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“You really shouldn’t leave your windows open, little ember,” Roman says, pleased with himself. “Strangers might wander into your room.”

“I didn’t leave it open,” I fire back immediately, feeling my cheeks flush. “I always lock it before I sleep.” My voice hardens at the insinuation that I was so careless, but then I remember. I’d been so exhausted. I’d barely had enough energy to strip off my leathers before going to bed. Thank the gods it’s only Roman who came through the windows. The unsettling thought strikes me that he’s probably been here for a while.

“Not this time.” His gaze drifts toward the windows, then back to me, slow and knowing. “You’re lucky it was me who came through it.”

“If it had been anyone else,” I say coolly, “they’d be dead.”

A corner of his mouth lifts. “So you’re saying I’m special?” Moonlight cuts across the sharp line of his jaw, catching his eyes and the smug confidence in them.

My eyes narrow as I study him, searching for a flaw, a lie. “That,” I say, voice low, “is exactly what I’m trying to figure out.”

His gaze softens slightly, his eyes glowing in the low light. “Your nightmares, are they the same every time?” He’s not mocking me, he’s just curious.

I’ve never spoken to anyone about my nightmares. They’ve lived inside me since I was a child, a private torture I wake from frequently. Lately they’ve only gotten worse, sharper, more real.

“Not exactly,” I say, keeping my tone deliberately distant. “Different details. Same ending.”

“Which is?”

“You really want to hear about them?” I regard him there, propped against the pillows with his chestnut-brown hair tousled, a smear of my violence staining the linen beneath his shoulder. Gods. He's achingly beautiful. His hands rest loosely on my legs, as if he has nowhere more important he could be. His full attention is on me in a way I’m not used to. Not like I’m a weapon, a leader, or something to be feared or obeyed, but like I’m someone worth listening to.

“I would want nothing more,” he says, sharing a small smile that grounds me in the present.

I draw in a slow breath, buying myself time. This reality has always lived inside me, clawing to get out, and I have never once given it a voice.

“My mother, she’s—” I hesitate, the word catching in my throat. No one asks about this. No one gets this part of me. “She’s evil. She doesn’t want me dead. She wants to imprison me.” My mouth curves into a hollow, humorless smile. “Death would be easier. For me, anyway, not for her. That’s what the dreams are of.”

Roman watches me and nods, steady and patient.

“She was born a siren, but she shifts into… other things. Dark things. She’s unlike any other shifter. She can shift into anything, disguise herself with any face and any voice. Whereas I only have three skins that I know of.” My fingers curl against the fabric beneath me. “You never know how she’s going to appear or who she’s going to torture next.” A hollow breath leaves me and I drop my gaze. “Ironic, I suppose. The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree. But she’s powerful. More powerful than anything else in the sea. Anything I’ve ever felt.” The words keep coming, faster now, before I can lose the nerve to speak them at all.

And then I stop. The following silence stretches for too long, and I falter, suddenly aware of how much I’ve said, how exposed I am sitting over him like this, my entire history laid bare in the space between us. I search his face, needing some sign that he doesn’t regret asking, that I haven’t just handed him a weapon to use against me.

His expression doesn’t change. He looks up at me with that same unwavering focus. “Go on, little ember,” he says softly. “I’m listening.”

The name grounds me, when only weeks ago it sickened me.

“She tied my life to hers,” I continue, the words tasting like iron. “She cursed us both.” The room feels too small for the truth that follows. “I was never meant to be born. I was made from two souls rotten enough to create something like me. I don’t know who my father is, but if he loved her…” My mouth tightens. “Well, I can’t imagine what kind of creature would. Unless he was tricked by one of her many skins.” I force myself to keep going. “This life tie, it isn’t natural. It isn’t anything Veyra would ever do willingly. Two souls can only be bound like that if they’re born from the same storm. Fated. Equal. It’s a sacred law.” My gaze flicks back to his. “She made Veyra break that law.” The words drop between us like stones.

His eyes narrow at my words. Veyra is the closest thing the physical world has to a goddess, a direct tie to Mother Earth herself. She abides by the laws of nature, but like many powerful immortals, she has a darkness of her own. Hers simply has yet to be uncovered.

Or perhaps it already has been.

Perhaps it’s me.

“I am my mother’s lifeline. As long as I live, she cannot die.” I shift off him slowly, the air suddenly colder without the steady heat of his body beneath mine. My legs remain draped across his without thinking. His hand finds my ankle.

I find his eyes. He doesn’t recoil and look at me like I’m a monster. He thinks. “Why does your survival keep her alive?” he asks in a way that tells me he’s already halfway to the answer. “Was she dying before she had you?”

“Yes.” The word is barely more than breath. “She was never supposed to live this long. The role she was born into, the title she held, it began to reject her. She turned on the sea. On its creatures. On everything she was meant to protect.” I swallow. “And the sea tried to kill her for it.” The memory that strikes isn’t mine, but it lives in my bones all the same.

“She found a loophole,” I finish, lifting one shoulder in a hollow shrug. “Me.” Reverent silence stretches as the prophecy lies bare between us. This is the reason I was born.

Roman’s eyes narrow in a calculating look. I watch the pieces assemble in his mind. Then his gaze widens.

“Your mother is the Soul of the Ocean,” he says quietly. “Isn’t she?”

A small smile tugs at my lips at his astuteness. I break eye contact, letting my attention fall to my nails. Absent-mindedly, I turn my hand so the moonlight glints along them. I nod.