I hadn’t slept much since boarding the ship. Each night was restless, filled with the groan of the hull, the whispers of uneasy sailors, the relentless churn of my thoughts. Alaric, strangely, was never around during the day. I assumed he slept then—probably because I’d commandeered his quarters, and frankly, there was no universe in which I was sharing a bed with a pirate.
Whether out of politeness or self-preservation, he seemed content to haunt the ship’s darker hours while I tried to sleep in a bed that still smelled faintly of sea salt and something darkly sweet beneath.
A scent I now recognized as him.
Sleep, when it came, was shallow—fragmented dreams of dark water and distant voices calling my name. Memories of Thalassia pressed against the edges of my mind: my mother’s watchful eyes, distant yet suffocating; the Tidekeepers’ whispers when they thought I couldn’t hear.
I remembered the salt-laden air of the temple chambers. The way they gathered to observe. The rhythmic chants that never quite belonged to me.
I had spent my childhood shadowed by expectation, surrounded by secrets I was never meant to uncover.
They had hidden things from me.
I know that now.
But what? And why?
I exhaled slowly, my breath warm against the morning air. The chill slithered through me, curling around my ribs, hollowing my bones. The exhaustion tugging at my limbs felt heavier here, compounded by restless nights spent tangled in the ship’s shifting world.
Footsteps approached—quiet, deliberate. I didn’t have to look to know it was him. “You feel it, don’t you?”
Alaric’s voice cut through my thoughts, and I turned to find him watching me. His gaze was unreadable—but different now. Not just suspicion.
Curiosity.
I didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “The quartz?”
He nodded.
“The crew’s been whispering about it since we found it,” he said. “They say it’s cursed.”
“Do you believe them?”
He let out a humorless chuckle. “I’ve seen curses—seen how they twist men into unrecognizable things. How they rot from the inside out until there’s nothing left but shadow and hunger.” He nodded toward the quartz. “That? That isn’t a curse.”
“That is salvation.”
The word landed wrong. Salvation wasn’t what it felt like when the power tore through me. It hadn’t saved—it had burned. Taken. Hollowed. What Alaric saw in the quartz wasn’t what I’d felt inside myself.
I turned back to the water. The looming darkness ahead stretched toward the horizon, the trench’s presence both above and below the waves creating an unnatural divide. The sun hung like a dim coin behind the mist—just enough light to mark the hour.
Salvation.
That’s what he saw in the quartz. Salvation—from what?
The way he said it made my skin prickle. He wasn’t talking about hope. Or healing. He was talking about escape.
Whatever haunted him had already convinced him the price was worth paying.
What kind of man looks at a cursed object and sees hope? What exactly was Alaric hoping to be saved from?
He hadn’t said. Hadn’t offered details.
A weight settled in my chest—not fear, exactly, the heavy edge of something deeper. Something inevitable. The waves groaned against the ship’s hull, a low, eerie lament that echoed unnaturally in the thick morning air. The sound stretched and twisted, as though something beneath the surface was stirring.
Shifting.
Just out of sight.
