Ritu : female lead/the Maiden/then cleanser

A young woman from Nagaraja chosen as the sacrificial offering to the Sea God. She embodies purity, acceptance, and fierce love for her family. She defies the prophecy to choose the God she loves, ultimately becoming the force that compels his sacrifice.

Likun: Male lead/sea God/the ruler of the tides

The ancient, powerful deity trapped by the human Pact to stabilize the cursed kingdom. He is mercurial, possessive, and immensely lonely. His forbidden love for Ritu forces him to choose between his absolute freedom and her safety.

SIDE CHARACTERS:(NAGARAJA RESIDENTS)

Manju: Ritu's younger sister

Fierce, rebellious, and deeply loyal. She refuses to believe Ritu is dead and becomes a key figure in the rebellion on the surface, helping to expose the Elders' lies about the Pact.

Sunil: Village carpenter/guard

A strong, kind young man who harbors unspoken feelings for Ritu. He becomes Manju's critical ally in seeking the truth and uncovering the prophecy's true meaning.

Jaydev: The scholar/dissident

A knowledgeable man who constantly questions the Elders' rituals. His research into the ancient texts provides the crucial evidence (the clay tablet and scroll) that exposes the truth about the Pact and the Sea God's imprisonment.

Tusaar: Elder/council member

The eldest and most traditional of the council members. He is deeply devoted to maintaining the sacrificial ritual, driven by fear and adherence to the corrupted ancient Pact.

Rudra:Elder/council member

A cunning and desperate Elder who helps maintain the lie of the curse. His panicked, unauthorized action to renew the tether in Chapter 7 is what ultimately snaps the binding, leading to the cataclysm.

Aditya:Council guard captain👮

A loyal, granite-faced guard who executes the Elders' will, specifically tracking down and suppressing dissidents like Jaydev and Manju.

Mitu : Ritu and manju's mother

A secondary, grieving character who represents the quiet suffering and despair of the average citizen in the cursed kingdom.

Nihar: Elder/council member

Another member of the council, focused mainly on suppressing the rising rebellion and enforcing the council's authority.

A brief knowledge of the story

​The Tide and the Prophecy: Novel Summary

​In the ancient, rain-choked kingdom of Nagaraja, the maiden Ritu is sacrificed to the Sea God, Likun, in a desperate attempt to lift a centuries-old curse. Instead of taking her life, Likun whisks her away to his submerged domain, Aetherium, where a fierce and forbidden love quickly blooms. Ritu soon learns the devastating truth: Likun is not the curse, but its greatest victim—a magnificent prisoner whose vast power is trapped by a corrupt Pact that ensures the kingdom's protection at the cost of his suffering.

​On the surface, Ritu’s sister, Manju, and the scholar, Jaydev, expose the Elders’ lies, causing the magical tether to snap. Likun is suddenly unbound, fulfilling the prophecy as the destructive force poised to unleash a cataclysmic wave. Ritu races to the shore to confront him, defying his terrifying vow: "Every kingdom, every soul, every star—I would burn them all just to keep you."

​In a tragic climax, Ritu forces Likun to choose between his absolute freedom and her safety. He sacrifices his very essence, using his power to stabilize the drowning shore for her sake. He dissolves into the ocean, leaving Ritu with the crushing realization that his devotion was absolute. His last words sealed their love and his fate: "I was all yours from the beginning... And I’ll be yours until the end."

​The air in Nagaraja was not merely cold; it was a distillation of five centuries of despair. It was the perpetual scent of brine, dying wood, and the damp, unrelenting misery of a kingdom choked by endless mist. The curse that had settled upon them—a blanket of gloom that swallowed the sun and choked the crops—demanded a tribute: the Maiden of Purity, offered to the Sea God, Likun, on the eve of her twentieth year.

​Tonight belonged to Ritu.

