"Have a little patience," he said, voice low. "I’m getting to that part."
"No, the sea did not curse me.Shedid. The Trench was not empty. She was waiting there. Her fury was a living thing, roiling through the depths like a storm waiting to break. She saw my greed, my arrogance, and she did not look upon me with pity or patience. She was wrathful. Betrayed. I had defiled her home, taken what was never meant to be claimed, and for that, she made me suffer. She answered—not with death, but with a curse."
"Eternal life," he said. "Her gift, but also her punishment. A curse woven into the tide itself. At a cost. The sea gave us time, but it took everything else—our humanity. Leaving only hunger, the endless pull of the tide demanding more. We are bound to these waters, to this ship."
For a moment, I could only stare at him. Alaric—who had, up until now, seemed untouchable, insufferable, carved ofarrogance and sarcasm—had just opened a door into a part of himself I hadn’t known existed. And now that I’d glimpsed it, I couldn’t unsee it.
What did it mean that the man I thought I should fear most… I suddenly wanted to understand.
His curse wasn’t just a punishment—it was a monument to choices he couldn’t undo. And in that, I saw a reflection of my own unraveling. Of what I might still lose.
My stomach twisted. "Who isshe?"
Alaric stilled, just for a breath—but it was enough. His shoulders tensed, jaw clenching ever so slightly, the memory of her burning beneath his skin. He didn’t speak right away, and the silence that followed said more than words ever could.
Whatever came next, it wasn’t just history. It was a wound.
He met my gaze, and for the first time since I’d stepped aboard the Black Marrow, something broke in his eyes. Not anger. Not mockery. Something raw. Something almost human. A softness that had no place in a man who had walked so long with death at his side.
"Meris," he said, voice low. "The Sea Goddess."
The world tilted.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.
My fingers tightened around the glass until I feared it might shatter.
"Meris?" I echoed, like the word itself might stab a hole in reality.
Alaric’s expression darkened. “You know her?”
Yes. I knew her. Not as a myth. Not as a curse. But as the woman who raised me. Who sang me lullabies made of tide and moonlight. Who braided starlight into my hair and whispered that I was born of the sea.
I swallowed, a tremor in my chest.
"I know her," I whispered. “...by another name.”
His brows drew together.
The lanternlight caught on the rim of my tears. I felt like the sea was drowning me from within.
“Mother.”
18
Alaric
The Black Marrow
The single word—Mother—hung in the air like an anchor, dragging my thoughts into darker waters. My pulse kicked, old fury waking. Meris. Her name alone was enough to rot the air. Of course it would be her.
The beams overhead groaned as the ship rocked, the scent of salt and damp parchment filling the cabin. Every inch of the space carried the weight of time—walls lined with relics of voyages past: maps curled at the edges, rusted instruments, artifacts plundered from places best left undisturbed. Lanternlight caught Nerina’s face in pieces—cheekbone, collarbone, bare shoulder—and for a fleeting second, I was struck dumb . Not by what she’d said, but by the storm she’d walked into my life with.
Nerina’s face stayed unreadable, but her knuckles whitened around the glass, trembling ever so slightly. She was waiting for me to speak—to confirm or deny what she had just said. I could only stare.
"Mother?" My voice came out rough, edged with disbelief. "Meris is your mother?"
Nerina swallowed, nodding once.
