The cathedral had become a tomb of rising water.
Selina screamed, clutching her silk skirts as the dark, briny tide swirled around her ankles. Guests scrambled over pews, their terrified shouts muffled by the rhythmic, heavy thrumming that seemed to beat from within the stone walls itself.
"Kevin, move!" Marcus roared, grabbing his son’s shoulder to pull him toward the side exit. "She’s insane! She’s some kind of freak—security, shoot her!"
"No!" Kevin shoved his father back, his eyes never leaving the girl in the aisle.
Undine continued her slow, mechanical march. Her movements were unnervingly fluid yet disjointed, like a body drifting in a powerful current. Her white, vacant eyes didn't blink. They didn't reflect the panic of the room. They were windows into a deep, freezing abyss.
"Undine, listen to me!" Kevin shouted, splashing through the water toward her. "I know you're in there! I did it to save the cove! I signed the papers so they wouldn't destroy you!"
Undine’s head snapped toward him, her neck moving with a sickening, liquid click. Her mouth opened, but no breath came out—only a thin, silver mist.
"REASON... IS... SILENCE," the voice boomed, vibrating in Kevin’s very marrow. It was the Ocean speaking through its hollowed-out vessel. "LOVE... IS... SALT."
"It's not!" Kevin reached her, his hands trembling as he grabbed her shoulders. Her skin wasn't just cold; it felt like ice that had been submerged for a thousand years. "Undine, look at me. It’s Kevin. Remember the ring? Remember the soul you felt?"
For a fraction of a second, the milky white in her eyes flickered. A tiny pinprick of reef-green light struggled to surface, and her hand twitched, her fingers searching for the silver band that was no longer there. Her face contorted into a mask of pure, human agony.
"Kev...in..." she rasped, her true voice cracking through the static. "Help... it's... so dark..."
"I've got you," he whispered, pulling her against his chest.
But the "Hypnosis of the Deep" was a jealous master. The water in the cathedral surged violently, rising to their waists in a matter of seconds. The tiny spark in Undine’s eyes was extinguished, drowned by a flood of blinding white.
Her body went rigid. Her arms, governed by the ancient law, slowly rose and wrapped around Kevin’s neck. It looked like an embrace, but there was no warmth in it. It was the grip of a drowning person—or an executioner.
Suddenly, the stained-glass windows of the cathedral shattered simultaneously. Millions of shards of colored glass rained down like diamonds as the Atlantic Ocean, fueled by the unnatural storm, came pouring into the sanctuary.
"Kevin!" Marcus screamed, standing on the altar as the water rose to his chest. "Let her go! Save yourself!"
Kevin looked at his father—the man who had traded his son's happiness for a shipping lane. Then he looked at Undine. Her face was calm now, a beautiful, brainwashed mask of death. She wasn't his Undine anymore; she was a wave, and he was the shore.
"I'm not leaving her again, Dad," Kevin said, his voice strangely peaceful over the roar of the flooding church. "I’m fulfilling the Vow."
Undine’s grip tightened. The water reached their chins. Outside, the entire city began to submerge, the streetlights flickering out one by one as the "Trance of the Tides" pulled the world of stone back into the world of salt.
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