„Soul’s Deep Call”

Chapter 1. A Sailor Saved, A Legacy Remembered Beneath Waves.

Vadoma glided through the violet corridors of her kingdom, the coins of her golden bra catching flickers of pearl-light as she moved. The ancient turtle swam beside her, its shell burnished with age, each plate etched with the memory of tides older than human counting. In these quiet moments, with only the soft current against her skin and the distant song of the deep-dwellers echoing through the coral spires, she felt both the power of her rule and the solitude it demanded. The water remembered everything—every joy, every sorrow—and as its witch, so did she.

She ran her pale fingers along the smoky violet coral that formed the twisted architecture of Valoria. The structures weren't built but grown, guided into spiraling forms that resembled petrified lace, their surfaces draped with gossamer black kelp-silk that rippled like mournful pennants in the constant, gentle currents. Pearl lamps set in sconces of carved bone cast milky light through the water, illuminating mosaics of bleached, artfully arranged bones embedded in the sea-glass floor.

The turtle drifted ahead, leading her toward the upper reaches of the kingdom where the water thinned and lightened. Vadoma followed, her dark hair streaming behind her like liquid shadow, her amethyst eyes—the mark of her power—reflecting the pearl-glow around her. The kingdom was beautiful in its melancholy, a reflection of the current Obsidian Tide's introspective mood. Still, she often felt the weight of her solitude pressing against her chest like the ocean's pressure.

She paused, her attention drawn upward. The quality of light filtering down from above had changed; the gentle, dappled blue turning murky and chaotic. The water itself seemed to tense, currents shifting unpredictably. The turtle sensed it too, withdrawing into the safety of a coral archway.

“A storm,” she whispered, though in the water, the words were more impression than sound, a ripple of thought in the liquid mind that surrounded her.

Vadoma propelled herself upward with a powerful undulation of her tail, leaving the sheltered corridors of the kingdom behind. As she approached the boundary between her realm and the surface world, she felt the violence of the tempest. The water churned and roiled, confused by competing forces of wind and tide. Through the fractured surface, she glimpsed black clouds and thrashing waves, the underside of the storm a canvas of foam and shadow.

And then—a disturbance. Not the familiar tumble of driftwood or the panic of fish, but something larger, heavier, trailing bubbles of trapped air. A shape plummeted through the water, arms flailing, a streak of red blooming in its wake.

A human. A man.

Vadoma darted toward him, propelled by an instinct older than thought. His eyes were closed, his chest still. His shirt had been torn half away by the violence of the storm, exposing the pale vulnerability of his skin. Blood seeped from a gash along his temple, dissolving into the saltwater around him.

As she neared, something inside her lurched with recognition. Not of his face—she had never seen him before—but of something deeper, a resonance in the water's memory that made her heart stutter with a peculiar familiarity. His chestnut hair swirled in the current, his features slack in unconsciousness, yet something about him called to her like a half-remembered dream.

She gathered him into her arms, cradling his head against her shoulder, his skin cool against hers. His weight was strangely comforting, solid and real in a world where everything flowed and changed. She must take him below, across the magical border, if he were to survive.

“You'll breathe soon,” she promised, though he couldn't hear. “Hold on.”

Vadoma descended, the man clutched to her chest, her tail propelling them downward through layers of increasingly dense water. The storm's chaos receded above them, replaced by the profound silence of the deep. The pressure increased, a weight that would crush human lungs, but she held him tight, her magic a shield around his fragile form.

They approached the shimmering veil that marked the boundary of her kingdom—an intangible vertical plane in the open water, marked by a permanent, slow-swirling vortex of current and a shimmer of silver bubbles. Here, her rule began in truth; here, the sea's dreams took form.

She hesitated just before the crossing, studying his face. His lips were tinged blue, his chest still. He had minutes, perhaps less.

“The sea asks what you wish to be,” she whispered to him, an ancient invocation. “What does your soul answer?”

With that, she pulled him through the boundary, feeling the familiar sensation of cold silk against her skin. The magic of her realm enveloped them both—the water that remembered, the water that dreamed.

The change began immediately. Silver bubbles clung to his form, swirling in excited patterns around his legs. His body spasmed once, twice, as the magic reshaped him according to the silent truth of his soul. His legs elongated, fused, the skin darkening to a deep, inky black that gleamed with subtle iridescence. Fins unfurled where feet had been, translucent and elegant. Gills opened along his ribs, delicate as knife cuts.

Vadoma watched in wonder. The transformation was always unique to each soul, a reflection of their deepest nature. His becoming was beautiful—the black tail powerful and graceful, neither monstrous nor tentative. It was as if the sea had been waiting for him, had known precisely what he should be.

When it was complete, she felt him take his first breath of water—a shuddering inhale that made his chest rise. His eyes remained closed, but color returned to his face. He would live.

She continued their descent, swimming toward her private chambers in the heart of the kingdom. Fellow Valorians watched them pass, their curious eyes following the unfamiliar merman in their witch's arms. Vadoma ignored them, focused only on the rhythm of his breathing and the strange certainty growing within her—that his arrival was significant, perhaps even fated.

Her chambers were carved from the largest of the violet corals, a series of connected spaces lit by the softest pearl-light. She laid him gently on her bed—a wide clam shell lined with gold coins that she rearranged when restless. The coins shifted under his weight, clinking softly.