Kai
Chapter twelve
Unraveled
The sea’s balance has been off for over a century, but Mira doesn’t know just how deep the roots of that imbalance reach.
Whispers ripple through every dark cove and tidepool about the Soul of the Ocean, twisted and corrupted by something ancient and cruel.
It’s been birthing horrors, creatures of kelp, shadow, bone, and rage.
An army of drowned things, growing slowly beneath the waves.
The corrupted Soul was once a mermaid, long ago.
That’s what the old stories say. But its original form is long gone, warped into something unrecognizable.
Now, it can wear any face it wants, man, woman, monster, but it can never go back to what it once was.
It chooses its victims carefully, pulling them under one by one until the sea has taken its due.
Once it marks you, there’s no escaping what comes next.
You drown, but your soul doesn’t rest, it festers, trapped beneath the waves for eternity, forgotten by the living and unwanted by the dead.
And the worst part, they whisper, isn’t the dying.
It’s the begging that comes after, the pleading for release the ocean never grants.
Being the new Soul of the Ocean is already enough to paint a massive target on Mira’s back, but add her siren blood to the mix, and she’s walking straight into a storm with no way out.
Pirates have always despised sirens, me being one of them.
They blame them for lost ships, dead men, sunken treasure.
Most would kill one on sight, some out of revenge, others for profit.
Siren blood is a powerful bargaining chip, passed between witches and pirates like dark currency.
It’s rare. Nearly impossible to come by.
Few survive a siren encounter, let alone spill their blood.
But Mira, she carries it in her veins. If the corrupted Soul’s army discovers what she truly is, the danger multiplies tenfold.
They don’t just hunt, they consume. Anything that threatens their queen’s reign becomes theirs, body and soul.
What keeps me up at night isn’t just the threat, it’s the question of how.
How does she have siren blood? Was it a blessing from the ocean while she grew in her mother’s womb?
Or was she marked as an infant, touched by a siren, or something worse?
Maybe her father’s past holds more shadows than even Mira knows. Or her mother's past…
What terrifies me most is that the sirens know. They always know. And sirens protect their blood with a vengeance. Like she said, they’ve never attacked her. She feels safe with them, but that safety is an illusion.
Her story plays in my head again: a small girl on a dock, feet skimming the water, a siren rising from the deep to meet her.
Any other child would’ve been dragged under, torn apart.
But not her. She walked away untouched, even content.
That kind of mercy doesn’t happen by chance.
If they’ve decided she belongs to them, they’ll come for her.
And I don’t know if I could even stop them.
It’s the morning after our little game. I tell myself it’s for the best, that whatever’s trying to claw its way to the surface needs to stay buried. Feelings complicate things. They make men weak, and I can’t afford weakness right now. I’ve made deals with dark creatures, and I intend to keep them.
Still, when I catch the echo of her laugh somewhere on deck, it sticks like salt in an open wound. She slept before I did, sleeps longer still. Maybe she’s trying to forget what happened between us. Maybe she already has. I wish I could say the same.
On deck, I check how close we are to Pike, the coastal town swallowed by thick jungle where Veyra lives.
We were en route when the kappas made their unexpected appearance.
Seeing Veyra will help. She sees, hears, and feels everything.
A tether between us and the heartbeat of the earth itself.
She keeps the land whole, while the Soul should govern the ocean’s wrath. I’m not sure which burden is heavier.
Veyra faces the chaos of humans, politics, greed, war. The Soul answers to monsters, sirens, mermaids, pirates, witches, and the ancient things that drift in the dark. But Veyra has a way of getting along with all of them. Even the sirens.
I climb the stairs to the quarterdeck where Jay stands at the helm, his favorite place, hands steady on the wheel. The sun has just broken over the horizon, casting a golden glow across the sea. Everything shimmers: the sails, the waves, even the sky itself looks like it’s been kissed by firelight.
“Are we close?” I ask, stepping up beside him.
Jay doesn’t look at me right away. “Aye,” he says after a pause. “Few hours out, give or take.” The Leviathan is the fastest ship on the sea. We can reach places days—sometimes weeks—faster than any other, depending on the winds and tides.
