Chapter 14
Alaric
The Black Marrow
The crew didn’t need stories to know something was wrong.
I saw it in the way hands lingered on blades, in the way eyes kept flicking to the water—afraid it might open beneath us without warning.
Men who’d laughed in the face of storms now moved like the deck might betray them.
The sirens. The Leviathan. The trench. We’d survived them, but survival had come at a cost, and fear was collecting its due.
Superstition or not, no one returned from the Forgotten Trench unchanged—if they returned at all.
The past days had left their mark, like salt ground into an open wound.
They were restless. Wound tight by fear and suspicion.
In the trench, Nerina found another quartz shard. The moment my fingers brushed it, a pulse of energy rippled through the water, sending a shudder up my arm.
The opening was too narrow—a jagged wound in the rock that only someone small, and foolish, would try to slip through. I told her to leave it, but she never listened when curiosity called. She never listened at all, really. All I could do was wait outside.
Saints knew what could’ve been in there, waiting for a naive mermaid to wander in unsuspectingly. The trench was no place for curiosity—it was where curiosity went to drown.
She came shooting out a heartbeat later, eyes wide, hair streaming like a banner behind her.
Before the rock gave way. The whole cavern collapsed in on itself, sending up a cloud of silt so thick I couldn’t see her, couldn’t see anything. The sound was like thunder caught underwater—violent. Final.
When the dust cleared, the passage was gone. Buried.
Later, she told me there were drawings inside—faint, almost erased by time—carved into the stone like warnings left behind by those who came before. Symbols she said felt familiar, though she’d never seen them. Even hearing her describe them made my skin crawl.
She traced them with her fingers, my breath fogging in the cold water. I knew—whatever this artifact was, it had been here long before we ever set foot in those cursed depths.
When I looked back at the crew, I saw it in their eyes too—the same dread, the same sickness settling beneath the surface.
It festered. Rotting under their skin. Making them restless, desperate for someone to blame.
Fear doesn’t need logic—it only needs a target. And they had chosen Nerina.
I didn’t blame them. We barely knew her. She carried an air of mystery—an enigma wrapped in shifting tides—and that unsettled them more than any storm. Even so, she’d helped us during the attacks, whether or not they’d been drawn to her in the first place.
It started in whispers—furtive glances, muttered words exchanged in the shadows between deck duties.
The kind of whispers that crawl beneath the skin, carrying enough venom to fester.
Then came the looks: the ones that lingered too long, heavy with doubt and unease.
Even men who had stood by me through tempests and battles began to let superstition seep into their thoughts.
“She’s cursed,” someone murmured when they thought I wasn’t listening. “She brought this on us.”
Another voice answered, hushed but sure. “We should’ve left her where we found her.”
I’d known this would happen, eventually. The sea breeds fear as easily as it does storms. Men who spend their lives trying to outpace death don’t take kindly to anything—or anyone—that makes it chase them faster.
But knowing it would happen didn’t mean I was prepared for it.
Garen stood beside me through storms that broke lesser crews.
The men listened when he spoke—not because he demanded it, but because he’d survived long enough to earn it.
If he sided against me, the crew would follow.
If he didn’t, they’d hesitate. Right now, hesitation was the only thing keeping this from getting ugly.
“Enough o’ that,” he barked, his voice slicing through the tension.
“Cap’n’s made his call, and that be the end of it.
We’ve weathered worse storms and lived to drink after.
If ye' need someone to curse, curse the sea—it don’t owe us loyalty nor mercy.
Turnin’ on yer own?” He spat to the side.
“That’s the kind o’ mistake that gets a crew killed. ”
Kael, on the other hand, made no effort to hide his discontent.
“This isn’t just bad luck,” Kael said as he fell into step beside me. His voice was low, but I heard the tension coiling beneath it. “First the sirens. Then the
Leviathan. We’ve sailed these waters before, Alaric, and I don’t believe in coincidence.”
Not Captain. Just Alaric.
The name hit the air. Disrespect rolled off it like a slap. My crew knew the code—knew what titles meant out here, on a ship ruled by more than wind and salt.
Kael knew it too.
Which meant he’d chosen it.
Behind him, Garen straightened.
“Watch your tongue,” Garen said, quiet but heavy. “You forget yourself.”
Kael glanced his way, eyes narrowing, but Garen didn’t flinch. He didn’t have to. His presence alone was warning enough—an anchor in the rising tension. For a heartbeat, the deck felt like a loaded crossbow.
I broke it with a dry chuckle, letting it cut through the silence like a well-thrown dagger. “You want to challenge me, Kael? At least wait ’til I’ve had a drink, a meal, and maybe a good fuck. Wouldn’t want your mutiny to make me cranky—bad for morale.”
It earned a few begrudging smirks from nearby crew, but the air stayed tight. Brittle.
Kael didn’t answer right away, but the way his lips pressed into a thin line was answer enough.
“This is my ship,” I said, voice calm, even. “And she stays.”
Kael didn’t argue. He nodded once—rigid, tight—and stepped back into the press of the crew. Around us, men returned to their tasks, but the way they moved had changed. Slower. Less certain. Like they were waiting to see which way the tide would turn before committing their weight to it.
The crew was uneasy, their trust in me thinning like old rope. And if that rope snapped…
I kept my expression unreadable. I’d been captain long enough to know men like Kael spoke out only when uncertainty ruled. The crew trusted me—I’d seen them through storms, battles, and horrors that would have broken lesser men.
