And why were these Corallure assassins fleeing when they were so close to the port?
I looked around at my ship. My heart sank, my breaths shallow, as I saw the unmoving bodies around me. Why did the Corallure ship attack without confronting us first?
Things didn’t add up.
Except one:They sent someone to kill me.
I took off my hat, tipped my chin to the fallen, and then slowly, achingly made my way to the helm.
My men needed order. Leadership.
Every part of my body protested, but I had to move.
“Captain!” Destin yelled.
His voice was frantic, but I didn’t react quickly enough.
And that was when it happened… there was another round of cannons fired.
The last round.
Aimed right at me.
The ground exploded beneath my feet and I flew into the air.
As fire, wood, debris, smoke, and oil consumed me, I knew I’d be going to the locker this time.
My body hit the waves, my consciousness failing me.
Water filled my lungs.
I knew I needed to swim, but my body protested. It seemed I was in my body, but I could not tell it what to do.
Shock…I was in shock. Several more booming noises sounded above the surface, and planks of wood, barrels, and metal fell into the water.
The pieces brushed past me.
I had never really imagined dying, perhaps because I’d always been so invincible, so untouchable. It would take a miracle to survive this.
And now that death had come, the strangest feeling ripped out my heart: Regret.
Regret at having lived the life I dreamed of yet not enjoying it.
Regret at all the darkness in my past: teaming up with a wicked queen to kill her daughter, pretending like it didn’t bother me, pretending that my whaling empire could make up for such an almost-heinous deed…
And so much more.
I was too delirious to picture all the regret, but it was all there, piercing me like a harpoon striking a whale.
I’m gone,I thought, sinking.
Drowning.
This was the end of Alaric Galeborne, the wealthiest, most powerful whaler in all the seas. He died just like any other whaler, returning to the sea he thought he conquered.
And then something happened… somethingmoved.It rose beneath me. Not wood. Not man.
Flesh.