His tone is off. Too tight. Jay is always steady, always unshaken. But now, something in his voice makes my spine go rigid. “What is it?” I ask.
He turns his back to me, eyes fixed on the horizon like he’s searching for something hiding just beyond the edge of the world.
“Seeing Veyra might not be the best idea,” he says, voice low.
“She’s not someone you can lie to. Or control.
” He hesitates, then adds, “She’s close to a goddess, Kai.
Closer than most men are comfortable with. ”
He isn’t wrong. I’ve been dreading this visit since the moment we set course for Pike, long before Mira came aboard.
Veyra’s power runs deeper than most can comprehend.
She doesn’t just hear the whispers of the world; she commands them.
But I also know she sees the truth in people.
And if Mira is beside me, Veyra will sense it.
She’ll see who I truly stand for. That has to count for something.
“I wouldn’t worry,” I say, sounding more confident than I feel.
“That’s what my father thought too… that he shouldn’t worry.”
My brow lifts. Jay never talks about his parents. That conversation has always been off-limits. “What?” I ask, still caught off guard that he even brought him up.
“My father, he was cursed by Veyra herself. Even sayin’ her name feels like breakin’ a law.
” He finally turns to me, eyes meeting mine.
“I just hope you’re confident enough to face someone of her rank.
She’s a goddess, a powerful one.” His voice stays level, but there’s something there, something sad.
“I’m never not confident in what I do,” I say, meeting his gaze. “How did your father die? What omen did she place on him?”
He looks away from me, back out to the endless stretch of ocean. “He took her from him.”
I have an inkling of who he means, but I ask anyway. “Who?”
He takes a long pause, and I wait. “My mother,” he murmurs.
Shock ripples through me. Veyra is powerful, yes, but taking an innocent life to pay for another is ruthless. I can see the unease flicker across Jay’s face, how dragging this memory out has cost him.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “I didn’t know. You never speak of them.” He grunts, lighting his pipe, a coping mechanism if I’ve ever seen one. He takes his time answering, drawing in the smoke, then releasing it slow. The smoke curls through the air, catching the morning light in ghostly ribbons.
He exhales through his nose, pipe smoke drifting between us.
“My father thought he could bargain with a goddess and walk away whole. Thought he could cheat her outta what she was owed.” He shakes his head, a low, bitter laugh slipping out.
“But no one cheats Veyra. She takes what she’s promised, one way or another. ”
He looks out toward the horizon, eyes dark. “He went to her thinkin’ he could save my mother. That’s the kind of fool he was, always tryin’ to fix what was already broken. She warned him there’d be a price, but he didn’t listen. When the sea came to collect, she took her first.”
Jay draws in another long breath of smoke. “So if you’re plannin’ to face her, Cap’, remember this. Veyra don’t forget, and she don’t forgive. If she sets her eyes on Mira… pray the sea takes you first.”
I study him for a moment. His expression is serious, but he recoils into himself, his knuckles going white as he grips the helm tighter than usual.
“I have it under control. When don’t I?” I add with a smirk, trying to lighten the tension.
Jay doesn’t answer, just grunts, that low sound he makes when he knows better but can’t say.
I turn toward the quarters, hoping Mira’s awake.
Just then, a sharp, electric pain crawls up my arm.
I shove back my sleeve and freeze. My scar is pulsing, dark veins spidering out from it like ink spreading through water.
Black. Not red. The ache settles into a steady rhythm, a heartbeat beneath my skin that isn’t mine.
I cover the scar. Some things are better left unseen and better ignored. There are more pressing matters.
My thoughts race back to Jay as I descend the stairs, his words echoing in my head.
He’s sharp, steady, sees right through people.
He was fiercely loyal to my father until the day he saw me covered in bruises.
I was barely tall enough to grip a sword.
Most would have looked the other way, but he stepped up.
Took me in. Raised me like I was his own.
Had the crew do the same. He was never afraid of my father’s wrath when it came to protecting me.
He joined our crew young, maybe fifteen, and somehow still knew more about loyalty and piracy than most men twice his age. When I asked him once why he cared, why he stayed, he said, “He may have raised you with brawns, but I raised you with purpose.” I don’t know where I’d be without him.