The crew didn’t need stories to know something was wrong. I saw it in the way hands lingered on blades, in the way eyes kept flicking to the water—afraid it might open beneath us without warning. Men who’d laughed in the face of storms now moved like the deck might betray them. The sirens. The Leviathan. The trench. We’d survived them, but survival had come at a cost, and fear was collecting its due. Superstition or not, no one returned from the Forgotten Trench unchanged—if they returned at all.
The past days had left their mark, like salt ground into an open wound.
They were restless. Wound tight by fear and suspicion.
In the trench, Nerina found another quartz shard. The moment my fingers brushed it, a pulse of energy rippled through the water, sending a shudder up my arm.
The opening was too narrow—a jagged wound in the rock that only someone small, and foolish, would try to slip through. I told her to leave it, but she never listened when curiosity called. She never listened at all, really. All I could do was wait outside.
Saints knew what could’ve been in there, waiting for a naive mermaid to wander in unsuspectingly. The trench was no place for curiosity—it was where curiosity went to drown.
She came shooting out a heartbeat later, eyes wide, hair streaming like a banner behind her.
Before the rock gave way. The whole cavern collapsed in on itself, sending up a cloud of silt so thick I couldn’t see her, couldn’t see anything. The sound was like thunder caught underwater—violent. Final.
When the dust cleared, the passage was gone. Buried.
Later, she told me there were drawings inside—faint, almost erased by time—carved into the stone like warnings left behind by those who came before. Symbols she said felt familiar, though she’d never seen them. Even hearing her describe them made my skin crawl.
She traced them with her fingers, my breath fogging in the cold water. I knew—whatever this artifact was, it had been here long before we ever set foot in those cursed depths.
When I looked back at the crew, I saw it in their eyes too—the same dread, the same sickness settling beneath the surface.
It festered. Rotting under their skin. Making them restless, desperate for someone to blame.
Fear doesn’t need logic—it only needs a target. And they had chosen Nerina.
I didn’t blame them. We barely knew her. She carried an air of mystery—an enigma wrapped in shifting tides—and that unsettled them more than any storm. Even so, she’d helped us during the attacks, whether or not they’d been drawn to her in the first place.
It started in whispers—furtive glances, muttered words exchanged in the shadows between deck duties. The kind of whispers that crawl beneath the skin, carrying enough venom to fester. Then came the looks: the ones that lingered too long, heavy with doubt and unease. Even men who had stood by me through tempests and battles began to let superstition seep into their thoughts.
“She’s cursed,” someone murmured when they thought I wasn’t listening. “She brought this on us.”
Another voice answered, hushed but sure. “We should’ve left her where we found her.”
I’d known this would happen, eventually. The sea breeds fear as easily as it does storms. Men who spend their lives trying to outpace death don’t take kindly to anything—or anyone—that makes it chase them faster.
But knowing it would happen didn’t mean I was prepared for it.
Garen stood beside me through storms that broke lesser crews. The men listened when he spoke—not because he demanded it, but because he’d survived long enough to earn it. If he sided against me, the crew would follow. If he didn’t, they’d hesitate. Right now, hesitation was the only thing keeping this from getting ugly.
“Enough o’ that,” he barked, his voice slicing through the tension. “Cap’n’s made his call, and that be the end of it. We’ve weathered worse storms and lived to drink after. If ye' need someone to curse, curse the sea—it don’t owe us loyalty nor mercy. Turnin’ on yer own?” He spat to the side. “That’s the kind o’ mistake that gets a crew killed.”
Kael, on the other hand, made no effort to hide his discontent.
“This isn’t just bad luck,” Kael said as he fell into step beside me. His voice was low, but I heard the tension coiling beneath it. “First the sirens. Then the
Leviathan. We’ve sailed these waters before, Alaric, and I don’t believe in coincidence.”
NotCaptain. JustAlaric.
The name hit the air. Disrespect rolled off it like a slap. My crew knew the code—knew what titles meant out here, on a ship ruled by more than wind and salt.
Kael knew it too.
Which meant he’d chosen it.
Behind him, Garen straightened.
