Chapter 21 Nerina
Nerina
The Black Marrow
The candlelight was weak, flickering like a heartbeat near its end.
Shadows stretched long across the room, draping maps and sea charts in veils of gold and ash.
Alaric sat at the desk, haloed in that fading glow, his fingers tapping against the wood.
Each tap landed behind my eyes. I stood in the doorway, pulse fluttering a little too close to nausea.
My skin still itched from where it had dried out—tight and papery.
I remembered the way the thirst had hollowed me out, not just in body but in mind, how even my magic felt brittle and starved.
I’d never gone that long without water. Without the sea.
It felt like dying in slow motion, like something sacred inside me was cracking.
Part of me was still afraid I hadn’t fully come back.
I stepped inside, the wooden floor cold and splintered beneath my bare feet.
My body ached—not from pain, but from the strange weight of magic that still hummed under my skin.
Salt clung to me like a second skin, dried in a crust at my collarbones and behind my ears, itching faintly.
My thoughts swirled with the echoes of the dream—the place of sea and stars, of endless water and ancient voices.
He didn’t look up.
I pressed both palms to my temples and sighed, willing the world to stop swaying. The world did not cooperate. The world doubled down. "It feels like a whale parked itself across the back of my head."
“That’s the rum,” he said. His voice was a warning and a taunt and a little too pleased with itself.
“I thought it was water,” I muttered, squinting at him through the throb behind my eyes.
“It’s called a hangover,” he repeated, slow and patient in the way people sounded when they were not patient at all. “It happens when you drink too much rum.”
“So it’s… a punishment?”
“More like a consequence.”
“That’s cruel and unnecessary.”
Alaric’s mouth tugged sideways, half amusement, half pity.
I press my fingers to my temples, “How long does it last?”
“Depends,” he said. “Hours. Maybe a day.”
“A day?” I gasped. “Why would anyone do this to themselves intentionally?”
“They don’t drink half a bottle,” he said dryly. “Most start with a sip.”
“I was thirsty!” I snapped defensively. “I was drying out—I was desperate.”
He crossed his arms, muscles shifting beneath his coat in a way that was rude, frankly, given my current condition.
“So you decided to hydrate with the strongest rum in my cabin. My good rum.”
“You didn’t tell me human drinks were dangerous,” I said.
I grimaced, because he had technically warned me. Many times. About many things. Usually, things I ignored.
“You’re fluent in every spoken tongue on land and sea.” His tone dropped into that dangerously patient register he used when I’d done something particularly foolish. “And you didn’t read the label?”
Heat flushed my cheeks. “I read it.”
“And?”
“I thought it was a bit dramatic.”
“The label says Black Marrow Spiced Death.”
He moved closer. The kind of close that made my skin buzz with something that wasn’t entirely the consequence of the rum.
“You had no idea what would happen?” he asked, softer now.
“How could I? We don’t have anything like that in Thalassia”
“Nerina, it said ‘Three swallows may cause temporary blindness.’”
I flinched. “…I thought that was a joke.”
The ship swayed. Or maybe I did. Hard to tell. Strong hands caught my waist, steadying me.
“Sit down before you fall,” he murmured.
The words weren’t gruff. They weren’t mocking. They wrapped around me like warm hands.
Which was its own problem, because his actual hands were still on my waist.
“I’m fine,” I lied, wobbling immediately.
His grip tightened just enough to steady me, fingers spreading as though bracing for impact.
“Right,” he said, voice brushing my skin.
“I am,” I insisted.
“You’re swaying like a newborn kelpie learning to walk.”
I scowled. “That’s rude.”
“You drank half a bottle of my best rum. That’s rude.”
“It was pretty good,” I muttered.
He blinked—“…Pretty good.”
“Yes.” I lifted my chin. “Surprisingly so.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, a smile held hostage. “You enjoyed it?”
“Don’t sound so shocked.”
“I’m not shocked.” He paused, leaning a fraction closer, voice dropping low. “I’m… concerned.”
“About what?”
“Your taste.” His gaze dipped to my lips before snapping back to my eyes. “And your decision-making.”
Heat shot through me so fast it almost knocked me over again. “I make excellent decisions,” I whispered.
“Name one.”
“I—”
Oh gods.
I had none.
He watched my struggle like it was his new favorite pastime.
Then he stepped even closer, close enough that his breath warmed my cheek, close enough that the ship and sea and sky all fell away.
