Chapter 24 Nerina
Nerina
Shadeau
Shadeau was worse than anything Alaric’s grim descriptions had prepared me for.
The air felt thick—pressing against my skin like a damp shroud—heavy with dark magic and unspoken curses. The stillness was unnatural: too quiet, too expectant.
The docks were a graveyard of forgotten ships and rotting wood.
Lanterns flickered in the mist, their glow turning tangled masts and broken rigging into monstrous silhouettes.
Crates lay half-submerged in seawater—some split open, their contents spoiled and scavenged long ago.
The stench was worse than I’d imagined: salt, soot, rot…
then iron, moldy parchment, and the faint bite of sulfur beneath it all.
Dockworkers moved like shadows—hunched, cloaked, silent. Birds circled overhead, but not the kind that sang. Scavengers. Patient. Watching.
Above the rooftops, dense fog clung to the city, swallowing spires and lantern posts in its damp grip. Hanging nets dripped seawater and tangled bones.
The instinct that had once kept me alive beneath open water screamed now. Not of predators in the deep—of eyes that measured worth in coin and consequence. Here, safety wasn’t something you lost all at once. It was peeled away, layer by layer, until you didn’t notice it was gone.
I felt Alaric’s presence beside me before he spoke.
He was still furious with me. He hadn’t said it—not directly—but I could feel it in the way he moved: tense and controlled. His words echoed in my mind—There are worse things they can do than kill you.
I had dragged us into this. Into Morgra’s bargain. Into Shadeau. Into danger. And the worst part?
The deal haunted every step I took. Morgra had asked for something simple—or made it sound simple. A favor. An exchange. A cursed artifact for hours of freedom. For answers. But even I knew better. Nothing in this world came without cost. Not truly.
And I didn’t know what that cost would be yet—only that I’d already begun paying it.
Alaric didn’t trust me. Not now. Maybe not ever again.
I’d made the choice without him—risked his life, his crew, his ship—for a whisper of memory and a truth I couldn’t even name.
I didn’t fully understand what I was chasing.
Only that the artifact shards, the journals, the maps hidden in the trench…
weren’t coincidence. There had to be something waiting to be found.
Some piece of truth I hadn’t been meant to see.
He had every right to be angry. Every right to hate me for it. But I couldn’t bring myself to regret it. Not fully.
Because beneath the fear and the guilt, there was something else—a certainty. That this mattered. That Shadeau held something meant for me. Other than the Eye of Nareth.
The Eye wasn’t just an artifact—it was a promise. A relic whispered to show its beholder what waited ahead. Not prophecy. Not certainty.
Just the future… as it could be.
He wouldn’t admit it, but I could see it in the tension of his body. Was he afraid? Afraid that the potion wouldn’t work—or worse, that it would? That the promise of land beneath his feet would be ripped away as quickly as it was given?
I tried to imagine what this moment must feel like for him. To be so close to something he’d lost for so long. To walk on land again. To stand without the ever-present pull of the sea shackling him to the depths.
Did he miss it? Did he ache for it the way I ached for answers?
Or had he learned to accept his curse—to stop dreaming of things that could never be?
He exhaled through his nose and handed me a folded cloth.
"Cover your face," he said quietly, his tone edged with urgency. "Your marking will draw too much attention here."
He didn’t wait for a reply.
In one swift motion, he shook the vial, uncorked it, whispered the incantation, and tipped a single drop onto his tongue.
The scent made my mark ache—not flare, not glow—tightening as if the sea itself recoiled. Crisp, cold and metallic. Then crushed sea petals, faintly sweet but wrong. Black kelp burning slowly, thick and smoky.
It didn’t smell like old magic. It smelled forbidden. Whatever this potion gave, it wasn’t meant to be borrowed.
At first, nothing happened.
The silence stretched—thick and suffocating. Then his body seized.
Alaric doubled over, a strangled cry tearing from his throat. His spine arched violently, veins straining beneath his skin as though something inside him was trying to claw its way out. His knees buckled, and before I could reach for him, he hit the deck hard—
Convulsing.
Panic surged. A bolt of fear lanced through me, sudden and brutal. I dropped to my knees beside him, gripping his shoulders as his body twisted, sweat slick beneath my hands. I held on, desperate to anchor him—to keep him here, with me.
I couldn't lose him.
Maybe it was the night he hauled water for hours to build that makeshift tub, refusing to let me dry out again.
