began to turn.

--