The scent made my mark ache—not flare, not glow—tightening as if the sea itself recoiled. Crisp, cold and metallic. Then crushed sea petals, faintly sweet but wrong. Black kelp burning slowly, thick and smoky.
It didn’t smell like old magic. It smelled forbidden. Whatever this potion gave, it wasn’t meant to be borrowed.
At first, nothing happened.
The silence stretched—thick and suffocating. Then his body seized.
Alaric doubled over, a strangled cry tearing from his throat. His spine arched violently, veins straining beneath his skin as though something inside him was trying to claw its way out. His knees buckled, and before I could reach for him, he hit the deck hard—
Convulsing.
Panic surged. A bolt of fear lanced through me, sudden and brutal. I dropped to my knees beside him, gripping his shoulders as his body twisted, sweat slick beneath my hands. I held on, desperate to anchor him—to keep him here, with me.
I couldn't lose him.
Maybe it was the night he hauled water for hours to build that makeshift tub, refusing to let me dry out again. Or the way he put himself between me and the Leviathan—snarling, bleeding, cursing me for my recklessness even as he shielded me with his own body. Or the moment I learned the truth of his curse and he offered no excuses.
Just raw honesty. Trust.
I’d told him things I’d never said aloud. Given him pieces of myself I barely understood.
With him, the truth came too easily.
And now—watching dark magic seize his body—I understood the danger. Losing him would break something in me that couldn’t be mended.
I didn’t know what he was to me—shield, spark, ruin—but I knew this: He had taken root in places I hadn’t known were hollow. That realization terrified me more than the convulsions beneath my hands.
His barbed words. His silences. Even his anger. I saw them clearly now—not cruelty, but fear. Guilt worn like armor. Distance kept as protection. Yet somehow—through all the fury and razor-dry sarcasm—I saw him.
Somewhere in the chaos, something shifted.
I called his name, my voice breaking on the weight of his absence—but he wasn’t there. Not really. His eyes were vacant, unfocused, consumed by whatever dark magic surged through him.
Panic clawed up my throat.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. I just reached for him, wrapping my arms around his trembling form. Because letting go wasn’t just unbearable—
Garen ran over, shouting for help.
Then, just as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
My heart still thundered in my chest, every pulse reminding me how close I’d come to watching something I cared about slip away. I clenched my jaw, forcing the thought down before it could fully form.
But another truth gnawed at me—one I couldn’t ignore: If something had happened to Alaric—if he hadn’t woken—I would have blamed myself. I had led him here. Into this bargain. Into this madness. The weight of it settled in my chest.
Alaric shuddered, his body still trembling, his clothes damp with sweat. He sat up slowly, eyes narrowing, testing his limbs.
“Let’s go.”
He didn’t look at me when he said it.
The space between us filled with everything unsaid—anger, restraint, and a new, brittle awareness that whatever trust we’d been building could crack so easily.
The streets were worse than the docks.
The moment we stepped into them, it felt like the city swallowed us whole—alive, ravenous, watching.
I stole a glance at Alaric, bracing for the usual argument, for the usual command to stay behind where it was “safe.”
