His eyes held mine, glacial and unblinking. “To survive.”
A shiver chased down my spine, but I hid it behind the smallest smirk. “And here I thought this was simply hospitality.”
“That’s the thing about hospitality, Nerina.” He leaned back, studying me. “You never know when it’s a prelude to war.”
I finally took a bite—not because he told me to, but because my body demanded it.
His focus never left me, but something in it changed. Not lust. Not even hunger for power. Just calculation—the kind that measured worth, leverage, and how much pain it would take to break something useful. My skin crawled. I kept eating anyway. He was right I’d need my strength if I was going to survive him—if I was going to survive whatever game this was.
“Why do you do such horrible things?” I asked, forcing my tone to stay level.
He leaned back in his chair, amused. “Horrible? That depends who’s telling the story. At home, they call me a unifier. A peacemaker. Out here? A poacher. A butcher. Maybe both are true.”
I didn’t flinch. “That doesn’t answer the question.”
“I do what needs to be done,” he said, swirling the wine in his glass. “This sea is chaotic. You either conquer it, or it swallows you whole. I chose to conquer it.”
“With fear and death?” I countered.
“With power. Knowledge. Leverage." The calm in his voice made my skin prickle. He wasn’t boasting. He was stating fact.
He laughed and gestured toward the runes etched into the walls. “Out here, I’m a pirate. But in Ymirskald, I’m something more.”
“What is… Ymirskald?” I asked, stumbling slightly over the syllables.
His grin widened. “You say it like a southerner.” He leaned in, voice dipping smoother, almost coaxing. “It’s ‘EE-meer-skald.’ Let it roll like thunder off the tongue.”
He didn’t sound offended—more like a teacher indulging a student.
“Ymirskald is the Northern realm,” he said, and for the first time, something warm flickered beneath the ice in his voice. “A land of ice-capped mountains and frozen tundras." He paused, almost reminiscent. "Gods, it’s beautiful.”
I kept my voice dry. “And you’re from there?”
“Born of frost and fire,” he said, pride lining every syllable.
The phrase slid under my skin before I could shove it away. I didn’t want to picture the place he’d come from, but my mind painted it anyway: silver-lit peaks, stone cities spilling heat into the frozen dark, magic stitched into every gust of wind.
I kept my expression still. “Sounds cold,” I said flatly.
He smiled like he knew exactly what I was doing, and let me have the illusion anyway.
“How do you know Alaric?” The question slipped out quickly than I meant.
Veyrion leaned back, eyes narrowing in something that looked almost like nostalgia—but the kind that cut. “He was the first man I ever trusted with my life."
Something tightened in my chest at the image.
“But time wears on loyalty.” He swirled the liquid in his glass. “And greed… greed changes people."
The silence thickened, heavy as the fur mantle at his shoulders. I turned my attention to the flickering fire, but I could feel his eyes on me, deliberate, searching for cracks.
Then, quietly, almost like a challenge: “So tell me what are you, Neri?”
My head turned, slow. “A mermaid,” I said flatly. “You’ve seen plenty. Sorry to waste your time.”
“Waste my time?” He leaned back, settling in. “The only way you could waste my time is by being ordinary. And you are anything but.”
“I’ve seen mermaids—dozens, hundreds,” he said calmly. “None who glow. None with a crescent carved into their skin.”
