“Watch your tongue,” Garen said, quiet but heavy. “You forget yourself.”
Kael glanced his way, eyes narrowing, but Garen didn’t flinch. He didn’t have to. His presence alone was warning enough—an anchor in the rising tension. For a heartbeat, the deck felt like a loaded crossbow.
I broke it with a dry chuckle, letting it cut through the silence like a well-thrown dagger. “You want to challenge me, Kael? At least wait ’til I’ve had a drink, a meal, and maybe a good fuck. Wouldn’t want your mutiny to make me cranky—bad for morale.”
It earned a few begrudging smirks from nearby crew, but the air stayed tight. Brittle.
Kael didn’t answer right away, but the way his lips pressed into a thin line was answer enough.
“This ismyship,” I said, voice calm, even. “And she stays.”
Kael didn’t argue. He nodded once—rigid, tight—and stepped back into the press of the crew. Around us, men returned to their tasks, but the way they moved had changed. Slower. Less certain. Like they were waiting to see which way the tide would turn before committing their weight to it.
The crew was uneasy, their trust in me thinning like old rope. And if that rope snapped…
I kept my expression unreadable. I’d been captain long enough to know men like Kael spoke out only when uncertainty ruled. The crew trusted me—I’d seen them through storms, battles, and horrors that would have broken lesser men.
“You always did like making things difficult,” Kael said, his tone carrying something unspoken. A reminder that there was only so much control even I could maintain before the tide turned against me.
I smirked. “Wouldn’t be any fun otherwise.”
You don’t hear a mutiny coming. You feel it—like a change in the wind you’re too late to outrun.
When I finally entered my quarters, I found her there.
She was draped across my chair like she had always belonged, a flicker of amusement stirring beneath my irritation. I shoved it down. She had a way of making herself comfortable in places she didn’t belong—on my ship, among my crew, in my thoughts.
The second shard of quartz rested beside her, pulsing with a soft violet light, responding to her presence the way the other piece did.
“Making yourself comfortable?” I asked, leaning against the doorframe.
“Trying to figure out why there are three different versions of the same map,” she said, tilting her head, eyes scanning the pages. “None of them are finished. Like whoever made them got close—then stopped.”
I made a low sound in my throat. “Sounds like most cartographers I’ve met. Start with ambition, end with rum.”
She didn’t smile. Didn’t even look up.
Her eyes stayed pinned to the parchment—keen, searching, like she was trying to will the ink to rearrange itself into something she recognized.
I huffed a quiet laugh and crossed the room. The way her fingers drummed lightly against the armrest told me she was lost in thought, her mind elsewhere. It wasn’t rum she was interested in—it was something deeper.
I studied her, a flicker of curiosity stirring. There was a certainty in her voice, an understanding that felt out of place. Had she seen something before—something she wasn’t telling me?
I poured rum into my glass, watching the amber liquid swirl.
“It’s strange,” she said quietly, brushing her fingertips over the sketches. “I can read almost anything. Mermaids are fluent in every language above and below the sea.” She hesitated, brows knitting. “But I can’t read this,” she whispered.
I stepped closer, enough to see the symbols—intricate, spiraling shapes arranged in constellations and lines. They glittered faintly, like ink made of crushed stars.
“You’re sure it’s not a dead language?” I asked.
She shook her head immediately. “No. I’d still understand the roots, the structure, the cadence of the letters. This isn’t anything I’ve ever seen. It almost feels like…” She trailed off.
“Like what?”
“Like it’s pretending to be a language.”
She finally glanced up at me, eyes wary, considering. By now, after a few days on the ship, I knew she had questions—about me, about what I was. She’d seen enough to know I wasn’t an ordinary man, and her silence only meant she was waiting for the right moment to ask.
