The world tilted beneath me, a sensation I hadn’t felt in centuries. I’d faced storms that could split ships in two, watched men fall screaming into the abyss, but this?
This was something else. This was impossible.
"No," I murmured, shaking my head. "That can’t be."
Her lips parted, forming a retort—then she hesitated. Doubt flickered across her expression like shadow skimming water. She didn’t defend Meris. Didn’t argue against my words.
That silence spoke louder than any protest.
I pushed off the desk and paced the length of the cabin, stepping through broken glass and drying blood that still glittered faintly on the floor. My boots struck the planks with dull thuds, glass crunching beneath them—each step a grim reminder of the chaos threading through my veins. My muscles tensed, old bitterness coiling tighter with every step I took.
The lantern flickered as I moved, casting shifting gold across brass fittings and deep grooves in the wood—worn from centuries of men pacing just like this, seeking answers, searching for an escape from fates already sealed.
Through the porthole, the dark ocean churned—endless, restless—mirroring the storm unraveling inside my head. Memories I’d buried clawed up with jagged edges: the Sanctuary of Milos. The Trench, where I’d begged for more, thinking myself invincible. And her—Meris—standing before me, eyes like the depths, voice like a riptide, sealing my fate with words that bound me to the sea forever.
And now, before me, sat her daughter.
The ocean’s cruelest jest—an echo of the woman who had damned me, delivered to my doorstep wrapped in starlight and storm. After centuries of torment, of being shackled to this cursed existence, the sea had sent me this.
Not a weapon. Not a monster. Not a key.
A girl. A joke.
It wasn’t just laughable—it was enraging. Poetic in a way that made my blood burn.
I turned back to her, something hollow forming in my chest. My fingers twitched at my sides, an old instinct surfacing—honed by years of rage and bitterness. Killing her might just be the perfect revenge for the hell Meris has put me through.
Something in her eyes froze me—a flicker of fear, or maybe defiance. Maybe it was the crescent, glowing faintly now, like it remembered something I didn’t. Maybe it was the echo of another life, another woman who once looked at me with hope and fire.
The thought cut deeper than I expected.
I rolled my shoulders, forcing the tension down. It did little to cool the heat rising in my blood. Instead of reaching for my blade, I asked, “Why are you here, Nerina?”
"What do you mean?" Her voice was quiet, but there was an edge beneath it.
Heat spiked behind my eyes. I felt it before I saw it—the sudden, involuntary pressure at my gums.
Nerina’s breath hitched.
I shut my jaw hard enough to ache, forcing the fangs back before they could fully descend. The hunger recoiled with them, snarling, unsatisfied.
Control returned—barely.
If I crossed that line, I would be no better than the goddess who cursed me.
"Don’t play coy, Nerina. You know exactly what I mean," I snarled. The sound of my own voice startled me—rough, cruel, too much like the man I swore I’d buried long ago.
In that fury, I saw her flinch—just slightly, just enough. She stepped back, bare feet pressing into the mess we’d made: broken glass, drying blood, the wreckage of too much truth at once. I should’ve felt vindicated.
I didn’t.
All I felt was the hollow echo of a man who’d just thrown a match into a room already burning.
Nerina straightened, eyes burning with a storm she clearly hadn’t expected to face tonight. "You brought mehere."
A beat.
"The night you found me, I just crossed The Veil. I left Thalassia because I was drowning in questions no one would answer," she said, her voice trembling with something raw and wounded. "I never felt like I belonged—not really, not anywhere. Not when my voice didn’t match the others in the Choir. Not when the other mermaids looked at me like I was something strange, something broken. I tried to become what they wanted—graceful, obedient, quiet—but I couldn’t. The Oracle told me to cross the Veil. At the time, I thought it was just another one of her riddles, but there was a tremor in her voice... like she was afraid. Not for herself—for me. Like she knew something and couldn’t say it outright."
