I rolled my shoulders, feeling the ache settle deep—jagged cuts along my ribs, bruises blooming beneath my coat, a fresh gash splitting skin along my collarbone. My own wounds could wait. There was work to be done, and we weren’t safe yet.
The lull after battle never lasted. It was only a pause between storms.
Hands tightened around weapons. Eyes kept drifting to the horizon, half-expecting the sea to strike again.
An hour had passed and the crew were still shaking off the ghost of it. Blood slicked the deck. The groans of the wounded threaded through the wind.
The Shadow Sirens came from beneath, their voices cutting through night, weaving into weaker minds like a net. There were many kinds of sirens and siren-bred creatures, but Shadow Sirens were among the worst.
Their voices pierced deeper than steel, shattering the mind and drowning the soul in despair. They didn’t want devotion. They wanted annihilation.
Even I felt the pull—something invasive sinking into my thoughts, trying to drag me toward the abyss. The “song” wasn’t just sound. It was an invasion. It dug into memory, threaded through it, twisted it into something foreign—
And then I heardher. My mother.
Soft. Familiar. Singing the lullaby she used to hum when I was sick as a child.
It hit harder than any blade.
I’d buried her. Buried the truth of her. The sirens found it anyway. They always did. They used her voice to peel away the armor I’d wrapped around those memories.
For a heartbeat, I wasn’t captain of the Black Marrow.
I was a boy on a rotting dock, clinging to the last person who truly loved me.
Even now, the echo of that lullaby clung to the corners of my mind. I couldn’t remember her face clearly anymore—only that voice. Soft. Steady. And the sirens had defiled even that.
What the hell else would the sea take from me, if I let it?
Every note scraped against my will, demanding I give in. It snagged every buried fear until it bled into my thoughts. My body tensed, muscles screaming to surrender—to let go—to slip into the void.
The crew moved with quiet efficiency—bandaging wounds, securing rigging—tension thick enough to taste. I barked an order—“Secure the starboard sails!”—more out of habit than necessity, my voice rougher than I intended. My attention snagged on the bloodied deck, then shifted to Nerina.
Wary glances gathered around her. Suspicion settled over the deck. They’d seen magic before.
Not that.
A deckhand crossed himself and took one step back. Then another. Someone muttered a prayer. No one laughed. No one corrected him.
The space around Nerina widened without a word. Something had changed.
The ocean was unnervingly still. The usual rhythm of waves against the hull was gone—an absence so wrong it raised the hair on my arms. The quiet didn’t feel peaceful.
It felt watchful.
Merfolk were strong. I’d seen their magic. Nerina was something else.
There was an intensity around her that unsettled even the hardest among us. The air near her held charge—an edge I couldn’t name. It wasn’t just strength.
It was potential. Raw. Untamed.
Where other merfolk carried elegance in their power, hers was wild—chaotic—defiant of the natural order.
It felt ancient.
It felt dangerous.
And it should have terrified me.
