Chapter 6 Alaric
Alaric
The Black Marrow, On Course to the Forgotten Trench
The storm hadn’t let up.
The wind shrieked, wounded and furious, claws tearing at the sails as rain lashed the deck in blinding sheets. The Black Marrow surged forward—unyielding, reckless—nothing left to lose, nothing willing to break.
The Forgotten Trench was still far off, but the ocean already felt wrong. Restless. Taut.
No one spoke of turning back, but I felt their silent prayers torn from their mouths and scattered by the wind.
The Forgotten Trench wasn’t just dangerous—it was forbidden.
Older than the oldest maps. Deeper than any sounding dared to reach.
Every sailor knew the stories: voices in the dark, ships swallowed whole, magic that twisted minds into something unrecognizable.
For my crew, it wasn’t a legend. It was a memory.
The last time we sailed those depths, the curse was cast—not just on me, but on all of us. Bound to The Black Marrow. Sealed to the sea. The Trench had taken our freedom and spat us back out changed.
They didn’t fear the unknown.
They feared returning to the place where everything was lost.
I stood at the prow, hands locked around the cold iron rail, staring into the storm-torn water. The artifact weighed heavy in my coat pocket, its presence constant. A burden. A promise.
Freedom.
Behind me, the crew murmured, voices rising and falling beneath the roar of wind and waves.
Fear bled into frustration, restraint stretched thin.
Some whispered. Others didn’t bother lowering their voices, irritation edging their words—questioning whether I was leading them toward fortune or damnation.
I caught fragments. “Cursed artifact.”
“Damnation waiting to happen.”
Mistrust spread faster than the storm. A harsh bark of laughter cut through it.
Kael.
He stood with his arms crossed tight over his chest, defiance etched into every line of him.
Broad. Scarred. Unmovable. Moonlight caught the edges of his tattoos—maps of old sins and sea beasts winding across his arms and chest. His shirt hung open at the throat, torn and salt-stained, black fabric stretched over a frame shaped by hard labor and harder choices.
The wind tangled through his beard and the braids threaded through his hair, each bound with bone, coin, and weathered cord.
A pale scar split one brow, memory of a blade—or something worse.
He stared at the horizon, daring it to move first.
No softness. Only the weight of a man who’d outlasted mutinies, curses, and gods.
When he spoke, his voice scraped low and deliberate.
“If the Captain thinks he can cheat the ocean, he’ll drown us all for his arrogance.”
A hush followed—tight, coiled.
“Say that again, Kael,” I said, turning to face him. My voice stayed calm.
The crew froze, eyes snapping between us. Kael had always been defiant, but this wasn’t just fear. It was grief twisted into resentment. He’d lost too much to the sea. Now he was daring to lay that loss at my feet.
“I didn’t quite catch it over the sound of your cowardice.”
Kael’s face flushed. His dark eyes narrowed, lips curling back just enough to show the faint gleam of his fangs. His fists clenched, tension rolling off him. The space between us thickened—violence waiting to be invited.
I watched him carefully. He wanted a fight.
I stepped closer, boots creaking against the deck.
“Go on,” I said quietly. “Bare your teeth at me. I’ll pull them out one by one.”
My gaze locked on his until he broke first, muttering an apology under his breath.
The crew scattered. Whispers faded but didn’t vanish. They questioned me. Questioned my obsession.
Almost charming—how they thought their opinions mattered. On most ships, the crew chose their captain.
Not on The Black Marrow. She chose hers.
Once chosen, there was no undoing it. They knew better than to dream of mutiny. Rebelling against me would be rebelling against the ship itself.
I sometimes wondered what she’d seen in me. What shadow, what flaw, what darkness marked me as hers. Whether it was the same darkness she once recognized in my father.
I valued my crew. Their loyalty had carried me through more storms than I could count. But their fear—their whispered doubts—were weights I couldn’t afford. I didn’t blame them. My desperation had led us into the Trench before. My hunger. My arrogance.
If guilt curled inside me, rusted and heavy, I kept it buried. If I let it surface, I’d never rise again.
One truth mattered more than all of it. I had to break this curse.
No matter the cost.