Or the way he put himself between me and the Leviathan—snarling, bleeding, cursing me for my recklessness even as he shielded me with his own body.
Or the moment I learned the truth of his curse and he offered no excuses.
Just raw honesty. Trust.
I’d told him things I’d never said aloud. Given him pieces of myself I barely understood.
With him, the truth came too easily.
And now—watching dark magic seize his body—I understood the danger. Losing him would break something in me that couldn’t be mended.
I didn’t know what he was to me—shield, spark, ruin—but I knew this: He had taken root in places I hadn’t known were hollow. That realization terrified me more than the convulsions beneath my hands.
His barbed words. His silences. Even his anger. I saw them clearly now—not cruelty, but fear. Guilt worn like armor. Distance kept as protection. Yet somehow—through all the fury and razor-dry sarcasm—I saw him.
Somewhere in the chaos, something shifted.
I called his name, my voice breaking on the weight of his absence—but he wasn’t there. Not really. His eyes were vacant, unfocused, consumed by whatever dark magic surged through him.
Panic clawed up my throat.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. I just reached for him, wrapping my arms around his trembling form. Because letting go wasn’t just unbearable—
Garen ran over, shouting for help.
Then, just as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
My heart still thundered in my chest, every pulse reminding me how close I’d come to watching something I cared about slip away. I clenched my jaw, forcing the thought down before it could fully form.
But another truth gnawed at me—one I couldn’t ignore: If something had happened to Alaric—if he hadn’t woken—I would have blamed myself. I had led him here. Into this bargain. Into this madness. The weight of it settled in my chest.
Alaric shuddered, his body still trembling, his clothes damp with sweat. He sat up slowly, eyes narrowing, testing his limbs.
“Let’s go.”
He didn’t look at me when he said it.
The space between us filled with everything unsaid—anger, restraint, and a new, brittle awareness that whatever trust we’d been building could crack so easily.
The streets were worse than the docks.
The moment we stepped into them, it felt like the city swallowed us whole—alive, ravenous, watching.
I stole a glance at Alaric, bracing for the usual argument, for the usual command to stay behind where it was “safe.”
But it never came.
He just kept walking—jaw tight, eyes forward.
That silence struck deeper than any protest. Was this his way of punishing me? For the deal I made—for the choices I kept making? The thought slid cold down my spine. Why did his quiet feel heavier than anger? Why did it hurt?
We had one lead: an artifact trafficker known for moving cursed relics through Shadeau’s lower markets. If the Eye had passed through this city, it would have crossed his hands.
Dilapidated buildings leaned against one another, barely upright, their wood warped and slick with moisture.
Rotted balconies sagged under the weight of time and mold.
Cracked cobblestones shifted beneath our feet—some slick with something that gleamed too red in the lanternlight.
Tangled wires and torn laundry hung overhead, swaying faintly in air that didn’t move.
The smell was the worst—thick and layered. Rot and old wood with the copper tang of dried blood, the smoky perfume of burnt herbs, and a cloying sweetness that reminded me of spoiled fruit and singed hair.
Narrow, poorly lit alleys branched in every direction. I kept close to Alaric, every instinct screaming to stay in the shadows. To make myself small.
Shadows moved where they shouldn’t—shifting, wrong.
Whispers came from every direction. Some right against my ear. Others drifting through the air like lost prayers. Words half-formed, fragmented syllables slipping through the dark like fingers grasping for something just out of reach.
A plea.
A warning.
Pain lanced behind my eyes as whispers turned to screams. I clutched my head, staggering beneath voices that weren’t mine. My knees nearly buckled.
Alaric’s hand found mine, anchoring me like a lifeline thrown to someone drowning. His thumb brushed over my knuckles in a silent promise—steady, warm, real. I hadn’t realized how tightly I was trembling until I felt the strength of his grip.
"Push them out,” he murmured, his breath warm against my temple, voice low and steady despite the strain in his jaw. "They will drive you mad if you let them."
I turned my head slightly, letting the sound of his voice pull me back. “Look at me,” he said gently. “Focus on me.”
His hand raised my chin, coaxing my attention to him.
“You’re stronger than they are,” he murmured.
His presence steadied me—but the realization settled in, unwelcome. I was leaning on him now.
Depending on him.
The whispers seemed to soften when he spoke, as if they knew to listen.