I grabbed Rose’s arm. “No. Not if it means losing you.”
“Bash—”
“Look at me.” I forced her to meet my eyes. The roar of the sea, the screaming of the crew, the groan of wood—it all went distant for a breath. “I almost lost you once today. I’m not handing you over to whatever madness lives in that thing.”
Her eyes were so dark they were almost black. There was fear there, and grief, and something else that I’d learned to recognize long before I ever called her my wife—stubborn, reckless love.
“If I don’t,” she said quietly, “you lose all of us.”
The words landed like a cannonball to the chest.
Behind us, Val shouted orders, voice raw. “Oscar, bring her nose around! Keep us off its flank, you hear me? I don’t fancy being wrapped like a gift!”
“Aye!” Oscar bellowed back, already sprinting toward the helm. Inu followed, sword drawn, a silent shadow at his back.
Another wave slammed over the deck, icy cold. For a heartbeat, the Wraith pitched so sharply I thought we’d capsize. Somewhere below, a scream cut through the chaos.
“The hull’s taking water!” someone yelled. “She’s taking water fast!”
Of course she was. The Wraith had survived more than most ships deserved to, but even she had limits.
Rose lifted the shell. Sebastian Jr. clung to the edge, glaring at her like this was somehow all her fault.
“You’re not going to like this,” she murmured to him. “But I need you to be brave with me, all right?”
The crab snapped a claw at her nose.
“That’s a yes,” she decided, and lifted the shell to her ear.
“Rose—” I started.
She closed her eyes.
The air shifted.
The glow from the shell intensified, throwing strange, pale light across her face,
across the deck, across my arms, holding her upright. For a heartbeat, everything went quiet. No roaring Leviathan, no shouting crew, no creak of rigging. Just the low, thrumming hum of something ancient waking up.
Rose’s body went rigid.
“Rose?” My voice came out rough.
Her lips moved, but the words that spilled out weren’t hers. There wasn’t any language I knew. They were deeper, older syllables that rolled like waves across stone, consonants that hissed like escaping steam, vowels that tasted like iron and salt and the weight of years.
Morwenna’s eyes widened.
“Fool girl,” she whispered, but there was something like awe in it.
The Leviathan dipped beneath the water. For a heartbeat, the sea looked… empty. Too empty.
“She’s calling it,” Dilly breathed.
“For Saints’ sake, why?” Oscar shouted over the sudden wind.
“Because that’s how you kill a god,” Morwenna said. “You make it listen.”
The shell blazed. Rose’s eyes flew open—and for a horrifying moment, they glowed with the same cold light.
