Chapter 21 Nerina #2
I stared back, defiant. “Let me decide what I can handle.”
His jaw clenched, the muscle ticking in irritation. For a moment, he looked like he might argue—but his fists only tightened at his sides, white-knuckled with the restraint of a man who’d rather yell but knew it wouldn’t sway me.
His eyes locked on mine, fire behind them. “You want to be reckless, fine. But don’t expect me to save you this time."
Whatever waited above deck, I wasn’t meeting it as the girl who hid behind someone else’s blade.
When we reached the deck, the sea wasn’t right. It writhed like a thing possessed, foam boiling in unnatural patterns, its color shifting from obsidian to deep cerulean. Lightning forked through the sky without thunder, illuminating the swells in blinding white flashes.
And then I saw it.
The Leviathan.
I remembered the roar, the eyes, the unnatural weight of it dragging across the current like it knew exactly where to strike.
The crew had barely survived. I had barely survived.
And the worst part—the part I still felt like a bruise behind my ribs—I hadn’t survived because of my strength.
I’d survived because Alaric had thrown himself between me and the monster, teeth bared, blade drawn.
I’d been useless. Defenseless.
Pathetic.
The memory clung to me like kelp, cold and cloying. I’d hated the way I’d felt afterward—small, breakable, like all the power everyone claimed I possessed was nothing more than a myth wearing my skin.
And now here it was again—stronger, bolder, like it had been waiting.
Its head breached the waves first—massive, serpentine, crowned in jagged fins. Water crashed onto the deck in sheets, knocking men from their feet. The Leviathan coiled through the dark, eyes burning like drowned stars—locked not on the ship…
…but on me.
A cold certainty settled in my gut. It was definitely here for me.
The crew erupted into motion. Garen bellowed orders from the starboard rail, hauling a harpoon into place as two deckhands braced the line behind him. Someone loosed a flare that hissed uselessly into the storm-dark sky. Steel rang as blades were drawn—not in hope, but defiance.
It felt like preparing to fight a storm with silverware.
The ship lurched as a coil slammed into the hull. Wood splintered. Men screamed. Lightning skittered along the creature’s spine, crawling over wet scales and snapping rigging like thread. A deckhand was thrown hard against the rail, another dragged back by his belt before the sea could claim him.
“Brace the starboard line!” someone shouted.
“She’s circling—Gods, she’s circling!”
A tentacle—longer than the mast—came down like a falling tower, crushing the forward cannon in a spray of iron and sparks. The Leviathan roared, the sound vibrating through my teeth, through my bones. My crescent mark flared, burning hot, a beacon answering its call.
Alaric was suddenly there, shoving a cutlass into my hand.
“Can’t kill it!” he shouted over the storm. “But we can drive it off!”
The sea surged around us—black, blinding. The Leviathan lunged, jaws yawning wide, teeth curved like ivory scythes. The stench hit me—brine and rot and something ancient.
It didn’t want me dead. It wanted me.
Possessed.
Caged.
I wouldn’t be taken. Not again.
I thought of Garen’s lessons—of pressure points and currents. Of Alaric’s drills, barked orders echoing across the deck as he forced us to fight smarter, not harder. I wasn’t the strongest. I wasn’t the fiercest. Or the most skilled.
But I knew the sea.
And every monster had a weakness.
The memory struck like lightning—the Thalassian Library, a child’s illustration I’d once laughed at. A leviathan pierced clean through the eye with a lance of light. I thought it was a myth then.
I was wrong.
“Harpoons—now!” Garen roared.
Steel flew. One struck true, embedding deep along the creature’s jaw.
Another snapped loose, dragging two men to their knees as they fought to hold the line.
Sparks exploded as blades glanced off scale.
Alaric moved through the rigging like a shadow, cutting lines, shouting orders, keeping the creature’s focus anywhere but on me.
My pulse thundered. I was so close.
I ran for the bowsprit.
The deck pitched violently. My boot slipped on wet planks and for one terrifying heartbeat, I nearly pitched headlong into the sea. Panic flared, choking the breath from my lungs.
If I fell, I was dead.
If I missed—
“Nerina!” Alaric shouted.
I caught myself on a rope, lungs burning, fingers numb. The Leviathan turned, sensing the shift, its gaze snapping back to me. My mark flared brighter—too bright—pain lancing through my skull as doubt clawed in.
What if the story was wrong? What if I was?
I swallowed, forcing the fear down. “Distract it!” I screamed.
Alaric didn’t hesitate. He scaled the rigging in a heartbeat, sliced a lantern free, and hurled it straight at the creature’s face. Glass shattered. Flames burst. He shouted, cursed, flung debris from above like a man daring the gods to strike him instead.