​She stood within the Sacrificial Pavilion, a crude, skeletal structure of black wood perched precariously on the highest cliff, battered by the restless sea. Her ceremonial gown, spun from raw, unforgiving cotton, was heavy with absorbed humidity, a cold, clingy shroud. Below her, the people of Nagaraja were a sea of gray faces, lit only by the sputtering oil lamps—they were not here to celebrate, but to pray for survival, their faith threadbare and desperate.

​Tussar, the eldest and most stoic of the Elders, approached. His face was weathered like the cliff itself, etched with the burden of generations who had failed to lift the curse. He held the Chakra of Vows, a dull bronze disc that Ritu had known as the symbol of her destiny since she was a child playing in the damp courtyards.

​“Ritu, Daughter of the Sun, Child of the Mist,” Tussar’s voice was a low rumble, barely cutting through the relentless roar of the ocean. “You carry the burden of the Covenant. You know the history. Only through your purity, returned to the deep, can we hope for the Sea God’s mercy. He is the master of the tides; he judges our kingdom.”

​Ritu didn’t need the recitation. She had internalized the prophecy—a confusing, contradictory thing that labeled the maiden as both the appeasement and the 'Cleanser,' the one who would destroy the source of their pain. She only knew one thing: if she went, Manju and Mitu, her younger sisters, might see a day without rain. That was enough.

​Just then, the strained silence was ruptured. “It’s blasphemy! She’s a child, not a solution!”

​It was Jaydev, the scholar, whose mind refused the comfort of old superstitions. His face was gaunt, his eyes burning with frantic, reasoned fury. He was immediately seized by Aditya, a guard who served the council with brutal, unquestioning loyalty.

​“The god demands a reckoning, not mercy!” Jaydev shouted, struggling against Aditya’s iron grip. “He is the curse! She should be armed, not sacrificed!”

​The crowd gasped. Treasonous words were unheard of on this sacred night. Rudra, another elder, hissed, “Gag him! Let the god not hear this malice!”

​Ritu watched the turmoil with a terrifying calm. Jaydev’s words were the echo of her own secret doubts, the terror she had suppressed for years. She focused instead on Sunil, the young man who worked with wood and whose quiet eyes had always followed her. He was standing sentinel, his face a mask of enforced emptiness, but his knuckles were white where he gripped his spear. He knew she was seeing him; he could not move, could not speak, but the silent anguish in his posture was the loudest farewell she received.

​Ritu finally nodded to Tussar. “I am ready. Let Nagaraja be free.”

​Tussar bowed his head, defeated by circumstance rather than age. He handed her a small, ceremonial knife—a relic, dull and useless, meant only to symbolize the 'self-offering' before the inevitable. She took the cold steel, the contact anchoring her.

​She walked the final few steps to the edge. The wind tore at her, threatening to pull her into the void prematurely. Below, the water was a churning emerald, black-streaked and powerful. This is for Manju. This is for Mitu. This is for the sun.

​With a fierce resolve born of pure love and ultimate despair, Ritu let go of the mortal world.

​The fall was brief, the impact brutal. The sea swallowed her whole, a cold, vast maw of crushing pressure. The roar was deafening, the darkness absolute. Her lungs burned a searing agony. It is done.

​Then, the darkness dissolved. A brilliant, sapphire light, alien and electric, surrounded her. The pressure eased, the water becoming a supportive liquid medium rather than a crushing force. And he was there.

​He was majestic and terrifying, a god sculpted from the sea itself. His skin held the sheen of polished granite, and his eyes—the absolute, stunning green-blue of the deepest trench—were focused entirely on her. His dark hair, like liquid obsidian, floated around him.

​Likun. The Sea God.

​He was not a leviathan; he was the personification of lonely, ancient power. He looked upon her not with wrath, but with a sudden, searing recognition that felt like a claim.

​He reached out, his hand enveloping her wrist. The contact was not merely physical; it was electric, silencing the panic in her mind. The burning in her lungs ceased. She realized she did not need to breathe.

