Chapter 59
Alaric
Covenant Ship
Across the water, poachers hauled in their nets, hooks flashing like teeth in the gray light.
Their laughter carried faintly over the waves—thin and cruel.
The sound scraped something feral awake inside me.
Hunger coiled low and vicious—not the clean ache of thirst, but something uglier.
I could taste blood in the air that wasn’t there.
The sea demanded I move. My curse sang for it—compelled me to serve the water, to guard its depths from the vermin dragging hooks through its flesh.
To stand idle while Nerina swam below was torture. Like drowning on dry land.
Veyrion stood at the prow, eyes fixed on the horizon, every line of him drawn tight. He looked carved from stone, but I saw it—the tension in his jaw, the restraint in his stance. For all his calm, even he was braced for violence.
“Too long,” I muttered, the words dragged out of me like a confession. “She’s been gone too long.”
Veyrion’s gaze lingered on the dark water where she had vanished. His shoulders stayed rigid. Then, quietly, he said, “She knows what she’s doing. We have to trust her.”
The words scraped like broken glass. Trust her? To slip past nets laced with poison? To swim through waters crawling with hooks and blades?
My curse snarled in answer, every wave urging me forward—to act, to protect. Waiting went against every instinct I had left. “Trust?” I spat, my voice low, shaking. “You’d just stand here while she’s below with death circling her?”
Veyrion turned then, icy gaze locking with mine—steady in a way that only made the fire in my chest burn hotter.
“Yes,” he said simply.
Trust. Saints, I wanted to. But trust wouldn’t keep the nets from closing. Trust wouldn’t stop a hook from tearing into her skin.
And yet—there was something in the way he said it. Not hope. Not denial. Certainty. A calm that anchored itself into the deck beneath our feet.
It gnawed at me.
The words lodged deep—right where they hurt most. Because she had asked me once. Begged me.
Trust me, Alaric.
I remembered the way her eyes burned when she said it—fierce and fragile all at once. She hadn’t wanted my protection then. Or my orders. Or my fury. Just that one thing. To be believed in.
To be seen as capable—not breakable. And I hadn’t given it to her.
Couldn’t. I had caged her instead—storming and snapping, throwing walls high enough to keep her safe.
Or so I told myself. The truth was uglier.
Now she was gone beneath the waves, facing gods knew what—and all I had were Veyrion’s damned words echoing her own.
Trust her.
I closed my eyes, jaw clenched so tightly it ached and let the memory of her voice root me to the deck.
For once, I would wait. Even if it tore me apart.
By dusk, patience had rotted into fury.
The sun was sinking fast, its last light spilling across the waves like blood. Nerina had been gone almost a full day.
The curse coiled in my veins like a storm held at bay, gnawing at me with every hour I stayed still. It was more than restlessness—it was compulsion, the old tether pulling tighter with every passing breath. The sea whispered of danger, of being swallowed by shadow, and I could no longer ignore it.
The poachers’ flotilla stretched across the water like carrion birds on a carcass. Three dozen ships at least, their nets sagging heavy with the day’s catch. Some vessels carried barely twenty men; others, I guessed, close to seventy.
All told—hundreds. We were severely outnumbered.
The Black Marrow had fifty souls aboard, though not all of them fighters.
Veyrion’s fleet loomed beyond the fog—cutters, longships, even a dragon ship bristling with spears—maybe two hundred blades if every man held the line.
We could send for the rest of the Covenant ships.
A hundred more sails might tip the scales. But there was no time.
I exhaled, the sound ragged. “We can’t wait for her any longer. Tonight, we move.”
His eyes slid to me. “You mean to throw two hundred men against a thousand and call it strategy?”
“Worked before.”
He snorted. “Worked for what? A tavern raid? A fat merchant who never held a sword?” His voice hardened. “This isn’t your gutter-born piracy, Alaric. This is war.”
“And war bleeds the same as piracy,” I shot back, flashing teeth. “You take their captain, burn their ships, and the rest scatter like rats.”
His jaw ticked, but his voice stayed infuriatingly calm. “Rats scatter, yes. But they always return. Unless you burn the nest.”
He gestured toward his ships bobbing in the distance—sleek cutters, hulking dragon ships, crews ranging from twenty to nearly a hundred.
“My fleet is positioned to strike from three sides. We isolate one cluster of their vessels, overwhelm them, and dismantle their operation piece by piece. Efficient. Lasting.”
“Efficient,” I scoffed. “And slow.”
He didn’t even acknowledge the jab.
