He spun, parrying a hook strike, then twisted the steel from his enemy’s hands and drove it back into the man’s chest. His voice was cold as he turned to me. “I didn’t abandon you, Alaric. I refused to follow you into madness.”
“Madness?” The curse burned hot in my veins, the memory struck harder than any blade.
I snarled, cutting down a man who lunged at my side. “You left when I was fighting forherlife—when I needed my brother.”
“You weren’t fighting for her,” he spat, voice low and cutting. His blade punched through a poacher’s sternum, his boot shoving the corpse free. He never broke my stare. “You were tearing the sea apart, chasing shadows and lies. She wouldn’t have wanted that.”
The words struck like a knife.
My chest twisted. Rage and grief collided until my grip shook on the hilt.
“Better damnation than desertion,” I hissed, stepping toward him, blood dripping from my blade. “You were supposed to be my brother.”
“And you,” he spat, slashing the tendon of a charging poacher before finishing him with a brutal thrust, “you were supposed to be more than your father’s son.”
The air between us tightened, crackling with years of venom. Around us, men faltered—torn between orders, between captains. The poachers pressed in, seizing the hesitation, steel flashing in the lantern light.
For one dangerous heartbeat, I didn’t know if I’d drive my sword into a poacher—
Or into him.
The world narrowed to his glacial eyes and my blade, blood dripping in rivulets between us.
Then Veyrion’s snarl cut through the haze. “There’s no time for this. Not here. Not now.”
Not now. But soon.
Another poacher rushed me, hook raised. I twisted, driving steel through his ribs, ripping it free as his body sagged against the rail. Around me, the deck was chaos—blades clashing, men screaming, fire licking where lanterns had shattered.
Veyrion was already carving a path through the throng, his axe cutting in cold, efficient arcs.
I forced my fury back into the fight, parrying, slashing, driving the poachers toward the stern. The curse thrummed hot in my blood, relentless. Every kill only fed its hunger.
Then—
A scream.
Not the ragged cries of men dying. Not the shrieks of beasts in cages. This one cut sharper. Purer. It carried across the water like a blade through silk. My chest seized. My grip went slack.
Nerina.
Another man lunged, and I split him open without thought, my eyes locked on the dark horizon beyond the poachers’ line.
I couldn’t see her. Couldn’t hear anything more than the chaos around me. But deep in my bones, I felt her.
Pressure seized behind my ribs, dragging me deeper. My chest convulsed as air became a memory. "Nerina…” I rasped, almost to myself, as the sea surged louder in my blood.
My mind was no longer whispering. It was screaming.
Go. Now.
The sea below was black. Endless. My lungs clenched just looking at it. I didn’t know where she was. I couldn’t breathe down there—couldn’t survive long enough to make a difference. Yet I couldn’t stop.
Something in me pulled hard as a chain, every beat of my heart screaming her name.
I seized one of the heavy chains the poachers used to drag their catch, the iron slick with salt, biting into my palms. My crew shouted behind me, their voices lost in the roar of blood in my ears.
“Careful,” I muttered, chest tight. “For once in your damned life.”
