This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.

The silver waves crashed against the ancient cliffs of Kyrenia with a violence that matched the storm brewing in Elena's heart. She stood at the edge of the rocky precipice, her midnight-black hair whipping around her face like shadows given form, watching the full moon cast its ethereal glow across the turbulent sea below. The wind carried with it the scent of salt and something else—something ancient and otherworldly that made her skin prickle with an awareness she couldn't name.

Elena had always been drawn to the sea during the full moon, though she couldn't explain why. Her grandmother had warned her against such wanderings, muttering in the old tongue about curses and forgotten gods, but Elena had dismissed those words as the ramblings of an old woman whose mind had been touched by too many years of solitude. Now, as she felt an inexplicable pull toward the churning waters below, she wondered if perhaps her grandmother's warnings had held more truth than she'd ever imagined.

The fishing village of Kyrenia slept peacefully behind her, its whitewashed houses glowing pale in the moonlight like scattered pearls. Elena had lived here all her twenty-three years, helping her father with his nets and her mother with the household, but tonight she felt as though she were seeing her home through the eyes of a stranger. Everything seemed different, charged with an energy that made her pulse quicken and her breath catch in her throat.

A movement in the water below caught her attention, and Elena leaned forward, squinting through the darkness. At first, she thought it might be a large fish or perhaps a seal, but as she watched, the shape resolved itself into something impossible—the silhouette of a man swimming through the violent waves with an ease that defied nature. His powerful strokes cut through the water as if it were air, and when he dove beneath the surface, he remained submerged far longer than any mortal man could hold his breath.