The crew followed—ropes snapping taut, harpoons yanked, men screaming defiance into the storm.
The Leviathan’s head swiveled.
That—
That was my opening.
I vaulted the railing—
—and agony tore through my ribs like a blade twisting sideways.
A raw, broken sound tore from my throat. The world lurched. For a split second, my body folded midair, momentum stuttering as white-hot pain detonated through my chest and spine. Something inside me tore—wet and final.
I was falling wrong.
The sea rushed up, black and hungry.
No.
I screamed—not in defiance, but panic—and willed my body to obey. My fingers locked around the hilt, tendons screaming as I forced myself to twist, muscles shaking, vision tunneling until all I could see was the Leviathan’s massive eye—
—and it blinked.
A slick, translucent membrane slid over it, sealing shut with a wet, glistening ripple.
Too late.
I adjusted on instinct alone, slamming the blade down into the thinner flesh beneath the eye. The impact jarred me—bone-rattling, violent—shock tearing up my arm as resistance fought back.
Then the steel punched through.
The Leviathan screamed.
The sound was not just noise—it vibrated through me, through my skull, through the marrow of my bones. My crescent mark ignited in answer, flaring too fast, too bright—pain ripping through my head as power surged without permission.
Lightning detonated along the creature’s spine.
Rigging snapped. Wood exploded. The deck bucked beneath me like a dying thing.
I caught a glimpse of Alaric just as the shockwave hit him.
He was flung into the mast hard enough to crack wood—his body snapping back with a sound I felt in my teeth. Blood sprayed dark against the deck as he hit and didn’t move.
The water thickened around me, dragging, resisting, heavy as if it no longer knew my name. My mark burned erratically, searing heat lancing behind my eyes as stars fractured across my vision. I tasted blood. Felt it spill from my nose, my mouth.
Focus.
I twisted the blade deeper, screaming as my ribs protested, pouring everything—fear, rage, desperation—into the strike.
The Leviathan convulsed.
Magic exploded outward like a rupture in the world itself. Lightning ripped free. The sea split with a deafening crack.
Then I was torn away.
The force ripped me from the creature and hurled me backward like refuse. I slammed into the deck hard enough to knock the air from my lungs, skidding across soaked planks until pain swallowed everything.
I couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t hear.
Just pain—and then—
Silence.
Not peace.
Withdrawal.
The Leviathan was gone.
I tried to push myself up.
My arms gave out.
I hit the deck like a broken thing, the impact knocking the air from my lungs as pain exploded through me. The world skidded—wood, blood, rain—then everything went black.
Nothing.
—or almost nothing.
Sound bled back in first. Disconnected. Muffled. Like hearing the world through water.
—“Nerina!”
Hands grabbed at me. Rough. Shaking.
“She’s not moving—”
“Gods, she’s not breathing—”
Boots pounded across the deck. Someone swore. Someone else was calling for Dr. Gideon. I felt pressure at my ribs—too hard—followed by a panicked shout.
For a distant, drifting moment—before thought fully returned—that panic warmed me.
They cared.
Despite the blood. Despite the fear. Despite whatever they thought I was.
“Don’t move her—don’t—”
A wave crashed over the rail, icy and real, soaking me through.
I gasped.
Air tore back into my lungs in a violent, choking rush—and immediately my stomach heaved.
I barely had time to turn my head before bile burned up my throat. I retched hard, vomit spilling onto the planks as my body convulsed again, harder this time, ribs screaming in protest.
“Easy—easy—”
Hands steadied me, one voice close and frantic, another swearing as someone hauled my hair back.
Embarrassing.
Absolutely undignified.
I shuddered, still shaking, and thought hazily: So this is how I die—slightly hungover and vomiting on a pirate deck.
The deck swam above me. Faces hovered—pale, streaked with blood and rain. Garen’s voice cut through the chaos, all command.
“Back—give her space.”
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, throat burning, and dragged in another breath.
I turned my head—
—and met Alaric’s gaze.
He was on one knee several paces away, blood soaking his shoulder, one hand braced against the deck. He hadn’t come closer. Hadn’t reached for me.
His face was unreadable—but his eyes weren’t.
Fear was there. Raw and immediate.
But tangled with it—something else.
Calculation.
Restraint.
The reflex to step back instead of forward.
Like a man standing too close to a fire he knew could burn him—and choosing, this time, not to reach.
For a heartbeat, he looked like he might move.
My crescent mark flickered weakly beneath my skin.