POV: Beth
I slept only when exhaustion dragged me into darkness. Dreams came hungry.
First Rowan. He wasn’t dead—but bound in chains I couldn’t break. His eyes were kind. Proud. My father in every way that mattered. I reached for him, begging, but the chains pulled him away into mist.
Then Mother—her hands cold as water, face half-remembered and fading like ink in rain. She mouthed words I couldn’t hear.
Then a storm. Bone crowns. Leviathan ribs forming a throne above black waves. Morwenna emerged from the sea like she was carved from moonlight and shipwreck bones. Her eyes were tide-green, sorrowful and endless.
“Daughter of the Drowned King,” she whispered, voice ringing like bells under water.
My blood froze.
“The bone sword awaits its bride.”
The sea around us roared, a chorus of drowning souls. I saw myself on an altar of stone, ocean rising around my ankles. The Bone Sword glowed with a heartbeat—mine. I reached. Touched. And the world shattered.
I gasped awake, chest heaving, nightshirts soaked with sweat. My heart was breaking open. Rowan. Mother. Father. Storms. Destiny closing in like jaws.
I didn’t cry often anymore—war beat softness out of me—but this time, tears came without permission. Hot. Silent.
I pressed palms against my eyes, but it didn’t stop the ache. I missed Rowan like missing bone from skin. I missed innocence more.
A floorboard creaked—Kaine maybe, or just wind. No one came. No one knew. I cried alone.
When dawn finally bled through shutters, I wiped my face and washed in cold water until I looked human again.
On deck, Crew bustled with hangover groans and laughter. Mira shone like polished coin in morning light, hair neat, smile sweet, not one trace of war on her. She waved at me—too bright. Too perfect.
I looked away first.
Clover tossed bread at Karn, missed, hit Kaine instead. Someone cursed. Someone laughed. Normal. Alive.
But beneath it all I felt it—like pulse deep under skin.
The sea called me. The sword called me. Destiny dripping salt and prophecy.
Morwenna’s voice echoed like tide pulling at my bones.
Bone sword awaits her bride.
Bride. A union with power older than kings. A fate tied to Kraken. To saltborn blood. To a father I’d never met but who lived somewhere beyond the edge of world maps.
My throat tightened. Fear and hunger tangled like rope. I wasn’t ready—but the sea didn’t care.
Later, in my cabin, alone again, I traced the small scar on my palm—the one made when I first touched Leviathan’s magic. The wound never fully healed. It felt like a mouth sometimes, whispering to water.
I whispered back, broken and brave. “I’ll find him. Whoever he is.”
The deck creaked above. Life moved on. Rumors of war still rustled like torn sails. Tomorrow we’d sail again—toward Maelstrom trials and bone thrones.
I pulled knees to my chest and let myself feel small. Just for a moment. Just until the storm inside settled into resolve.
Because no matter what waited at sea—Kraken, sword, father, crown—I would face it.
Not as princess. Not as runaway. But as Stormborn. And storms don’t kneel.