Chapter 15
Nerina
The Black Marrow
Alaric looked at the dagger lying between us.
“Again,” he said, voice flat.
Moonlight spilled in thin ribbons across the planks.
The blade clattered to the deck before I’d even steadied my grip.
My legs wobbled beneath me—traitorous and unsure, still not fully adjusted to the constant give of the Black Marrow’s deck.
Balance was a war I fought every day, each step a small rebellion against muscles not meant to stand this long.
My palms stung. Salt wind bit at my skin as I bent to retrieve the weapon, trying to ignore the heat of embarrassment climbing my throat. The crew wasn’t watching us—not openly—but I could feel their eyes, their judgment tucked behind every glance, every scoff muffled by the crash of waves.
I’d faced sea beasts, escaped the Veil, touched a relic that made the air taste like lightning. I’d spent days teaching myself how to walk across slick planks and uneven stairs, willing strength into muscles that hadn’t known gravity the way Alaric’s crew did.
A weapon in my hand still felt foreign—like asking the tide to hold a flame.
And now I was being bested by cold steel and my own damn pride.
Weeks aboard the ship helped. I could brace when the deck pitched, climb rigging, and dodging barrels. A blade demanded something else entirely.
“Loosen your grip,” Alaric said, circling me like a predator sizing up wounded prey. “You’re not strangling the blade. You’re guiding it. It’s not about force. It’s about control.”
“I’ve got control,” I muttered.
He arched his brow. “The floor might disagree.”
I gritted my teeth and repositioned my stance. My feet slipped on the damp wood, but I planted them again—shoulders square, eyes fixed on his. If he expected me to fold, he didn’t know me as well as he thought.
“Better,” he said.
For a moment, I thought I saw something flicker behind his eyes—approval. Or amusement.
The next strike came without warning.
I barely blocked it. Steel kissed steel, the impact jolting up my arms like lightning. My wrists screamed, my balance faltered—but I didn’t fall.
Not this time.
For a split second, something shimmered beneath my skin—a faint glow along my collarbone, gone so quickly I wondered if it was just sweat catching the light. I shook it off, tightening my grip.
When I looked up, Alaric was watching me—not guarded, not alarmed. Thoughtful.
Like he’d noticed something he wasn’t ready to name. He was too close.
The scent of him hit me all at once—salt and smoke and something darker beneath it, like burned sugar and bloodied steel. His breath ghosted across my cheek, and I hated that my heart responded faster than my blade ever could.
I didn’t flinch. I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. His eyes lingered on mine a beat too long.
Then two.
For a moment, I forgot the ache in my arms, the sting of embarrassment, the steady roll of the sea beneath us.
“Are you studying my form,” I said, tilting my head with a smirk, “or just trying to get me on my back again?”
His grin was slow. Infuriating.
“Would it make you try harder if I said both?” he murmured, gaze flicking from my eyes to my lips and back again. “Because I’ve got all night. And I happen to enjoy the view.”
I rolled my eyes, but my pulse betrayed me. I should have moved. I didn’t—because I was watching him.
His presence muddled my instincts.
Then, with a sudden sweep of his boot, he knocked my legs out from under me.
I hit the deck with a hard grunt, the blade skidding from my hand.
Before I could react, the tip of his blade was at my throat. Not pressing—just there.
A warning. A lesson.
His shadow loomed over me, and for a breathless second, neither of us moved. The ship rocked beneath us, wind tugging loose strands of my hair.
“You hesitate,” he said, voice like a blade drawn slowly from its sheath. “You die.”
There was something beneath the warning—darker, slower. Dangerous in a different way.
I glared up at him, chin lifted despite the blade at my throat. “Are you always this dramatic,” I said lightly, “or are you flirting with me?”
That grin again. Wicked. Familiar. “Is it working?”
I smiled, breathless but unbothered. “Maybe.”
His eyes widened just enough to betray surprise. Then I moved.
With a twist of my hips and a brutal shove to his thigh, I threw him off balance. He stumbled back—just enough for me to roll, snatch the fallen dagger, and spring to my feet.
This time, it was my blade at his chest.
Only then did he step closer—slow, deliberate. Close enough that I could feel the heat of him, the scent of salt and smoke and that darker edge beneath it.
Something surged in me—hot, wild, electric. Not just pride, though that was part of it.
Power.
Not borrowed.
Not stumbled into. Chosen.
“You hesitate,” I teased, chest heaving. “You die.”
His laugh was low, dark—and maybe a little impressed. “Good.”
We kept sparring.
Strike after strike.
Parry.
Duck.
Lunge.
Again. And again.
My muscles burned with each pass, sweat sliding down my spine as the sky began to pale toward dawn. Alaric was relentless—never cruel, never coddling. Every correction was deliberate. Every mistake punished with another round.
“You freeze like that,” he warned after I hesitated a second too long, “and someone’s going to gut you before you can blink.”
At some point, Garen joined us, stepping in with a two-handed sword that made mine look like a child’s toy. He didn’t speak much—he didn’t need to. His movements were measured, deliberate. He tested me with heavy strikes that forced me to dodge, react, and think.
Where Alaric was quicksilver, Garen was iron. Both of them pressing from different sides.
Exposing every weakness.
By the end of the lesson, I was drenched in sweat, arms trembling, legs aching so badly I wasn’t sure I’d stay upright. My palms blistered, fingers raw from gripping the hilt too tightly. Salt stung every scrape and bruise.
I stayed standing. Barely.
Collapsing to sit against a crate, I let the blade fall beside me. My breath came in shallow bursts, but I didn’t regret a single one. I’d learned more in one brutal night than I had in days of half-lessons and survival aboard this ship—or centuries in Thalassia.
I still have a long way to go.
Just before dawn, I returned to Alaric’s quarters, the ache in my limbs dull and pulsing like a second heartbeat.
I stripped out of my damp tunic and washed in silence, using the chipped basin by the window and a rag that smelled faintly of sea salt and citrus oil.
Every movement made my muscles scream, but I welcomed the pain.
It meant I was changing. Becoming something more.
I dried my face and reached for one of the thick towels near his desk when something caught my eye.
The decanter.
It sat where it always had—dark glass, heavy crystal stopper, half-shrouded in shadow. Something about it felt different. Maybe the way the light caught its edges. Maybe the way the liquid inside had receded—visibly lower than the first time I’d noticed it.
Curiosity prickled along my skin. I told myself not to. Told myself it was his. Private.
I was already reaching.
I eased the stopper free. A soft hiss of pressure escaped, and the scent hit instantly—copper and iron.
Thick. Unmistakable.
Blood.
My stomach twisted. Thoughts tangled together—Was it his? Someone else’s? Why keep it here?
I stared into the dark liquid, nausea curling low in my gut. I should have stopped. Should have replaced the stopper. Pretended I hadn’t seen it. Pretended this didn’t change anything.
The scent clung to me—iron and salt and something achingly alive. The stories I’d told myself about him began to splinter.
Pirate. Captain. And something far worse. Whatever answer I reached for wouldn’t be the right one.
A knock shattered the silence.
I startled, jerking back—muscles still screaming from training—and the decanter slipped from my fingers.
Glass hit the floor and burst.
Dark, thick blood spilled across the planks, pooling around my bare feet, soaking into the seams. The metallic scent of iron filled the room like smoke.
I barely had time to move before the door opened. Alaric stepped in—
And froze.
His gaze swept the scene: my half-dressed form, the blood-slick floor, the shattered glass.
And me.
Caught red-handed in the middle of it all.