The wind had teeth tonight.

  It bit at Lark’s cheeks as he swung down from the mare’s saddle, boots sinking into the stubborn grass above the cliffs. The sky was the color of split plums, and the sea below churned like something restless was waking. He exhaled slowly. The air smelled like salt and thunder, something he begrudgingly missed. Like home.

  “Easy,” he murmured, brushing his hand along Gus’s thick neck. She was lighter now—scarred, tempered by months of travel, but her eyes were just as steady. Just as tired.

  She shifted beneath him but didn’t protest, not when he brought her here.

  He loosened the saddle straps slowly, stiff fingers catching more than once. The joints still ached from the last fight. Not a bar brawl this time. Something older. Something colder.

  But tonight wasn’t for bleeding.

  Tonight was for her.

  He gave Gus a light tap on the flank. “Go on, then. The grass is better here. Greener, even.” She snorted at that. Wandered off with the air of someone who had seen far too much to be impressed.

  Lark adjusted the strap on his shoulder, fingers brushing the worn wood of the lute. New strings. New body. Same old songs.

  The descent came next—narrow, half-swallowed by moss and fog. He remembered every stone. Every slip. The path hadn’t changed.

  At the bottom, the world bent inward. Darker, quieter. And warmer.

  A soft firelight flickered from within the cave. He ducked through the jagged stone arch, breath held. The cavern greeted him like an old wound—aching, beautiful. Shells and sea glass shimmered in little stacks, untouched by time.

  And in the center of it all, curled like a secret the ocean refused to bury—

  Azalea.

  Silver hair spilled over her shoulders, her back to him as she stirred the fire with the edge of her foot. She didn’t turn. Not at first.

  “You’re limping,” she said, her voice slicing through the silence, as if she could hear it in his pattern of steps.

  Lark grinned. Not wide. Just enough. “You always open with a compliment. I missed you too.”

  She turned then, just slightly—enough to meet his gaze. Her skin shimmered like moonlight caught in water. Legs tonight. Scaled, webbed still, pale and strange. But beautiful in his eyes, nonetheless.

  “It’s the same limp.”

  “Not quite,” he said, easing the pack from his shoulder and lowering himself by the fire. “This one’s got a story behind it.”

  Azalea studied him. Not the way a lover might, but the way a creature might examine a familiar offering. One returned. Her gaze lingered on his hands, softening. Split knuckles, half-healed.

  “You brought the lute,” she said.

  He nodded, unbuckling the instrument from its wrap and setting it beside him. “I figured it was time. Haven’t played in awhile.”

  “Play.”

  He raised a brow. “Not even a ‘hello’?”

  “Hello,” she said. Then: “Play.”

  Lark huffed a laugh and reached for the strings. The wood was lighter than the last one. The sound, warmer. As if even the music had missed this place. Missed her.

  As he strummed, Azalea leaned back on her elbows, the edges of her scales catching firelight. Her eyes closed. For a moment, she didn’t speak.

  Then: “Don’t tell me that’s the song you played that first night.”

  Lark’s hands stilled. “What?”

  She cracked one eye open, expression unreadable. “No wonder the tavern kicked you out.”

  He huffed. “You remember?”

  “I remember everything,” she said. “You were pathetic.”

  “Oh, rude. I panicked.”

  “You wouldn’t stop talking.”

  “I was charming.”

  She opened her eyes. Didn’t argue.

  And the moment folded inward—firelight blurring at the edges of Lark’s vision until all that remained was that first night: the cliffside wind, the sand, the siren.

  The moment everything should have ended, and didn’t.

  The sea was hungrier than usual.

  Azalea had felt it in the pull of the tide, the way the current whipped against her skin like teeth behind a smile. It had been a lean week. The moon was thin and the fish swam too deep. She was tired of chasing things that ran. Tired of the stillness.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  So when she heard footsteps on the rocks, uneven and loud and so human, she rose.

  She did not hide. She didn’t need to.

  Let them see her, just once—Let them know what waited in the dark, just beyond the surf.