“You always did like making things difficult,” Kael said, his tone carrying something unspoken. A reminder that there was only so much control even I could maintain before the tide turned against me.
I smirked. “Wouldn’t be any fun otherwise.”
You don’t hear a mutiny coming. You feel it—like a change in the wind you’re too late to outrun.
When I finally entered my quarters, I found her there.
She was draped across my chair like she had always belonged, a flicker of amusement stirring beneath my irritation. I shoved it down. She had a way of making herself comfortable in places she didn’t belong—on my ship, among my crew, in my thoughts.
The second shard of quartz rested beside her, pulsing with a soft violet light, responding to her presence the way the other piece did.
“Making yourself comfortable?” I asked, leaning against the doorframe.
“Trying to figure out why there are three different versions of the same map,” she said, tilting her head, eyes scanning the pages. “None of them are finished. Like whoever made them got close—then stopped.”
I made a low sound in my throat. “Sounds like most cartographers I’ve met. Start with ambition, end with rum.”
She didn’t smile. Didn’t even look up.
Her eyes stayed pinned to the parchment—keen, searching, like she was trying to will the ink to rearrange itself into something she recognized.
I huffed a quiet laugh and crossed the room. The way her fingers drummed lightly against the armrest told me she was lost in thought, her mind elsewhere. It wasn’t rum she was interested in—it was something deeper.
I studied her, a flicker of curiosity stirring. There was a certainty in her voice, an understanding that felt out of place. Had she seen something before—something she wasn’t telling me?
I poured rum into my glass, watching the amber liquid swirl.
“It’s strange,” she said quietly, brushing her fingertips over the sketches. “I can read almost anything. Mermaids are fluent in every language above and below the sea.” She hesitated, brows knitting. “But I can’t read this,” she whispered.
I stepped closer, enough to see the symbols—intricate, spiraling shapes arranged in constellations and lines. They glittered faintly, like ink made of crushed stars.
“You’re sure it’s not a dead language?” I asked.
She shook her head immediately. “No. I’d still understand the roots, the structure, the cadence of the letters. This isn’t anything I’ve ever seen. It almost feels like…” She trailed off.
“Like what?”
“Like it’s pretending to be a language.”
She finally glanced up at me, eyes wary, considering. By now, after a few days on the ship, I knew she had questions—about me, about what I was. She’d seen enough to know I wasn’t an ordinary man, and her silence only meant she was waiting for the right moment to ask.
“And what do you see when you look at them?” I asked.
“I see broken trails, missing stars, and questions no map was ever meant to answer,” she said. “They aren’t guides—they’re riddles. Half-truths. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe they were never meant to lead us somewhere real—just far enough to get lost.”
The words hung between us. For a moment, neither of us spoke. In the silence, I felt what was coming settle deeper in my bones. This journey—whatever it was—would only get darker from here.
Nerina had power, yes, but she’d never been forced to wield it with intent. She didn’t know what it meant to fight for survival. Not really. And I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep shielding her—from the sea’s hunger, from the crew’s doubts, from the world waiting to tear her apart.
I leaned against the table, studying her. Training her meant giving her the tools to survive. It also meant admitting how dangerous the path ahead was.
Could she handle it?
Could I?
The ship was growing more dangerous, the artifact’s instability worsening, and Nerina was at the center of it all.
The shard pulsed faintly, a subtle hum vibrating through the planks beneath my boots.
The runes carved into the Black Marrow’s hull flickered, struggling to hold—cracks spiderwebbing through them with each passing hour.
Whatever power the artifact held, it was unraveling something ancient, something beyond my understanding.
Her magic was powerful, sure—but wild. Undisciplined. From what I’d seen, she barely knew how to control it, relying more on instinct and luck than any real technique.
Magic is only useful when you’re the one holding the reins—not when it’s dragging you behind it.
She needed more than power.
She needed control. Discipline. Something to anchor her when magic alone wouldn’t be enough. If she didn’t learn restraint, the sea—or the men aboard this ship—would decide it for her.
I watched her for a long moment, then asked, “Do you even understand your magic? How to use it? How to control it?”
Nerina looked almost embarrassed. She straightened slightly, fingers tensing on the armrest—but she didn’t need to answer. Her silence, the way her gaze dropped for the briefest moment, said enough.
No. She didn’t know how. And she knew I could tell.
“You need to learn how to fight,” I said finally. “And not just with magic. You need to understand its limits before it becomes a crutch.”
She raised a brow. “I know how to fight.”
I smirked, tilting my head. “No. You know how to wield magic—kind of. That’s different.”
She frowned, gears grinding behind that sea-glass stare. I pushed off the table, stepping closer, voice dropping. “Magic can’t always save you, Nerina. And when it fails, you’d better know what to do with a blade.”
Silence stretched between us, heavy with something unspoken.
Nerina’s fingers curled against the armrest, knuckles whitening as she steadied herself.
Lantern light flickered, casting shifting shadows over her face, but she didn’t look away.
The tension in the room thickened—not just from what was said, but from everything left unsaid: the weight of choice, of trust, of survival.
The ship creaked beneath us, a quiet reminder that the world outside wouldn’t wait for her decision.
Then, slowly, she nodded. “Fine,” she said. “Teach me.”
“That’s more like it.” I nodded—and wondered if I’d just forged the blade that would someday be pressed to my throat.