There wasn’t a sky in the brig. Just cold planks and rust and silence that knew too much. Lark hadn’t spoken in two days.
Not since they took Mara.
It had been sudden—late into the night, no warning, no explanation. He’d woken to her being dragged out of the lower hold, her greying curls torn loose from their usual tight wrap, wrists bound with coarse rope. She didn’t scream. That was the part that gutted him most. Mara always told him screaming was for people who still hoped someone would come running.
He’d fought. Of course he had. Reached between the cell and scratched a guard’s hand hard enough to slice skin and bleed him red. Earned a boot to the ribs that made his breath rattle out in wet, red coughs. They beat him until he couldn’t stand, blood matting his curls to his scalp.
And when he could, he did something worse. He waited.
The guards liked it better when you screamed. When you broke in agony, begging for mercy. He didn’t give them that.
He just sat there, cross-legged in chains, his head bowed like he was praying. He wasn’t. Not to Eluun, Mother of the Moon, nor Atherion, the Storm King. Not to anyone who could answer.
Three days passed before the silence snapped. He leaned against the stone wall, lips split, eyes ringed in purple shadows, and began to sing.
Barely audible, the hum of an old tavern tune he’d picked up years prior, twisted into something… vulgar.
“Oh, the captain’s mum wears boots of lead,
Kicks down doors and sleeps in a shed,
She once drank rum ‘til her eyes turned red,
Then married a goat and called it Fred.”
CLANG.
The bars rattled. A guard kicked the door and barked something, but Lark just grinned, blood in his teeth, a crazed look in his eyes.
“You want a verse about your sister next?” he offered, cocking his head.
They left the food bucket just out of reach that night.
On the sixth day, one of them—young, dumb, red-haired—came too close. Lark met his eyes and said, sweet as honey:
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“You ever wonder what your father really did in the war? You think it was hero work? You think he came home clean?”
The guard stared, and Lark didn’t blink.
“I heard he ran. I heard he pissed himself in the dunes and bribed the captain to say he was brave. Sound familiar?”
The boy lunged, grabbing the bard through the cell bars. Got a punch in. Two, maybe. Didn’t matter. Lark spat blood at his boots and laughed.
Lark spat blood at his boots and laughed, even as his cheek swelled. “Tell your mother I miss her,” he called as the guard stormed off, shaking.
He didn’t see Mara again. Not really. But someone tossed a parcel of wool cloth through the bars that night. Bunched, dirty with stains he didn’t care to identify. Her shawl, still smelling of sea salt and lavender oil. Lark folded it into a pillow and wept into it when he was sure no one could hear.
They made the mistake of uncuffing him from the wall on the eighth day. Just for a few minutes. Just for transport. Dark grey clouds formed overhead, chilled water flooded the belly of the ship. He was being moved to the upper deck for something, some formality. They didn’t say what, but he knew.
He could feel it in the way the ship moved—tense, creaking, as if it too knew what was coming. Dark grey clouds bled across the sky, and the rain poured in freezing sheets. The belly of the ship flooded ankle-deep with chilled water, sloshing with every angry lurch of the hull.
They underestimated what a bastard grief had made him.
By Atherion’s grace, the storm raged. Lightning danced like fire serpents overhead, illuminating the deck in quick, blinding flashes. The chaos worked in his favor.
The ship tilted on a sudden wave, and Lark slammed into the man to his right. He moved without thinking. He hit the first guard in the throat, grabbed the second by the ears and slammed his face into the railing hard enough to hear teeth shatter. There was blood on his hands before he even realized they were free.
Maybe Zevara’s rage had found him after all.
He ran. Limping, soaked in blood, one wrist still half-bound in chain. The ship groaned beneath him like it was as sick of the game as he was.
He made it to the helm. Somehow. Chest heaving, arms shaking, mouth coppery with blood and fury. He gripped the wheel just to stay upright, vision swimming. The storm turned the world into a palette of blue and black and silver lightning, the ocean a snarling monster below.
And that’s when he heard it.
The song.
A siren’s wail—Azalea’s voice, not the soft velvet that had lulled him to sleep in the dark. No. This was rage and storm. This was power.
Still, his heart jumped. He turned, searching the black waves beyond the bow, and for a flicker of a moment—it was her.
He didn’t care if it wasn’t. With a final exertion of strength he grabbed the wheel.
He turned the ship. Hard. Toward the rocks. Toward the sound. Toward whatever fate would take him if it meant seeing her again or dying trying.
The hull shrieked as it scraped something deep—rock or reef, or bones of other wrecks, he didn’t know. Sailors shouted. Wood cracked, rails snapped. Something heavy fell behind him, crushing a man’s leg beneath it.
Still, Lark turned the wheel. And something took form out of the fog, sharp, jagged edges of rock and sweet solid surfaces. A figure perched at the edge of stone below—a silver silhouette, inhumanly still. White hair streaming in the rain like spider silk. The song grew louder.
And his hands—faithful, shaking, turned the ship right to her feet.
He didn’t see her face. Didn’t need to.
The ship cracked, the mast fell.
Shards and scraps of wood flew through the air like spears, impaling some, hurling others into the black sea. Cold water exploded up over the rails and dragged the remaining men under like toys in a bath, swallowing ropes, boots, and bodies.
The last thing Lark saw was the muted figure rising beneath the fog. And the crushing black of the sea as it swallowed him whole.
should i keep introducing the different gods of this universe? 👀