I couldn’t spend another decade trapped between sea and shadows, bound to a ship I could never leave.
There was a time I wanted more than blood and saltwater. A life. Maybe a family. A home on land. To grow old. To die quietly.
The sea took that too.
I’d tried spells. Bargains. Blood sacrifices. Nothing worked. But the artifact—
It pulsed with power older than the ocean. Older than the goddess who cursed me.
I believed—no, I knew—it was tied to the moment everything went wrong. To the key that might undo it.
I would drag fate down with me before letting it slip away.
At dusk, with the sea bleeding red beneath the sinking sun, I retreated to my quarters. The storm raged on, but another storm churned in my chest—doubt, defiance, and the relentless pull of something inevitable.
The artifact remained in my pocket, humming stronger now, aware. The crew’s whispers. The ocean’s warnings. Kael’s defiance.
None of it mattered against the hunger clawing at my ribs. This wasn’t desperation anymore.
It was obsession.
The curse had taken everything—my life, my choices, my future. I wanted to break it not just to be free, but to reclaim the man I’d been before the Trench.
I needed to know if salvation was possible. And I was certain the artifact was the key. It remembered something I didn’t.
And it wanted something from me in return.
My curse hadn’t been born from a drunken brawl or a careless night with a witch.
It was forged in ruins buried beneath black water.
The Forgotten Trench was still days away, but the sea refused to grant us even a moment of mercy. In my quarters, lantern light flickered across the crescent artifact, its surface gleaming with secrets just out of reach.
I couldn’t stop staring at it.
Its hum prickled my skin, pulsing faster in my hands than ever before—a second heartbeat, erratic and insistent. I tried to ignore it, to focus on the crew and the course ahead, but it refused to be forgotten.
My fingers traced the carvings, searching for meaning. If a fragment held this much power, what would the whole thing become?
A knock at the door cut through my thoughts.
“Captain,” Garen said. “You need to see this.”
I set the artifact down, reluctance biting hard. “What is it?” I asked.
“You need to see it for yourself.”
I followed him onto the deck. Wind howled. Rain struck my face in sheets. Garen pointed toward the water.
“There.”
At first, it looked like debris. Then it shifted—light blooming faintly beneath the waves.
“What in the abyss…” I muttered.
The glow grew stronger as the storm tossed the shape closer. A woman.
Limp. Motionless.
A faint glow burned on her forehead.
I didn’t think.
I vaulted the rail.
Cold slammed into me, crushing the air from my lungs, searing every nerve. Waves battered me under, salt burning my eyes. I didn’t know why I’d jumped—only that something deep and old refused to let me watch her drift away.
Instinct. Memory. Failure.
I fought through the current, the glow guiding me through the chaos. My fingers closed around her arm.
Her tail brushed against my leg. Not human. A mermaid. Cold. Unresponsive.
For a heartbeat, I thought the storm had claimed her. Then the crescent mark at her brow pulsed—faint, but alive.
There was no time to wonder. I pulled her close and kicked hard, muscles screaming as I drove toward the ship. The Black Marrow loomed ahead, her shadow slicing the storm.
“Pull us up!” I shouted.
Ropes dropped. Hands reached. Garen steadied me as the crew hauled us over the rail.
We hit the deck in a rush of water and motion. The crew gathered, wary and silent.
I barely saw them. My focus locked on her.
She was the most striking mermaid I’d ever seen. Iridescent hair clung to her pale skin, shimmering beneath the storm-dark sky. Pale scales flashed in the lightning. The crescent on her forehead glowed softly, pulsing in a slow rhythm that echoed the artifact’s hum below deck.
The connection twisted tight in my gut. I’d seen her before.
“Captain,” Kael said quietly. “What is she?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But she’s coming with us.”
No one argued.
In my quarters, I wrapped her in blankets, fighting the cold bleeding from her skin. The artifact’s hum grew louder, its glow intensifying in her presence.
I stayed with her while the storm raged on. Hours passed before she stirred. When her eyes opened—
Starlight. Bright. Unsettling. Enough to leave me momentarily hollow. Beautiful.
I swallowed hard. “Comfortable?” I asked.
My voice stayed steady. Even if I wasn’t.