Chapter 22 Nerina
Nerina
The Black Marrow
The Black Marrow dragged itself through the waves, its magic fraying like a wound that wouldn’t close. Every groan of the hull vibrated through my bones. Alaric had warned me what happened when the Marrow’s magic ran thin: it didn’t just slow—it bled.
The Marrow ran on fuel you couldn’t stockpile. Store too much aboard and it turned on the ship—rotting wood, souring wards, eating its own hull. Morgra kept the supply in her cove because no one sane kept it anywhere near their sleeping deck.
I stood at the bow, watching the ocean stretch endlessly before us. My thoughts tangled with everything that had happened. I’d spent days staring at maps like they were stories meant for someone else. Now one of those inked coastlines waited ahead—real, solid, and dangerous.
The crew moved around me, working in grim silence. Even the usual banter was gone. They felt it too—the ship’s weariness, the lingering weight of battle. Garen organized repairs as best he could, but there was only so much you could do at sea.
Footsteps approached behind me. I didn’t need to turn to know it was Alaric. His presence carried a weight of its own.
He huffed a quiet laugh, but it held no real amusement. "The last time we came here, we were ambushed by the Covenant. Barely escaped with the Black Marrow still intact."
“The Covenant,” I echoed, unfamiliar syllables tasting strange on my tongue. Something about the name sent a ripple down my spine. “What is that?”
He exhaled through his nose, voice low and laced with memory. “A cult of hunters with ships full of silver hooks and holy rhetoric. They’re not pirates. Not poachers. They’re worse. "
"To them, mermaids are trophies. Vampires? Weapons. Fae? Test subjects.”
My stomach churned.
“I’ve seen what they leave behind,” he went on, eyes distant now. “Scales peeled like fruit skin. The scent of burning magic and salted blood. You don’t forget it. They call it purification.”
His knuckles whitened on the rail like he could feel the hooks.
“And their leader?” Alaric said, his voice like the scrape of steel. “Clever. Charismatic. Dangerous in the way only true believers are.”
He didn’t say the name. Didn’t need to. A flicker of something unreadable passed through his eyes—a grudge, maybe. Or guilt.
His expression hardened. “He moves through the world like he already owns it. Like everything unnatural should kneel—or be carved open. He’s not the kind of man who forgets a grudge. Or lets go of what he thinks is his.”
I swallowed. “And they’re here? In Sylvaris?”
“Not openly. They move like shadows. Influence the ports, buy off leaders, fund research.” His voice dropped further. “If they catch wind of you, Nerina, they won’t just come with curiosity. They’ll come with purpose.”
His eyes flicked toward the horizon, where the sky was beginning to darken—like the memory itself carried a shadow.
"Then why go back?" I asked. "Surely there’s somewhere else you can get what you need."
His fingers curled around the railing, anchoring himself to the truth of it. For a breath, he didn’t speak—just stared into the distance, wrestling something he wasn’t ready to name.
"Not the kind of magic this ship runs on." His voice carried a weight of reluctant certainty, the kind that only came when there was no other choice.
He had told me little about the place itself.
As we watched the dark horizon, I pressed him for more information. "What’s it like?"
Alaric glanced at me, studying my face for a moment before asking, "Have you ever been on land before?"
The question sent a strange sensation through me, like the shifting of currents before a storm.
Land had always been something distant, unreachable—shapes on maps, stories whispered by those who’d seen the world beyond the water.
The idea of stepping onto solid ground felt foreign, like stepping into another life entirely—one that had never been meant for me.
I hesitated, then shook my head. "No. I’ve barely even seen it. Only the island near the Sanctuary of Milos—and even that was warded. Mermaids weren’t meant to set fin on shore.."
His brow lifted slightly. My answer didn’t surprise him, but it made him think. "Then Sylvaris will be unlike anything you’ve ever known."
I tilted my head. "And the people?"
“Depends who you run into,” he said, folding his arms. “Dryads. Elves. Spirits that don’t take kindly to outsiders. Some say the trees themselves have a will—that they remember intruders, mark them.”
He gestured toward the distant line of forest. “There’s no king. No ruler. Just clans and ancient beings enforcing their own kind of order. Morgra sits on the fringes—tolerated at best. She survives only because Sylvaris allows it.”
The words lingered. The sea creaked softly against the hull.
After a moment, Alaric leaned back against the railing, looking out at the horizon. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter.
“It didn’t used to be like this.”