  Let them run. They always did.

  But he—didn’t run?

  The boy—man? boy?—was soaked, his cloak hanging off one shoulder like it had tried to escape. He stumbled down the ridge with the grace of a drunk ferret, muttering to himself as he went. Azalea could hear every word, carried clean on the wind.

  “—and then she says ‘try projecting more,’ like I haven’t been projecting since I was five—gods, why do I even play in taverns that hate a little fun—”

  He tripped on a rock. Swore. Kept going. Azalea narrowed her eyes. Curious. Bold prey dies quickest.

  When he finally reached the shoreline, he dropped onto the sand like a discarded puppet. His boots were ruined. His sleeves were torn. One side of his face was bruising. And then he looked up.

  Right at her.

  She was already rising from the tide, gleaming white under the starlight, tail behind her like trailed silk. Her teeth caught the moonlight. Her hair dripped like frost.

  He blinked once.

  Then smiled.

  “Oh, thank the gods, a hallucination. You’re beautiful.”

  Azalea faltered, her song caught in her throat.

  He blinked again. “No, wait. Siren. Right? Fangs. Tail. Probably here to drown me.”Still no fear.

  “You can try,” he said, “but I’m warning you—I’m a terrible swimmer and an excellent disappointment, so it won’t be satisfying.”Azalea stared.

  He flopped back onto the sand, arms splayed. “You want to kill me, fine. But just—let me get this off my chest first? My name’s Lark. My lute broke. My fake tooth fell out during a solo. Someone threw a turnip. A turnip. I’m 87% sure I’m concussed and I may or may not have kissed the wrong barmaid. She definitely kissed back. So honestly? Go ahead. Eat me. At this point I’d welcome the emotional consistency.”

  Azalea just… sat there.

  The sea curled around her waistband like it wanted her to strike. To pull him under. To finish it.

  But she couldn’t move.

  He turned his head again. Looked at her, eyes soft despite the mess he was. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”

  She blinked once. “I think i’ve lost my appetite.”

  That made him laugh. It was hoarse and crooked and real. “Well,” he said, dragging himself upright again, “guess I’ll just be here. If you change your mind.”

  And he sat there. Beside her. Cold. Tired. Bleeding.

  Talking.

  And for the first time in… years? decades? longer?

  Azalea didn’t feel alone.

  Alas, she knew better than to trust mere feelings. Azalea turned, her long white tail brushing the wet sand as she slid back into the tide. Her skin shimmered moon-pale beneath the surface, gills fluttering along her ribs. The mortal, Lark, he’d said—was still sitting there, watching her with his chin in his hands.

  “You’re leaving?” he asked.

  “You’re not interesting enough to keep me,” she said.

  It was a lie.

  “Well, rude.” he muttered, getting to his feet. “Is this a flirting thing? Or do you just hate mortals?”

  “I don’t flirt,” she said coolly, voice echoing over the tide like a blade drawn slow. “I feed.”

  “…That still sounds like flirting, to be honest.”

  She turned, hair swirling in the current, and slipped into deeper waters. Behind her, splashing. Cursing. She twisted back to see him wading in after her up to his knees, clutching his boots in one hand.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I—! Wait, hang on, there’s a crab—ow—rocks—” He stumbled again, catching himself on a moss-covered boulder. “I’m following you!”

  “You’ll drown.”

  “I told you already,” he said through gritted teeth, “I’m very bad at that.”

  She should have let the sea take him.

  She didn’t.

  “You’re an idiot,” she said.

  “Sure. But I’m charming. Ask anyone.”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “Not in any of the important places.”

  She narrowed her silver eyes. “Why are you following me?”

  He tilted his head, teeth white against the dark. “Because you’re the first person tonight who hasn’t thrown anything at me or told me to shut up. That’s a good sign. And also—” He took a step closer into the tide, cold water swirling at his waist. “I’d like your name.”

  She stilled.

  It was not a thing often asked of her.

  Not without trembling. Not without desperation. This mortal didn’t look afraid. He looked genuinely curious.

