Chapter 22 Nerina #2
Her attention moved past him and settled on me. A flicker passed through her expression—curiosity, calculation. Interest. Then her lips curved into something almost wicked. “And what’s this? Not often you bring new things into my den. And certainly none this shiny.”
She stepped closer, moving with an unsettling grace, her tattered layers rustling like dead leaves. Her eyes—too sharp, too knowing—traveled over me, lingering on the tension in my shoulders.
"Look at you…" she drawled, tilting her head,” she drawled, eyes skimming me like a blade. “So far from home.” she sniffed
“Oh, but you’re not just any new thing, are you?” she mused, tilting her head, her attention moving over me with something between delight and suspicion. “No, no...” Her eyes gleamed, like she was unraveling a puzzle only she could see.
Before she could finish whatever thought brewed behind her eyes, Alaric stepped forward with a fierceness that broke the moment like glass underfoot. "Enough, Morgra."
Morgra’s lips curled as she reached out, brushing a cold, bony fingertip just above my eyes where my crescent mark lay. "I wonder if you even know what you are." Her voice was soft with amusement.
"Tell me, what is it you seek, child?" Her tone softened, but not with kindness—more like a predator amused by its prey.
Alaric took a step forward, "We need supplies. Now."
His voice was firm, leaving no room for argument, but Morgra only tilted her head.
Behind us, the crew busied themselves unloading and restocking supplies, their movements brisk and tense. They avoided looking at Morgra directly, as if acknowledging her might invite unwanted attention.
"You wound me. Always so eager to get what you want and leave. No chitchat? No 'how have you been, Morgra'? Lovely weather we're having".
She let out a dramatic sigh before looking back to me, eyes glittering with something between mischief and warning. She tapped a long nail against her chin, eyes narrowing slightly—peering through me rather than at me.
"Oh, I do love a mystery," she purred, lips curving into a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. "And you are brimming with them. But even the deepest riddles have answers, if you look in the right places.. I know of a place where yours might be found."
She leaned in, her voice dropping to a near whisper, laced with something both inviting and foreboding. “Shadeau. A land where the rules of gods and men do not exist. A place of broken cities, forgotten magic, and power bought with blood. It is where the desperate go."
"No," Alaric said immediately, his voice like iron. "Absolutely not. I cannot set foot on land, and even if I could, Shadeau is the last place I’d take her. I wouldn’t be able to protect her there."
"What is Shadeau?" I asked warily.
Morgra grinned, all teeth and wicked delight.
"A cursed continent, fractured and rotting. The land itself whispers secrets, but only those willing to listen survive long enough to understand them. And in the Isle of Shadeau, the darkest market in the world, you may find answers. If, of course, you don’t die first."
Morgra let out a wicked laugh, the sound like dry leaves scraping over stone.
I turned to Alaric but before I could speak—
Alaric’s voice dropped to a near growl. “No. Don’t even ask.”
I blinked, unsure I’d heard him right. “What?”
He stepped in front of me, arms crossed, attempting to physically block the idea from taking root. “You are not going to Shadeau. It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m not asking for your permission,” I said softly.
“I know,” he said, his voice low, almost strained. “But that doesn’t mean I’m about to stand here and watch you march into a nest of vipers like it’s some godsdamned adventure fairytale.”
There was something raw in his tone—fear, maybe. Not just of Shadeau. “I’ve faced monsters before, Alaric.”
He shook his head. “Not like these.”
Morgra reached into the ragged patchwork bag slung over her shoulder and withdrew something that made my stomach twist.
A vial—if you could call it that—cut from dark, faceted crystal, its shape irregular and jagged, like it had been hewn from the heart of some long-dead beast. Inside sloshed a viscous red liquid, thick as blood and glowing faintly, like embers buried beneath the surface.
Coiled around the neck was a metal claw, tarnished and ancient, gripping it like a jealous god.
The whole thing pulsed faintly with power.
"You think I’d send you there without a way to stand on your own two feet?" She stepped forward, the vial extended in her hand. "A potion that will let you walk on land—though only for a time."
"A gift," she said, though the gleam in her eye promised otherwise.
Alaric eyed the vial, something dangerously close to hope lighting in his expression—only to extinguish just as fast. His features hardened. His attention dropped to the glimmering liquid.
"And you expect me to believe it’ll work? I’ve lived too long and tried too many lies dressed as miracles. If magic like that were real, I would have found it by now."
Morgra grinned, her fingers curling around the vial like a spider wrapping its prey. "Oh, but this is no trick, dear Captain. This is old magic—older than the sea itself.”
Alaric didn’t so much as glance at the vial. His shoulders squared. "What is it? Magic like that comes at a price. What do you want?"
Morgra’s grin widened. "A relic from the old world. A simple thing, really. Stolen from me long ago."
She lifted her hand with a languid motion, like a queen summoning her court. The air around her rippled—reality itself bowing to her will. A shimmer coalesced between us, swirling and reforming until it resolved into a shape: a black stone, smooth as glass, cradled in the palm of a hand.
"The Eye of Nareth," she intoned, her voice thick with something like reverence.
The illusion hovered between us, its inky surface devouring the flickering light.
