“Eaten dinner?”
“Shared a meal.” His ancient eyes meet mine. “With someone who knows what I am.”
Oh. Something warm blooms in my chest, and suddenly I’m aware of how intimate this feels—just the two of us, in my small kitchen, sharing a meal he cooked. The way he’s holding himself,slightly stiff despite his fluid nature, reminds me of first dates and awkward dinners.
And maybe that’s exactly what this is for him. Even when he lived as a human captain, he couldn’t have risked getting truly close to a woman. One passionate moment, one intimate touch, and his secret would have been revealed.
I wonder if he’s ever been able to be with anyone at all, or if last night was as new for him as it was for me, just in a different way.
The thought makes my throat tight—not just the loneliness of keeping everyone at arm’s length, but never being able to experience that basic human connection. Never experiencing what it feels like to be touched by someone who knows exactly who and what you are.
I pick up my fork, needing a distraction. The first bite makes me forget everything else. The fish is perfectly cooked, tender and flaking apart, and the sauce… I close my eyes, savoring it.
When I open them again, Roark is watching me, his skin shifting to deep purples and blues, swirling like ink in water.
“Good?” he asks, sounding adorably hopeful for someone who’s supposed to be a fearsome creature of the deep.
“Good doesn’t begin to cover it,” I say, taking another bite.
He relaxes slightly, then the tentacles of his beard part slightly to reveal his mouth as he takes a bite of his own portion, themovement both fascinating and strangely elegant. “I’m glad my cooking skills haven’t atrophied.”
I try to picture him at a ship’s helm, giving orders, managing a crew. The image comes easier than I expect—he has that air of quiet authority about him, even now. “It must have been strange,” I say carefully, “living among humans like that.”
His eyes drift to the window, where the last light of day paints the sea in gold. “It was… complicated. Necessary, but lonely in its own way. Always holding yourself apart, even when surrounded by others.”
I get that. Maybe not the hiding-your-true-nature part, but the holding-yourself-apart thing? That’s basically been my entire adult life. “Is that why you became a captain? So you could be alone even when you weren’t?”
He looks back at me, surprised. “You’re perceptive, Ashe Morgan.” A tentacle reaches across the table, hesitates, then gently tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “But perhaps we should start at the beginning. You asked how I came to live among humans…”
He settles back in his chair, and I notice his tentacles have stopped their restless movement, going still as he goes deep in thought. Outside, the lighthouse beam sweeps across the darkening water, regular as a heartbeat.
“I was young when I lost my pod to hunters,” he says finally. “I survived only because I was exploring the depths that day, chasing schools of fish around a shipwreck.”
I set down my fork, my appetite wavering at the grief in his voice.
“The deep became my home after that. I learned its ways, grew stronger, but…” He pauses, and I watch emotions play across his features. “A pod creature alone is like a lighthouse without its lamp. It’s there, perhaps, but it’s missing its purpose.”
“How long were you alone?” I ask softly.
“Decades. Until I met Iris one day, when my loneliness brought me to shore.” His expression shifts, warming with the memory. “She quite literally ran into me while swimming away from some trouble she’d caused in a coastal town. As a fairy, I suppose trouble is one of her specialties, but this time she overdid it. I helped her flee their ships, and not long after that, she declared us friends. She was my first friend, in fact.”
I can’t help but smile at that, imagining some fae facing down a young Roark without fear. “She sounds amazing.”
“She was. Is, I hope—I haven’t seen her since the Great Unveiling.” He shifts, and the chair creaks like an old ship. “But back then, she changed everything. She saw how I longed to walk in the world above, to have a purpose beyond mere survival. So she offered me a gift: magical glamour that would let me pass as human.”
“It wasn’t an easy transition,” he continues, and I notice his tentacles have started moving again, but differently now—more purposeful, like he’s recreating memories through motion. “Iris taught me how to walk on legs, how to navigate human customs. I started as a ship’s cook, then a deckhand, learning the rules of ships from the bottom up. But I already knew the sea better than any human captain, could read its moods, predict its tempers.”
I lean forward. “So you worked your way up?”
“Mm. First mate by thirty—human years, that is. Then captain of my own small merchant vessel.” His eyes crinkle at the corners. “The Crown of Nova, we called her. Nothing grand, but she was mine. And for the first time since losing my pod, I had something like a family. Even if they couldn’t know what I truly was.”
The way he says it… I know that tone—that mix of fondness and distance, of belonging, but not quite. It’s how I feel giving tours, sharing my lighthouse with strangers who’ll never understand what it really means to me.
“Did you ever…” I start, then hesitate, not sure if it’s too personal. But the intimacy of the moment, the soft darkness gathering outside, makes me brave. “Did you ever want to tell any of them? About the real you?”
His tentacles go still again, and in the growing dusk, I can see the faint luminescence of his skin casting light on my walls. “No. I kept to my solitude, even among humans. It was safer that way. Easier.”
“Until the Great Unveiling,” I say.