​Your sacrifice is insufficient for my wrath, Maiden. His voice was a vibration in the water, a silent, profound chord in her soul. But your presence is a new demand.

​He pulled her into his embrace, a fierce, proprietary move that defied all laws of the deep. Then, with a casual gesture, the water before them rippled and reformed, creating a tunnel of calm, dry currents. Likun did not take her life. He pulled her deeper, into the silent, unreachable heart of his submerged world. The prophecy of death had been averted; the forbidden love, born of impossible power, had just begun.

​Ritu did not remember the journey. When she next awoke, she was lying on a bed of woven kelp that felt softer than any cotton loom in Nagaraja. The air was dry, still, and impossibly clean—a stark contrast to the perpetually damp sickness of her homeland.

​She was in Aetherium.

​The chamber was massive, a cathedral carved into the bedrock of the ocean floor. The ceiling was not stone, but a colossal, curved vault of crystalline material that pulsed with a hypnotic, sapphire light. Through this natural dome, she could see the slow, ghostly drift of colossal sea creatures—not fish, but things of myth—moving in the dark water overhead. It was terrifying and sublimely beautiful, the domain of a god who cared nothing for the rules of the surface world.

​She was alone. The white ceremonial gown was gone, replaced by a shift of dark, supple fabric that dried instantly on her skin. The heavy Chakra of Vows lay discarded on a ledge carved into the rock, its bronze surface dull against the gleaming crystals.

​“You are awake.”

​The voice was deeper, calmer, in this still environment. Likun stood at the far side of the room, near a glowing aperture that opened into a dark corridor. He was watching her, his body language relaxed yet radiating an intensity that made the air feel charged. He looked less like a figure of wrath and more like a king exiled to his own silent majesty.

​“Where… where am I?” Ritu asked, her voice a reedy whisper.

​“You are in my heart, little sacrifice,” Likun replied, a hint of something unreadable—perhaps dark amusement—in his tone. He walked toward her, his silent approach amplifying the size of the chamber. “This is Aetherium. The place your ancestors cursed and feared, the kingdom beneath the sea, where the sun is irrelevant and human prayers are drowned out by the tide.”

​Ritu clutched the woven kelp. “My people sent me for appeasement. Why did you spare me?”

​Likun stopped a handspan from her. The overwhelming proximity sent a wave of heat through her, a startling, forbidden sensation.

​“Appeasement?” He laughed, a low, humorless sound that resonated in the rock. “They believe a single, short-lived human can soothe the fury of an entity older than their mountains? No. Their offerings are meaningless. Their curse is their own making, a tether they chose to bind themselves to the sea.”

​He ran a finger along the line of her jaw, a gesture that was both tender and dangerously possessive.

​“You, however, are a variable,” he murmured, his gaze locking with hers. “I do not need your life, Ritu. I need… complexity. For five centuries, I have listened to the monotonous beat of their fear. You carry something different—a fierce, quiet acceptance. And a desperate love for your own.”

​“You are the source of the rain,” Ritu insisted, pulling back slightly. “The Elders—Tussar, Rudra—they swore it. You stole the sun.”

​Likun straightened, and his eyes flashed with the raw power of a storm. “Lies built their kingdom. Lies sustain their fear. They tell you I am the curse so they don’t have to admit they caused the disaster that sank half their kingdom. The constant rain is not my wrath; it is the natural consequence of their sin, a reflection of the endless sorrow they cast upon the water.”

​He softened, his gaze returning to a profound, unsettling stillness. “They feared the prophecy that named the maiden as the ‘Cleanser’—the one who would destroy the source of the curse. They expected you to die a silent death, taking the prophecy with you. But I saw something else when you fell. I saw a soul too brave to waste.”

​He turned away, dismissing her with a final, chilling decree. “Rest. You are mine now. And no prayer, no curse, and no prophecy will ever return you to the surface.”