What if the story was wrong? What if I was?
I swallowed, forcing the fear down. “Distract it!” I screamed.
Alaric didn’t hesitate. He scaled the rigging in a heartbeat, sliced a lantern free, and hurled it straight at the creature’s face. Glass shattered. Flames burst. He shouted, cursed, flung debris from above like a man daring the gods to strike him instead.
The crew followed—ropes snapping taut, harpoons yanked, men screaming defiance into the storm.
The Leviathan’s head swiveled.
That—
That was my opening.
I vaulted the railing—
—and agony tore through my ribs like a blade twisting sideways.
A raw, broken sound tore from my throat. The world lurched. For a split second, my body folded midair, momentum stuttering as white-hot pain detonated through my chest and spine. Something inside me tore—wet and final.
I was falling wrong.
The sea rushed up, black and hungry.
No.
I screamed—not in defiance, but panic—and willed my body to obey. My fingers locked around the hilt, tendons screaming as I forced myself to twist, muscles shaking, vision tunneling until all I could see was the Leviathan’s massive eye—
—and it blinked.
A slick, translucent membrane slid over it, sealing shut with a wet, glistening ripple.
Too late.
I adjusted on instinct alone, slamming the blade down into the thinner flesh beneath the eye. The impact jarred me—bone-rattling, violent—shock tearing up my arm as resistance fought back.
Then the steel punched through.
The Leviathan screamed.
The sound was not just noise—it vibrated through me, through my skull, through the marrow of my bones. My crescent mark ignited in answer, flaring too fast, too bright—pain ripping through my head as power surged without permission.
Lightning detonated along the creature’s spine.
Rigging snapped. Wood exploded. The deck bucked beneath me like a dying thing.
I caught a glimpse of Alaric just as the shockwave hit him.
He was flung into the mast hard enough to crack wood—his body snapping back with a sound I felt in my teeth. Blood sprayed dark against the deck as he hit and didn’t move.
The water thickened around me, dragging, resisting, heavy as if it no longer knew my name. My mark burned erratically, searingheat lancing behind my eyes as stars fractured across my vision. I tasted blood. Felt it spill from my nose, my mouth.
Focus.
I twisted the blade deeper, screaming as my ribs protested, pouring everything—fear, rage, desperation—into the strike.
The Leviathan convulsed.
Magic exploded outward like a rupture in the world itself. Lightning ripped free. The sea split with a deafening crack.
