Chapter 25 Alaric #3
She’s gone up against Shadow Sirens and a leviathan.
Trains and lives with a crew of cursed pirates on a ship that shouldn’t exist. But the sight of a needle has her hand in mine like I’m the only solid thing left in the world.
The thought makes me chuckle—soft and silent, buried under the weight of everything else.
She’ll stare down monsters without blinking, but gods forbid a spider crawls too close or someone brings a syringe too close.
Séraphine gave me a knowing glance but didn’t comment. Just swabbed Nerina’s arm. Nerina flinched, her fingers tightening in mine—but she didn’t look away.
Scared, but brave even in the small things.
The moment the needle pierced her skin, the air shifted again. The candles flickered violently, shadows twisting in unnatural patterns against the walls. The very foundation of the shop seemed to groan, a deep, guttural sound that sent a shiver down my spine.
Nerina gasped, her body tensing. Her mark ignited.
A soft glow pulsed at her forehead, faint at first but growing brighter, swirling with the same silver luminescence that now filled the vial.
It shimmered, shifting like ink spilled in water, the lines twisting, reforming, reacting to her distress.
The mark burned against her skin, yet she didn’t cry out—her lips merely parted, her breath coming in ragged, uneven draws.
Séraphine’s eyes snapped to the glow. "Fascinatin’…" she murmured, though whether it was admiration or calculation, I couldn’t tell.
I barely heard her. All my attention was on Nerina—on the way her fingers trembled, on the way she clenched her jaw, forcing herself to stay still. To stay calm despite her fear.
I watched Séraphine seal the vial, her hands steady, her mouth set in that same knowing smirk that used to undo me. Séraphine’s touch was clinical now, impersonal—just glass and ritual and the scent of burnt myrrh lingering in the air.
Nerina’s fingers were still wrapped around mine—tight, trembling, trusting.
And I wondered… what would she think, if she knew who I used to be? What I’d been with Séraphine. What we’d done. What I’d become, all in the name of wanting more. Would she still look at me like that? Like I was something worth reaching for? If she knew the truth.
For a moment, none of us spoke. The liquid inside the vial was like nothing I had ever seen—violet streaked with something that shimmered like molten silver, like a tiny galaxy swirling within the glass. It pulsed faintly, seeming alive, aware of being taken.
Séraphine tilted the vial, watching the way the liquid moved, her eyes alight with fascination.
The scent hit me first—rich, intoxicating, unlike anything I had ever encountered.
My grip tightened involuntarily, fangs pressing against my lower lip.
It wasn’t just the metallic tang of blood; there was something deeper, something that sent a fierce hunger coiling through me.
I forced myself to swallow, to look away, but it was there—thick in the air, curling around my senses, demanding to be noticed. The sheer power in it was suffocating. I had known hunger before. I had known need. But this? This was something else entirely.
Séraphine’s eyes widened. Her fingers curled around the vial, almost reverently. "Now that… that is truly special."
A chill ran down my spine. I didn’t like this—any of it. I knew Séraphine. She never let something this valuable slip through her fingers. And the look in her eyes told me she had just confirmed something she had suspected since we fell through her front door.
She turned the vial slowly, watching the silver and crimson swirl like a storm brewing in a bottle. "Tell me somethin’, Cap’taine—don’t it strike you as strange? How somethin’ like her ended up in your hands? You ever stop to wonder if that was fate, or somethin’ darker watchin’ the tides?"
I clenched my jaw, unwilling to rise to whatever game she was playing.
But deep down, I already knew the answer.
At first, I’d believed Nerina was some twisted punishment—Meris’s final laugh, the ocean’s way of mocking me.
Something impossibly rare and impossibly fragile, placed in my hands just so I could fail to protect it.
But now... now I wasn’t so sure. Maybe she wasn’t a punishment at all.
I’d told myself it was all strategy—use her, use the artifact, break the curse, live happily ever after. If she couldn’t help me, she was nothing but a distraction. I’d been using her. That’s all.
Séraphine exhaled slowly, savoring the weight of our conversation.
Then, with a flick of her wrist, she moved toward a low wooden table at the center of the room.
She reached for a kettle resting over smoldering embers, the scent of steeped herbs thick in the air.
She poured the dark liquid into three small cups, her movements slow and deliberate, as though the act of making tea was its own kind of ritual.
I hesitated, watching as the steam curled upward, carrying notes of jasmine, cinnamon, and something bitter I couldn’t place. Nerina, still tense from the ordeal, cast a wary glance at the cup placed in front of her and made no move to touch it.
Séraphine took her own cup, lifted it to her lips, and let a sly smile curl. "Got a feelin’ that pretty head o’ yours is brimmin’ with questions, cher."
I leaned forward, my fingers curling around the ceramic, but I didn’t drink. 'Who has it?'
Séraphine let the silence hang like a storm cloud, "Maitre Vesper."
The name landed like a stone in my gut. I set the cup down without drinking. "Of course."
Nerina frowned. "Who is Maitre Vesper?"
Séraphine chuckled low, stirring her tea slowly. "A collector, a warlock, a broker of power—depends what kinda mask he wearin' that day."
'Where is he?'
'Ahhh,' Séraphine drawled, black eye glinting. 'Now that right there’s the real question, ain’t it? Maitre Vesper don’t never stay still in Shadeau. He move like the tide—here one day, gone the next. You don’t find him ‘less he wantin’ to be found."
Nerina crossed her arms. 'Then how do we find him?'
Séraphine set her cup down, tapping a single finger on the wood like she was knocking on fate’s door. "He comin’ to you—just you wait."
Nerina spoke again. "And what does he want with the Eye?"
Séraphine shifted, eyes fixed on Nerina.
“That Eye of Nareth,” she said, voice low. “Come from a Seer long gone—one who ain't just seen the world, but seen through it. Past illusion, past memory, past time itself.”
She dragged a finger along the rim of the cup. “Ain’t no crystal ball. Naw, it show what was—what been taken, buried, or twisted. Things folks don’t want seen.”
Something flickering behind her gaze. “But it don’t hand you answers tied up neat with ribbon, non. It’s a mirror, not a map. You look into it, you best be ready to see what truth been hidin’. Might not be the truth you want—but it’s the one you get.”
Her voice dropped to a hush, grave now. “An’ the price? Ain’t just steep—it’s soul-deep. The Eye never gives more than it takes.”
The first warning came as a flicker—heat rising under my skin like fire licking through old scars.
I gritted my teeth, but it spread fast, curling up my spine in searing pulses.
My breath caught. Black veins spread across the back of my hand, pulsing like the curse had been waiting—watching—and now, it wanted back in.
The hunger I kept buried stirred deep in my gut, coiling cold and vicious behind my ribs.
It spread to my soles—a needling pain that climbed my calves like creeping fire. The potion was wearing off.
We were out of time.
My vision blurred for a heartbeat. A pulse of nausea rolled through me. We need to go. Now.
Another flare—hotter this time. The skin at my ankle cracked, just slightly, but enough to smell blood. My blood.
“We’re out of time—” I said through clenched teeth. I didn’t finish the sentence.
The next surge nearly brought me to my knees. Séraphine smiled—not kind, not cruel. Just knowing.
“Bye Cap’taine,” she said softly. “I got a feelin’ we gon’ cross paths again real soon.”