“I win,” I declared, breathless and smug. “I cut more tentacles than you, bore.”

  “You didn’t count,” Fane scoffed, shaking droplets of blood from his hair like defeated shadows. “It was clearly me. I know I cut more.”

  We stood ankle-deep in gore and salt, the scent of sea-rot and iron clinging to us like old regrets. Our blades were silent, but our egos still dueled.

  Chara exhaled the breath of a woman twice-damned. She pinched the bridge of her nose, her expression carved from disdain. “Will the two of you kindly rinse off before you rot like the leviathan you butchered? You smell like the underbelly of an Ogre.”

  We obeyed, more amused than chastised.

  The sea carried us forward, whispering lullabies in a tongue only the wind knew. Three days passed. Then four. We spoke little. I slept, she steered, he cooked. Each hour bled into the next, as though time itself had dissolved in the salt. The map’s ink-guided path was our sole compass. But the waters held no beasts now. No screams. No chaos.

  Only a silence vast enough to drown in. It was, strangely, peaceful.

  I lay on my back upon the main deck, the wood beneath me warmed by the breath of the fading sun. The sky above—bruised violet and deepening blue—seemed endless. A breeze wove through my hair, the same breeze that once kissed Edel’s high cliffs. I closed my eyes. The air tasted like memory.

  Behind me, the bore snored somewhere below deck, and Chara manned the helm with the ease of someone who had once commanded storms. I was bored.

  “Shall I tell you a story?” Chara’s voice rose above the gentle slap of wave against hull.

  She always seemed to sense when the silence grew too heavy in my chest.

  “That would be nice,” I whispered, my eyes still tracing stars behind my lids.

  She stood tall beneath the dying sun, copper flame washing over her features. “The king of Boshaft had one son—Prince Basil Nikolaou. The bloodborn heir.”

  Her voice shifted—slower, softer. As though she spoke not to me, but to the sea.

  “He was like the others in many ways. Sharp, merciless, quick to act. But unlike them, he burned with something warmer. A fire that gave, not just took. A quiet hunger for something beyond bloodshed. Fidi, being a warlord, kept courtly ties. We visited the palace often. That’s where I met Basil.”

  She paused, as if the waves had caught her breath.

  “The one who slayed Thalakaros. A mighty warrior, he was.”

  At her words, the ship creaked beneath us.

  A low groan—long, ancient, almost mournful—echoed through the beams and ribs of the vessel, as though the very bones remembered.

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  The deck shifted slightly underfoot, not with the rhythm of waves, but something else. A shudder. A ripple. As though the ghost of the beast still stirred within its carved spine.

  She touched the railing lightly, and the wood beneath her palm pulsed faintly—warm, bonewhite, and old.

  “They say Basil faced it alone. With only moonlight on his steel and madness in his heart. He dove into the beast—not at it. Into its throat. And from within, he carved his way out. Seven hours in the belly. Seven hours of blood, bile, and darkness.”

  A gust of wind rattled the sails—no storm followed.

  “When he emerged, the sea boiled red. Thalakaros’s corpse broke the coast in two. And Basil—Basil rose from the wreck, half-drowned and smiling, dragging its corpse behind him like a trophy forged from defiance. After that, every tavern sang his name.”

  Chara’s voice dropped, reverent and raw.

  “This ship—this very ship—was built from its bones. Its spine is our keel. Its ribs are these beams. It carries us now because Basil broke what no man dared touch.”

  The wind stilled.

  The ship quieted.

  And the sea, for just a breath, remembered what it feared.

  “But two years ago, he died.”

  The breeze seemed to hush.

  “It was Basil who proved driftwood cannot survive the sea past the seventh day. His ship splintered mid-crossing. The hull shattered like glass beneath a scream of wind. The current devoured him and his men. They say the waters turned white that night, filled with crushed bone and breathless ghosts.”

  “Were you… close to him?” I asked, my voice low, not wishing to bruise the memory.

  “Close?” Chara repeated, her tone dancing between wistful and flippant. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “Wouldn’t say that?” a voice rasped behind us, sleep clinging to its edges like mist to stone.

  Bore.

  He emerged from the hatch, yawning as though the sea owed him rest. “She was practically swooning over him. Moon-dazed and star-struck.”

  “What are you implying?” Chara’s voice snapped like a broken bowstring, all poise forgotten. Her ears flushed crimson, a firestorm rising in her cheeks.

  Ah. So that’s how it is.

  “So you liked him,” I said softly, watching her face bloom into the color of burning embers.

  She opened her mouth—but no denial came. Only the silence of someone who had once dared to feel. Her cheeks, usually the hue of pale flame, were now alight—pink with memory and embarrassment. The dawn had not yet broken, but her face became the firelight we needed.

  I laughed. Loud and full, as if the sea itself had granted me permission.

  “You two have corrupted me,” I sighed, wiping a tear of mirth from my cheek.

  Fane leaned against the mast, his grin lazy and content.

  “And yet you wear the corruption so well.”

  “I hate you both,” Chara grumbled, but her voice cracked with laughter.

  The ship rocked gently.

  Then the world shifted.

  “It’s blue,” Chara said, her voice barely a breath.

  I followed her gaze. Beneath the silver-flecked moon, the helm glistened blue.

  The color gleamed beneath the moonlight like a sapphire omen.

  “Another beast,” Fane whispered, already tightening the straps on his gauntlets. The air around him shifted, like steel beginning to sing.

  “Why do they always appear at night?” I muttered, pushing back my hair and rising to my feet.

  The breeze sharpened. Cold now.

  Above us, the stars blinked—nervous, uncertain.

  The sea, once quiet, began to hum.

  And somewhere in that deep dark, another shadow waited.