She waited too long that day.
Even now, she wasn't sure how many seconds passed between the words Kaelen and failure.
It would've hurt less if they'd just cut me open and bled my shame into the sea.
The ocean didn't whisper, and the waves didn't sing.
There was no light and no pulse.
Just Kaelen. A nineteen year-old child wearing ceremonial robes in a pool that suddenly felt like a grave.
The priest glanced at her mother.
That was the moment she knew it was over.
+
Whispers started from the outer edges of the crowd, soft as seafoam:
"It didn't take."
"Was it the name?"
"After all the preparation? Was it a mistake?"
"No, she's...she's not--"
Kaelen's legs locked in place. She couldn't breathe and she didn't dare blink. The temple wind picked up. Her wet robe clung cold to her spine. She felt more naked than if she'd been stripped.
Kaelen scanned the crowd and saw Dahlia--a little girl she'd healed last season--hide behind her mother's robes.
A temple apprentice who once brought her sweetroot on holy days now stared at the floor, cheeks red.
An elder whispered, "Maybe she faked the bond before. We always said it came too early."
That wasn't true! Kaelen thought helplessly.
But the more they whispered, the more true it sounded.
Her gaze passed over a boy she'd kissed once, during the fullest moon of the summer. It was so heavy she thought it was going to fall out of the sky and land on her lap like a plum. They kissed beneath the shell lanterns, chaste and promising all at once.
The same boy leaned into his friend and muttered, "Guess even the purest water expires."
They laughed.
Kaelen's ears rang.
She didn't feel the cold anymore. Just heat, blooming behind her eyes like a coconut being cracked open for its meat.
They weren't shocked at all.
They were grateful it wasn't them.
+
The second priest cleared his throat.
"Bring forth Neris Tidestrike!"
Kaelen turned sharply in disbelief and the opals in her hair caught the midday sun.
The water rippled beneath her feet.
Her mouth felt dry.
Not a single person met her eyes.
At first, no one spoke to her.
That was even worse than shame.
It was certainty.
Neris stepped forward with dainty precision. Her head was bowed, and cheeks flushed. Her dark hair had been incorrectly braided, but she still looked like a girl at a wedding.
Like she expected it to happen.
As if it was planned.
Kaelen watched, mouth agape as her cousin stepped into the pool.
It lit before her foot touched the surface.
Soft ripples spiraled from her, glowing silver-blue.
The water accepted her like it had always been waiting.
The bells rang again—but now they mocked her, openly.
So much for all my daily training.
+
The sigil-glass on the temple wall flickered. A priest had taken a sharp stone and struck my name until it faded entirely. Neris's flared bright in its place.
Kaelen's mother walked to the edge of the pool.
"By the will of the Tides, this daughter is released."
She didn't look at Kaelen--not even once.
Attendants took the Tidestrike Crown from her hair and this time, they weren't gentle. One almost took a piece of Kaelen's ears with how fiercely the earrings had been removed.
She bit her lip and tried to bear with the pain. Even if she'd been disowned, she still wanted to maintain her dignity.
"The Unawakened shall not be named among the sacred line. She...is an impurity. No affinity with any element. As such, she shall be removed."
Just like that? Mother, you carried me for nine months in your belly. Does that mean nothing?
"Mother—" Kaelen whispered, half-begging now.
She turned.
And that was worse than her silence.
Her eyes held no hate. But no grief.
Relief flooded her eyes, and that broke Kaelen's heart.
She stepped forward. Water sloshed around her ankles. It still felt cold and unwelcoming.
"I—"
Two temple guards blocked the path.
Spears crossed.
"By order of the High Tide," the priest said flatly, "you are no longer recognized by name or lineage. You will be escorted to the borderlands at dawn. Your soul is no longer in the record."
"Wait—"
"You may not speak."
+
Kaelen was not allowed to return to the main hall.
A silent attendant brought her a tray of cold kelp paste and bitter tea. No seasoning. No salt.
No blessing.
They left it just outside the room—like she was already contagious.
She hadn't realized how quiet the temple was until that moment.
The usual echo of prayer chants, the rising calls of apprentice healers… all gone.
Someone had silenced the House of Tides.
Because of her.
Because she did not bond with water.
Or any magical element, for that matter.
She had nothing left to give her city, and so she was to be abandoned.
Kaelen left the tray untouched, and curled up in the blanket they gave her. Not even a cushion for her head.
As she wept, only one thought crossed her mind:
The body could live off pain for a while.
+
The next morning, Kaelen was taken back to her chambers. Her eyes widened--this wasn't the room she once called home.
The tapestries were gone.
Her healer's sash, burned.
The beautiful ancestral stone basin she once mediated in had been shattered. With every shard left behind as a warning.
On the floor sat a scroll with a wax seal:
Exile Writ. Blooded.
Inside: a map, a hut location, and a ration list.
Two weeks' worth of dried lotus root and seaweed. A flask of unblessed water.
Hanging in the closet was one single robe.
Of course, it wasn't the High Tide robe.
Instead, it was the one given to ceremonial failures. Bleached gray and without sigil.
Kaelen sat on the stone floor for hours, unmoving.
Didn't cry.
Didn't scream.
Just stared at her hands, wondering how long it would take for her to forget what they were trained for.
+
They called it a mercy rite.
The guards took her to the temple basin before dawn. No longer Kaelen, but as "She Without a Blessing."
Another priest held a glass orb with Kaelen's family name etched in ice and shells. The sigil pulsed once in recognition.
Then the priest shattered it in the basin.
Saltwater splashed her feet.
A curl of steam rose.
The orb was gone. So was her name.
No witness spoke.
Not even the sea.
Kaelen half-expected the gods to intervene. For something ancient to rise and scream that this was wrong.
But the gods were silent, and the only voice Kaelen heard was her own.
And it said nothing.
+
They woke Kaelen just before sunrise.
No kind words. Just knocking.
Two guards. Full armor. No faces visible.
She was given no time to pack.
No farewells and no explanations.
She stepped into the black-lacquered carriage.
It smelled like salt and rot.
The carriage passed the reefway at dawn. Bells rang behind her, not for her.
Kaelen looked back only once.
Neris stood beside my mother on the temple steps.
Both were still.
Both silent.
And then the gates of Aqualis closed behind her, for good.