“Nerina,” he said softly, “you climbed into my cabin, ignored an entire wall of fresh water, and chose the bottle marked with a skull.”
My pulse was not behaving. At all.
“Let go,” I whispered, though my body leaned toward him.
“I will.”
He didn’t.
“When you’re steady.”
I lifted my chin stubbornly. “I’m steady.”
He eased his hands away… slowly…
Peeling himself free took effort.
The moment his fingers left me, the deck pitched—or I did—and I instinctively reached out.
My hand landed against his chest. Right over his heart.
His heartbeat thudded once beneath my palm—hard enough I felt it.
We froze. Both of us.
Suspended in something warm and stupid and wildly dangerous.
“…Steady,” he said, though it didn’t sound like he believed it.
I swallowed. “Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“You’re absolutely laughing.”
“I’m—” His voice cracked. He cleared it. “I’m trying very hard not to.”
He released me—slowly, like prying himself away. The deck swayed harder the moment he let go.
I lurched.
He moved slightly to catch me—
—but I raised a hand before he could. “No,” I said firmly. “I’ve got it.”
He froze. Hands half raised, jaw tight, eyes burning with something too intense for the moment.
“Alright,” he said quietly. “Show me.”
Challenge accepted.
I took one step. The world rolled. I adjusted.
Then another step. And another.
Alaric followed silently, his steps measured, close enough to catch me if I went down—but not touching.
Watching. Hunting. Holding back.
It made the air feel heated, electrified.
I reached the desk—barely—and placed one hand on its edge like it was the most dignified, intentional decision of my life.
“See?” I said. “Perfectly steady.”
He huffed a laugh through his nose—quiet, unwilling, almost fond. He looked at my mouth.
Then at my eyes. Then he stepped back. “Sit,” he said.
I did. More like melted into the chair.
The maps and journals were already scattered across the desk, parchment stained with salt from the trench and warped from the depths.
Alaric had been reviewing them when I entered, but now they sat between us like open secrets.
I reached out and let my fingers drift over the pages, tracing faded ink and curling symbols like I might summon meaning through touch alone.
One map had burnished edges and sea-worn creases that sparked something strange—recognition without memory.
On another page, a drawing caught my eye— a crescent surrounded by swirling lines. I leaned closer. It was eerily similar to the one I had seen carved into the walls of the Sanctuary of Milos after the Celestial Choir—when everything had shifted. The memory shivered through me, cold and electric.
I stared at it for a long moment, heart thudding, my mark burning faintly. Slowly, the pieces began to shift into place—not gemstones. Quartz. The same shimmer, the same fractured glow as the two fragments we had found. It wasn’t just similar. It was the same. This was part of it.
I blinked, pulse stuttering as the weight of it hit me. This wasn’t a coincidence—it was a connection. The fragment we’d found. The piece Alaric carried. This drawing. It all pointed to something older, greater.
The realization settled slowly: the fragments weren’t relics on their own. They were pieces of one object. One artifact.
The edges matched too perfectly, the shimmer identical. My fingers trembled as I reached for the closest piece. What if they locked together? What if the power we’d been circling was never meant to be divided?
It was a puzzle, shattered across time.
But what was this artifact? What did it do?
The journals and maps gave no answers. Their writing curled across the pages in a strange, serpentine script—even I couldn’t read it.
And that was rare. Mermaids were fluent in every language beneath the sea, and most spoken above it, too.
A skill born from generations of migration, back when we traveled freely across the oceans—when our tongues had to adapt to every shoreline and creature.
Even after those journeys stopped, the practice remained sacred.
We were taught every dialect, every variant.
But this? This was something older. Or… not of this world at all.
I opened my mouth to speak—but the ship lurched violently. My chair scraped back. Alaric slammed his hands against the desk.
Impact. Then silence. Then chaos.
Above us, the crew began shouting—a rising chorus of panic.
The ship moaned like something alive, wood straining and groaning under pressure, sails snapping overhead like thunderclaps.
The scent of wet rope and smoke filled the air, thick with tension and brine.
Another impact struck, harder this time. I gripped the chair to stay upright.
“That’s not a wave,” I whispered.
Alaric was already at the door. “Stay here.”
“No,” I snapped, already moving past him.
“Nerina—”
“I’m not some fragile little keepsake, you can not just lock me away.”
His jaw tensed. “You nearly died less than a day ago.”
“And yet here I am. You don’t get to order me around.”
“I’m not,” he growled. “I’m asking. Stay here. Let me handle it.”