  “You wouldn’t be able to pronounce it.”

  “Try me.”

  She hesitated. Then, just barely: “Azalea.”

  He smiled. “That’s a flower.”

  “It’s a warning.”

  “Beautiful warning,” he said softly.

  And that—that—was when she should’ve disappeared. She could’ve vanished into the waves with a flick of her tail, never to be seen again. Instead, she turned, swam to the dark shelf near her cave’s mouth, and perched there like a waiting storm.

  He came, of course.

  Dripping, shivering, and grinning like a fool.

  They sat in silence.

  For a moment, she considered the old way of doing things—singing him under, watching the light leave his eyes. The sea curled possessive around her tail. It hungered.

  But then—He reached into his pocket and pulled out… a very soggy, very squashed little honey cake. “I was saving this for someone special,” he said solemnly. “And you did say you were hungry before.”

  Azalea stared.

  Then, without meaning to, She laughed. Just once. quick and sharp, a bark of disbelieving. It startled even her.

  Lark blinked. “Wait. Was that a laugh?”

  “No.”

  “It was! I made a sea demon laugh!”

  “I am not a demon—”

  “Do you want the cake or not?”

  She snatched it from his hand before she could stop herself. Eating it with some sort of elegance still.

  Hours passed, the stars hung heavy above the sea, dimmed only by the cove.

  Lark was still talking.

  “…and she definitely cursed me, which—fine, fair, I did strum the strings of the forbidden harp, Azzy, I was a cat.” He gestured broadly with his hand, nearly smacking his own forehead in the process. “Also, do you know how hard it is to find a good lyre string in a marsh town? Impossible. They gave me catgut. Catgut. I don’t even play catgut instruments!”

  Azalea stared at him.

  Not with annoyance. Not quite.

  With… curiosity.

  Mortals were not meant to stay long in her presence. Her voice was not meant to soothe. It was meant to drag, to drown, to pull lungs into stillness. But this one—this ridiculous, bleeding bard with too much heart and not enough sense—just kept talking.

  She moved closer.

  He didn’t notice.

  “I think I might be cursed in love too. Not like the fun kind of cursed, where someone turns into a swan and we have to kiss in a moonlit bog or whatever. The boring kind. The ‘I’ll always leave first’ kind.” His voice dipped there, something fragile cracking beneath the sarcasm. “Or maybe they leave me. That part blurs.”

  Azalea rested her arms on the rock beside him.

  He was lying back against the tide-worn stone, soaked cloak draped like a blanket, limbs sprawled like he’d forgotten what fear felt like.

  He sighed. “You ever feel like you weren’t supposed to be what you are?”

  She tilted her head. A pause.

  Then, as gentle as dusk: “Yes.”

  He blinked. Slowly turned his head. “Wait. Was that—you?” She gave him the barest smile. “You talk too much.”

  “I’ve been told.”

  And before he could launch into another ramble, Azalea exhaled—soft, low, humming. A thread of melody, wordless and ancient, rippling from her throat and gills through the cove like a current through silk. Her song wrapped around the edges of the night, coiling into his ears like a lullaby pulled from the deep.

  Lark’s eyelids fluttered.

  His voice slurred. “That’s… cheating…”

  She didn’t answer.

  Just sang.

  And watched as he finally, finally drifted into sleep.

  The lines of worry smoothed from his brow. His bruised knuckles, still faintly curled, fell open beside the squashed honey cake crumbs.

  For a long time, Azalea did not move. She simply hovered near the rock, silver hair drifting around her like seafoam, watching his chest rise and fall. She should have left the moment his breathing slowed. She should have vanished into the deep, let the current carry her home.

  But she didn’t.

  Not until the tide kissed his boots.

  Not until the sky began to soften, and the wind shifted west. Only then did she retreat.

  Back into the sea. Back into silence. Back into the darker parts of herself. But as she went, she left something behind—tucked gently beside his hand where he slept.

  A single pale scallop shell, smoothed by years of tide.