Chapter 34 Nerina
Nerina
Covenant Ship
They gave me a room. If it could be called that. A windowless cell carved from the ship’s hold, lit by a single candle stub. A narrow cot. A basin. Iron rings bolted into the wall. Meant for chains.
A knock sounded at my door—measured, deliberate.
Before I could answer, it opened. Veyrion stepped inside.
He moved with the confidence of a man who had never been told no—and had punished anyone who tried.
He scanned the space once, assessing, then looked back at me. “Are you comfortable?” he asked.
I didn’t answer.
He didn’t press. Just watched, as though my silence itself were a response he’d expected. “Good,” he said at last.
He smiled, politely. “Join me for dinner.”
“I decline.”
“You misunderstand,” he said quietly, correcting me. “That wasn’t a request.”
My stomach turned—not at the command, but at the precision of it. He didn’t need to raise his voice. Control like his didn’t come from volume. It came from certainty. From deciding the shape of my next hour before I’d even opened my mouth.
I could end this here and now. My mark burned at my brow from the frustration. I kept my hands still. Kept my breath shallow. I kept myself contained. I felt my power stir and I froze—not because I couldn’t use it, but because I wouldn’t.
Veyrion’s quarters were unlike anything I’d seen at sea.
Dark timbers arched overhead, carved deep with serpents and runes that caught the firelight and glimmered like watching eyes. The air was thick with pine smoke and roasted meat, heat rolling off the walls where heavy pelts dulled the edges of stone and wood.
A massive hearth dominated the far wall, its fire crackling as though it had never once gone cold. Runes burned faintly into the stone. Axes and shields hung above it like trophies of old wars—edges blunted, history still alive.
At the hearth’s edge lay a massive creature, curled in sleep.
Its coat was a mantle of frost and shadow, each strand of fur catching the firelight in silver and storm-gray—northern, wild, unmistakable.
Even at rest, it radiated power. Shoulders broad as a man’s chest. Paws heavy enough to crush bone.
The resemblance wasn’t comforting. It was a warning—two predators shaped by the same instinct.
Veyrion stood at the head of the long table.
Broad, weathered, relentless. His skin bore the bronze of sun and salt.
Shaggy blond hair was tied in a knot. His eyes—stars, his eyes—were glacial.
Not quite blue, not quite silver, but the cold in between.
They didn’t simply look at you; they saw through you.
Calculating. Eternal. Not a man who seized power—but one born from it.
There was charm, yes—a smile that curled easily into mischief—but beneath it was steel, wickedness that waited. He was beautiful the way an avalanche is beautiful—distant, lethal, and never concerned with what it buried.
“Welcome,” Veyrion said, voice low, like he was sharing a secret.
He pulled out a chair for me with a little flourish—mock chivalry. I didn’t thank him. I sat, spine straight, eyes forward, refusing to let his presence take up more space than it already did.
The table between us groaned under the weight of the meal—meats seared and dripping, shellfish arranged like jeweled offerings, vegetables shimmering with herbs, bread steaming under its crust of coarse salt.
The scents curled through the air, smoke and spice weaving into the warmth until my stomach betrayed me with a slow, twisting ache. Not comfort.
He poured deep red liquid into my glass. “Pulled from the northern highlands,” he said. “Brewed in ice-hollowed barrels, frostroot berries.” His mouth quirked. “I make it myself.”
I looked at the glass, then back at him. “You make poison sound very romantic.”
His mouth twitched.
“Eat,” he said, flicking his hand toward the spread. “The Black Marrow can’t offer more than salted fish and stubbornness.”
The jab stung—not because it wasn’t true, but because it yanked my thoughts to Alaric. We’d been fighting when I left, spitting words that cut deeper than they should have.
“I’m not hungry,” I lied, keeping my hands in my lap.
I hated that he chose the simplest battle. Hunger. It was hard to be defiant when your body was the one begging. He didn’t need chains if he could make my own instincts turn against me.
Without asking, he reached across the table and began filling my plate. His movements were deliberate—almost ceremonial.
“You’ll need your strength,” he said, sliding the plate toward me.
“Strength for what?” I asked.
His eyes held mine, glacial and unblinking. “To survive.”
A shiver chased down my spine, but I hid it behind the smallest smirk. “And here I thought this was simply hospitality.”
“That’s the thing about hospitality, Nerina.” He leaned back, studying me. “You never know when it’s a prelude to war.”
I finally took a bite—not because he told me to, but because my body demanded it.
His focus never left me, but something in it changed.