I turned on him, jaw tight. “Well, then what’s your clever little warlord plan?”
He gestured toward the flotilla, his voice low, precise.
“We split their line. My cutters strike their flanks. The dragon ship drives through their center. While their attention is divided, you hit their flagship. Meanwhile, we cut the winches, loosen their cages, and let their own catch tear them apart. By the time they know we’re there, half their fleet will already be sinking. ”
I barked a humorless laugh. “Efficient. Merciless. Very you.”
“And your way?” he countered. “Suicidal. Reckless. Very you.”
The air between us tightened, heavy with salt and fury. My curse clawed at me, demanding I draw steel—demanding I move, that I spill blood.
At last, I ground out, “Moonrise. We strike.”
The Black Marrow
Moonrise.
The Black Marrow cut through the dark like a blade, her sails black against the silver wash of the moon. Ahead, shadows moved—poacher ships, their lanterns swaying in the swell, nets sagging heavy with the day’s spoils.
I stood at the prow, the curse humming hot in my veins, thrumming with every throb of the tide. My crew behind my back. They waited in silence, weapons ready, breath laced with fear and hunger.
To starboard, Veyrion’s cutters skimmed the waves, sleek and fast, their sails striped in dark and pale. Beyond them, the dragon ship loomed—iron prows carved like beasts, bristling with spears and shields. His fleet moved with unnerving discipline, every oar and sail in time.
The poachers didn’t notice. Lanterns swung lazily across their decks, men shouting, laughing, drunk on the day’s haul. Another net slapped the water, spilling blood and scales into the waves.
I gritted my teeth, curse thrumming harder with every drag of their hooks. The sea begged for retribution. My hands ached to give it. Somehow this felt more personal. All I could imagine was Nerina in those nets—her blood spilling into the sea.
This was what I knew. Not patience. Not waiting. The moment before the strike—the silence before the sea split open in blood.
My hand brushed the hilt at my hip. I could see the gleam of hooks, the ropes coiled neat as a hangman’s knot. One of them leaned over the rail to spit into the sea—his face clear in the moonlight.
Close enough.
I dropped my hand. “Hooks!”
The silence shattered. Iron tore through the air, slamming into wood with a splintering crack. The Black Marrow lurched as her crew hauled tight, dragging us against the poachers’ flank. Shouts erupted from their deck—confusion, panic, then rage.
“Board!” I roared.
The first clash was thunder. My crew surged forward, steel meeting steel as boots thudded onto enemy planks. The air filled with the stench of oil and blood, the hiss of blades, the crunch of bone.
A man swung at me wild—I caught his wrist, twisted, and sent him screaming overboard into the dark.
The curse surged hot in my blood, faster than thought, faster than rage. Every swing of my blade felt inevitable, guided by the sea itself.
Beyond the chaos, Veyrion’s cutters slammed into the flank.
Shadows poured over the rails—his warriors moving like wraiths, boots hitting deck in near-unison. Axes flashed silver in the lantern light. Shields rang as they caught blades meant for the Marrow’s crew, bodies colliding in a brutal rush of force and momentum.
The dragon ship thundered into the poachers’ center line, its carved prow tearing through a netted vessel with a shriek of splintering wood. The hull caved inward, timbers snapping like ribs. Men were thrown screaming into the sea, their cries cut short as the ship listed hard and began to fold.
Panic rippled through the poachers.
They scrambled over one another, shouting broken orders, fumbling for weapons slick with spray.
Discipline unraveled—some tried to rally at the rail, others bolted for the rigging.
Nets dragged loose across the deck, tangling boots and blades alike.
Ropes snapped free from cleats and whipped through the air.
Below deck, cages rattled violently as whatever they’d stolen thrashed against iron and wood.
“Cut their lines!” I snarled, carving through another man and shoving his body aside. “Drag them down!”
The Marrow’s crew surged at my back. Knives flashed as hands hacked at knots and pulleys. One crewman was yanked off his feet when a net went taut—another grabbed his collar just in time, hauling him back as the line snapped free and plunged into the dark.
Garen barreled past me, shoulder-checking a poacher into the rail before driving his blade down through the man’s chest.
Nearby, Eira vaulted onto a winch housing, her axe cleaving through a tangled mess of rope in three savage strikes, teeth bared in a feral grin as the net tore loose.
One by one, the lines gave way.
Heavy nets slid screaming into the deep, dragging crates, cages, and men with them. The poachers’ own haul turned traitor—dead weight pulling their ship lower by the stern as the sea eagerly claimed it.