My stomach tightened.
That was a shoulder.
A hand.
The body floated face-down, limbs slack, hair stirring faintly like ink spilled into water. No blood clouded the deep. No struggle marked the space around it.
Just silence.
I drifted closer, heart thudding, the Crescent shards burning cold against my ribs as the distance closed—
The water rolled him an inch.
And I saw his face.
Every sound in the ocean vanished. No current. No distant whale-call. No pulse of tide.
Just the violent, animal roar of my own heartbeat.
Alaric.
His body hung motionless in the water, dark hair fanning around his face, skin pale as bone. His chest didn’t rise. His arms were limp.
I screamed his name. The sea swallowed it. My throat burned. My chest heaved. The water blurred with tears—salt against salt—as my hand shook and reached forward, stretching until my arm trembled with strain.
“No. No. No—” The word fractured out of me, a broken plea. “Please. Please—no.”
A sob tore through my chest, raw and ugly. It felt like the sea spun. I wanted to scream again—to curse the ocean, the Tidekeepers, Meris, fate—anything that had ever touched me and taken from me. But all I could do was tremble.
I had thought he was untouchable. A storm made flesh. A cursed, unkillable shadow. He had been endless, infuriating, reckless—but he had beenhere. And now he was nothing but a pale shape sinking into the dark. The man who had undone me. Who had kissed me like I was his salvation. Who had fought for me like I was worth bleeding for.
Gone.
The hollow ache in my chest widened until I thought it might split me open.
I lost Thalassia. My mother. My sister. But this was different. This was worse.
The sea pressed closer, cold and suffocating. I folded in on myself, arms wrapping around my chest trying to hold the pieces together before they shattered completely. My mark pulsed, aching—but it wasn’t comfort. It was a reminder.
My fingers closed around his arm at last. Cold.
Heavy.
“No—” The sound cracked as I dragged him toward me. His body sagged against mine, dead weight in the water. His head lolled, dark hair tangling with mine as the current rocked us both. His lips were parted.
His chest did not move. His eyes stayed shut.
I wrapped my arms around him and held on—harder, tighter. “Don’t you dare,” I choked, words scattering into bubbles. “Don’t you dare leave me.”
I pressed my forehead to his. The heat of my mark seared, desperate—sparking nothing in him.
Nothing.
“You bastard,” I sobbed, clutching him so tightly my arms ached. “You foolish, infuriating bastard.”
My chest heaved. Salt blurred my vision until the world became light and shadow. There was no wound. No blood. Only the awful stillness of a body the sea had claimed before I could.
“Please,” I whispered.