Not lust. Not even hunger for power. Just calculation—the kind that measured worth, leverage, and how much pain it would take to break something useful.
My skin crawled. I kept eating anyway. He was right I’d need my strength if I was going to survive him—if I was going to survive whatever game this was.
“Why do you do such horrible things?” I asked, forcing my tone to stay level.
He leaned back in his chair, amused. “Horrible? That depends who’s telling the story. At home, they call me a unifier. A peacemaker. Out here? A poacher. A butcher. Maybe both are true.”
I didn’t flinch. “That doesn’t answer the question.”
“I do what needs to be done,” he said, swirling the wine in his glass. “This sea is chaotic. You either conquer it, or it swallows you whole. I chose to conquer it.”
“With fear and death?” I countered.
“With power. Knowledge. Leverage." The calm in his voice made my skin prickle. He wasn’t boasting. He was stating fact.
He laughed and gestured toward the runes etched into the walls. “Out here, I’m a pirate. But in Ymirskald, I’m something more.”
“What is… Ymirskald?” I asked, stumbling slightly over the syllables.
His grin widened. “You say it like a southerner.” He leaned in, voice dipping smoother, almost coaxing. “It’s ‘EE-meer-skald.’ Let it roll like thunder off the tongue.”
He didn’t sound offended—more like a teacher indulging a student.
“Ymirskald is the Northern realm,” he said, and for the first time, something warm flickered beneath the ice in his voice. “A land of ice-capped mountains and frozen tundras." He paused, almost reminiscent. "Gods, it’s beautiful.”
I kept my voice dry. “And you’re from there?”
“Born of frost and fire,” he said, pride lining every syllable.
The phrase slid under my skin before I could shove it away. I didn’t want to picture the place he’d come from, but my mind painted it anyway: silver-lit peaks, stone cities spilling heat into the frozen dark, magic stitched into every gust of wind.
I kept my expression still. “Sounds cold,” I said flatly.
He smiled like he knew exactly what I was doing, and let me have the illusion anyway.
“How do you know Alaric?” The question slipped out quickly than I meant.
Veyrion leaned back, eyes narrowing in something that looked almost like nostalgia—but the kind that cut. “He was the first man I ever trusted with my life."
Something tightened in my chest at the image.
“But time wears on loyalty.” He swirled the liquid in his glass. “And greed… greed changes people."
The silence thickened, heavy as the fur mantle at his shoulders. I turned my attention to the flickering fire, but I could feel his eyes on me, deliberate, searching for cracks.
Then, quietly, almost like a challenge: “So tell me what are you, Neri?”
My head turned, slow. “A mermaid,” I said flatly. “You’ve seen plenty. Sorry to waste your time.”
“Waste my time?” He leaned back, settling in. “The only way you could waste my time is by being ordinary. And you are anything but.”
“I’ve seen mermaids—dozens, hundreds,” he said calmly. “None who glow. None with a crescent carved into their skin.”
He leaned forward, elbows braced on the table, closing distance without touching. His attention moved over me—not the way men’s eyes sometimes crawl, but like he was mapping something unseen. Measuring.
A pause. Then, softly—decisively:
“You can call yourself a mermaid if it makes you feel safer,” he said, voice dipping almost reverent. “But I know better. And one day, so will you.”
“Titles are funny things,” Veyrion went on. “They change depending on who’s speaking.”
He leaned back, studying me like a puzzle he’d already solved. “In Thalassia, they call you something else entirely.”
My pulse thudded.
“Traitor,” he said calmly.
The word rebranded me all over again—ink from Shadeau, now spoken like scripture. It didn’t matter that I didn’t understand why. What mattered was that he did. Or wanted me to believe he did. Either way, it tightened around my throat like a collar.
The word landed heavier than a blow. I swallowed hard, hating the way my chest tightened. “Why does it matter to you?”
His grin was slow and dangerous. “Because power like yours doesn’t come without a story. And I intend to know it—whether you tell me or not.”
As he spoke, it happened again—a flutter beneath my skin, faint but undeniable. The crescent on my forehead pulsed like a second heartbeat, my other markings catching the lantern light.
“They’ve priced you generously,” he added, almost conversational.
My head snapped up.
“Enough to buy a fleet,” he said. “Enough to tempt lesser men.”
A faint tension crept into his posture. “The world is full of those.”
I kept my face cold, but tension must have betrayed me, because his eyes narrowed with satisfaction—he’d noticed.
He shrugged, unbothered.
“The bounty isn’t for men like me,” he said. “It’s for desperate ones.”