He exhaled slowly. “Sylvaris was once a haven. Open. Teeming with magic—shapeshifters, dryads, wood elves, fae of every kind.”
His jaw flexed. “But humans don’t know how to admire without trying to own. They hunted what was rare—for trophies, for spells they didn’t understand. By the time the forests turned hostile, most of its people were already gone.”
His voice darkened. “The Sylvari—the spirits bound to the land—finally had enough. They wove an enchantment along the borders. Not to protect visitors. To protect what little remained.”
He straightened, arms crossing again. “As long as the Sylvari tolerate Morgra, trade survives. Timber. Resins. Alchemical stock. The Black Marrow gets what it needs to sail.”
A pause. Deliberate.
“If that tolerance ends,” he said, “the routes vanish. No supplies. No passage. No warning.” He glanced briefly toward the forest. “And Sylvaris doesn’t negotiate.”
The weight of his words settled between us.
This ship had carried us through storms, battles, nightmares that should have swallowed us whole. I couldn’t shake the guilt threading through me. It wasn’t just a vessel; it was our lifeline—and I had brought a storm to its decks.
I’d seen creatures in Thalassia wither when their lifeblood was drained. This felt the same. And for the first time, I wondered if the Black Marrow could die the way a living thing did—slowly, painfully, and beyond saving.
If we didn’t get what it needed soon, it wouldn’t matter how many answers I was chasing. We’d be lost at sea—adrift and easy prey for whatever else my mother decided to send after me.
I exhaled, looking at the sea before me, and wondered—did my mother know I was with the pirate she cursed? Did she know I was standing beside the very man she once damned to the sea?
"Then we better make sure you leave Morgra alive this time."
Alaric turned toward me fully, his expression unreadable for a long moment. Then, with a slow, devilish grin, he tipped his head. "You planning to protect me?"
“Someone has to keep you from doing something catastrophically stupid.”
His grin widened.
“Oh, darling… that’s a full-time job.”
He let out a quiet chuckle, shaking his head before looking back out to sea.
Morgra’s Cove
Thalassia had been cut off from the world since my birth.
I was nervous, but excitement pulsed beneath the uncertainty.
The thought of stepping onto land for the first time, real land, not just the trench—of seeing something beyond endless water and shifting tides—sent a thrill through me.
I had spent my life surrounded by the ocean, never dreaming I would walk where trees stretched high above and the earth felt solid beneath my feet.
For the first time, I realized how small my world had been underwater.
Morgra’s cove rose out of the fog like a broken tooth.
Beyond it, Sylvaris came into view—green, wild, and alive in a way that made my chest tighten. So this was land. Not just ground and trees, but something pulsing and ancient. The cliffs were lined with tall trees, their branches heavy and tangled. Even from here, Sylvaris felt powerful.
Torches dotted the rock face, their flames dim against the shadows. Symbols were carved into the stone—faint blue, pulsing steadily. As the Black Marrow drew in, the glow brightened, sending a low vibration through the hull.
Alaric stood beside me, shoulders tight, eyes on the cliffs.
My boots sank slightly into damp earth, the ground firm and cool beneath me, humming with a quiet power that made my knees tremble. Not the creaky Black Marrow deck. Not the jagged stone of the trench. Real land.
“Stay close,” Alaric said quietly. “And don’t make a sound. Morgra can sense fear—and she likes it.”
The air was thicker here—green and wild, soaked in the scent of moss and bark.
I inhaled and it felt like my lungs were tasting something forbidden.
A place that had existed long before me and would outlast everything I’d ever known.
The ocean’s hum dimmed behind me, replaced by the pulse of a sleeping forest.
A figure stepped into the torchlight just as my feet touched semi-solid land for the first time in my life.
Morgra, I presumed.
She was draped in layers of tattered cloth, adorned with charms of bone, dried coral, and sea-glass that clicked softly with her movements. The scent of herbs and damp earth clung to her, tinged with something bitter. Her hair was wild, streaked with silver and dark as the caves she called home.
The sight of her made the crew tense further. I felt it too—an unnatural chill curling through the air.
And yet… she felt like a half-remembered dream, or a name caught on the tip of my tongue. I couldn’t place it, and the sensation unsettled me more than her eerie presence. I shook it off quickly—now wasn’t the time for strange feelings I couldn’t explain.
Morgra grinned—jagged, familiar— her voice a rasp laced with something almost indulgent. "My, my, Captain. Miss me that much, did you?"