Chapter 55 Near the Shadow
Chapter fifty-five
Near the Shadow
-Maris-
Serenya was hunched over the railing again.
Maris tried not to laugh as she stepped around her, she mostly succeeded. The once-fearless warrior had now become a cautionary tale of what happens when pride meets sea travel.
“I swear,” Serenya groaned, her braid limp, her skin a shade paler than ash, “if I survive this voyage, I’m never stepping foot on water again.”
“I have no doubts about that,” Maris said, reaching to steady her.
“Gods,” Serenya whispered, clinging to the railing like it was her last tether to life, “strike me down where I stand.”
“You’re already halfway there.”
Maris smiled, but the levity didn’t fully settle in her chest. Not with what waited tomorrow. The coast of Calanthe loomed just over the horizon, one more night and they’d be in Nerium.
She stared at the horizon. Six days at sea, and not a flicker of nausea. The same transformation that had flooded her with power had also granted her something far less expected, stillness. The sea no longer fought her. It bowed.
Just like everything else had since she’d been crowned.
Still, that didn’t stop the gnawing weight in her stomach. A different kind of unease.
Since that stolen moment, she and Alarik had spoken only through the clash of blades and the echo of breathless commands.
No words, no glances, just the silence of something left unfinished.
She had ended it before it could begin, but some part of her still reached for him in the quiet, aching for what might’ve bloomed if she’d only let it.
Until now that is.
A crewman came to her door at dawn. A message from Alarik.
Report to the captain’s study. Immediately.
She didn’t knock as she entered.
Alarik stood at the wide desk, a map unfurled beneath his hands, his jaw sharp with tension. He didn’t look up.
Serenya joined a moment later, draped in a blanket and muttering curses to sea god in three languages straightening her spine when she caught the look on his face.
Alarik finally lifted his eyes.
“There’s been news, sent by a raven” he said. “Two things you need to hear before we dock.”
Maris leaned against the nearest beam, arms crossed. “Go on.”
“The ships meant to carry Kael’s forces… arrived early. Three weeks early.”
Maris’s breath hitched. “How?”
“Unusually favorable weather across the strait. My spies say they made landfall in Nythra two days ago.”
“That’s not enough time for a full invasion,” Serenya said. “They’ll still need to organize.”
“True,” Alarik agreed. “But that’s not what worries me.”
He slid a second scroll across the desk. An intercepted report. A few lines in coded script, then translated beneath.
A cloaked male seen in the saltlands. Alone. Traveling south along the forest route toward Nerium. Leaving a trail of bodies and terrors in his wake. Power fluctuates in darkness.
Maris’s heart slowed.
She didn’t need a name. She knew.
Kael.
She closed her eyes, fingers tightening against her ribs.
“He’s coming for me,” she said quietly.
“And for blood,” Serenya added.
Alarik’s eyes flicked up to Maris. So many words unspoken.
She shook her head turning back to the map. Nerium waited for them. A kingdom that called her queen in the same breath that it questioned if she could ever truly defeat a curse.
Kael was coming. With or without armies.
And the gods?
The gods were watching.
-Alarik–
He hadn’t said much in the days since the kiss.
Not to Maris. Not to Serenya. Not even to Zairon in the letters he sent across the sea. He’d sparred when called, spoken when needed, but something inside him had gone… quiet. And it terrified him more than rage ever could.
He watched her. Always from a distance, always trying not to let it show.
The way she stood on deck, wind in her hair, sea-bright eyes narrowed toward the horizon like she might command it to reveal Nerium sooner.
She was glowing again. Not like in the Hollow when she had cracked the sky but in smaller, softer ways.
In the way she walked steadier now. The way her power pulsed. She wore herself differently, as if her bones had been reforged in that temple, as if no one could ever again mistake her for breakable.
Now, every time he caught her eye across the deck, he wondered if she still heard the echo of those words. If she still burned from them the way he did.
His desperation festered beneath the surface hot, raw, hungry.
He hadn’t dared speak of the dream, not even in his own mind. It felt like a breach to even remember it, to let his hands recall the shape of her hips or the sound she made when he kissed the hollow of her throat.
Gods, he would’ve stayed in that dream forever if she’d asked.
But she hadn’t.
She’d looked away. And though her ring remained off her hand, and her eyes lingered a little too long sometimes, she had said nothing.
And neither did he.
Because if he gave voice to what he wanted, it would be a fire neither of them could walk away from.
But now… now there might not be time.
The captain’s message still rang in his ears like a war drum:
“The winds shifted. Nythra’s contracted ships made it early. They’ve docked. The Nythran king cloaked in shadow has been seen crossing the western cliffs. Alone. Direct. On foot.”
Of course him was. Of course the other half of her soul, shattered or not, would come tearing across the Achyron to find her.
Alarik gripped the edge of the desk until the wood cracked. He didn’t move. Just stared at the parchment as if it might burn a different message into itself if he willed it.
The ship rocked gently beneath his feet, but it felt like the world had just tilted.
Would Maris run to him?
Alarik dragged a hand down his face and forced himself to breathe.
They’d dock by dusk tomorrow. Zairon would hold the line if Kael reached Nerium first.
He didn’t know what choice she’d make when the past collided with her present. Didn’t know if he would be the one left kneeling again, this time, not in reverence, but in ruin.
But he would be there when she chose.
Even if it destroyed him.
And now… she stood before him.
For the first time in days, they spoke.
And it was only so he could break the news, Kael was coming.