Flecks of eerie blue shimmered just beneath, pulsing like the slow heartbeat of something that had died long ago but refused to rest. Shadows writhed at its edges—not cast by it, but born from it—clawing at the air like they longed to be free.
"It was taken from me—stolen—and sold to the highest bidder in Shadeau. And now it rests in the hands of a fool who neither respects nor understands the power it holds."
Morgra watched with a hunger that made my stomach twist, her attention fixed on the swirling image. The image shimmered, pulsed. A chill slithered down my spine.
"And you expect us to just walk into the most dangerous market in the world and take it back?"
Morgra chuckled, tucking the vial away slowly. She already knew I would agree.
"Yes, because if you fail," she added, her grin widening, "as payment for the potion, I will no longer provide the Black Marrow with what it needs to stay afloat. No more supplies. No more magic. And we both know what happens to a ship like yours when it runs dry."
A long pause stretched.
Alaric’s lips thinned, wrestling with the weight of it all.
I hesitated, the pressure building in my chest. My mind raced—images of the Celestial Choir, of Meris’s lies, of the way the ocean had grown quieter each day like it was waiting for me to choose. I could still feel Alaric’s words, sharp as coral, lodged deep.
But louder than all of it was the whisper of something I couldn’t ignore.
Shadeau was a death sentence… and yet something in me stirred.
That same curiosity that has always gotten me in trouble before.
There could be answers for me there. Truths buried too long.
A thread pulled tight beneath my skin, urging me forward. Not toward safety.
Toward truth.
"We'll do it," I said before Alaric could get a word out.
His head snapped toward me, disbelief flashing across his face. "Nerina—"
His expression darkened, fury flashing in his eyes like a storm barely held at bay. "You do not get to make bargains with my ship!"
"If there's even a chance that this place holds answers, I need to take it. And if you refuse to go, I’ll go alone." My voice was firm, but my pulse thundered in my ears.
I turned back to Morgra, lifting my chin. "We’ll get your relic."
Morgra’s grin widened, but before she could speak, Alaric turned to me, his expression dark with frustration. His jaw clenched, and he stepped closer, lowering his voice but unable to hide the fury burning behind it.
The air between us went taut, charged with something I couldn’t name—fear, anger, something else entirely.
"The Isle of Shadeau is the most dangerous place in the world, Nerina. One whiff of what you are, and you will never be seen again."
I met his glare, my heart pounding, anger flaring to match his. Beneath the fury, beneath the fear, I knew I had no choice. I had to do this. There was no other choice. If the Black Marrow fell, we would all be lost—adrift and easy prey for whatever hunted me.
And if I had to throw myself into the belly of Shadeau’s darkness to find the relic and find myself, then so be it.
I will not let fear decide my fate.
"If I let fear keep me from trying, then I may as well be dead already."
Alaric shook his head. "There are worse things that they can do to you than kill you."
"You have no idea what you’ve just done," he growled, stepping closer. "You’ve been sheltered your whole life, Nerina. You don’t know what it means to be truly hunted, to have no safe place to run.
You don’t know what horrors await in Shadeau, what monsters thrive there.
And now, thanks to your reckless bargain, you’ve put my ship and every soul on it in danger for a gamble that wasn’t yours to make! "
For a heartbeat, I saw flashes—visions that still clawed at the edges of sleep: the cold disappointment in the Tidekeepers’ eyes, their smiles like blades sheathed in silk. My mother’s voice, honeyed and hollow, laced with secrets I hadn’t yet unraveled.
I had been adorned. Paraded. Silenced. Controlled.
A scream swallowed by ceremony. A silence that answered every question with another leash.
I was never cherished—only used. Never seen—only shaped.
The ocean hadn’t cradled me. It had caged me. It sang lullabies to keep me docile, to keep me drowning in a life that was never mine to begin with.
"You think I was safe beneath the sea? Sheltered?" I whispered, the words catching on the edge of something buried deep in my chest.
My crescent mark pulsed, faint but fierce, reacting to the storm inside me.
I stepped closer, voice trembling with fury and something more fragile.
"You have no idea what it was like. You don’t know what it’s like to be told who to be, what to feel, what to become.
To be watched me with cold calculation."
I swallowed hard, pain threading through every word.
"I’m asking is that you trust me. Stars help me—I am begging you to do that."
Alaric's expression cracked.
"You think I don't understand? That I haven't been branded, broken, bound to the sea like a dog on a chain? I bled for freedom, Nerina. And just when I thought I’d clawed back a piece of it, you go and throw yourself to the wolves for a riddle."
His voice trembled—not with fear, but with the kind of pain that came from helplessness. "You aren’t the only one the ocean tried to shape into something else."
It was like a switch flipped in his eyes—pain swallowed by fury, storm clouds eating the moon.
He stepped closer, eyes burning. "You’re the spoiled daughter of a sea goddess—raised in a palace, taught songs instead of survival.
You can’t fight. You don’t even know the full reach of your own magic.
And now you want to gamble your life and all of ours like it means nothing? This—this will not end well."
The words left his mouth—and something in his face tightened, like he’d just bitten down on a blade.
For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.
He’d flung every fear I hadn’t dared name right in my face—and Stars, it burned.
But I wouldn’t let him see me break. Not now.