SERAPHINA’S POV
Cold engulfed me.
The suffocating weight pressed in from every direction, thick and relentless, as the sea swallowed me whole.
My body reacted before my mind could catch up: lungs spasmed, limbs thrashed as the undertow snatched me, dragging me sideways and down.
Sand scoured my skin. Water forced its way into my mouth, my nose, my throat.
Dread crashed over me.
Not new. Never new.
Old. Visceral. Familiar as my own heartbeat.
I was a child again.
The world shifted, warped by panic and memory, and suddenly the sea was gone—replaced by murky green water and the sharp shock of cold stone beneath my palms.
I was small—far too small. My limbs felt alien, weighed down by drenched fabric that clung like grasping hands.
I remembered the shove. Cru
