POV: Beth
The chamber air tasted like rust and old prayers. After the Tide-Eaters dissolved into salt, we stood surrounded by bones thick as ship masts and runes that pulsed like a heartbeat beneath our feet—a heartbeat not ours. Alaric gripped the half-map in one hand, breath ragged, blood streaked across his knuckles. Kaine wiped monster residue off his blade with shaking hands, trying to act unshaken. The others whispered silently among themselves.
But my eyes were fixed ahead—on the far wall.
Two towering stone doors glimmered faint blue, carved with swirling patterns like waves frozen mid-storm. Something ancient slept behind them, something that watched us even without eyes. The whispers from my dream returned—soft, like a seashell pressed to my ear.
Storm bride…
My pulse stuttered. The dream shouldn’t have felt real—but now, standing here with Leviathan runes glowing under my skin, it felt like prophecy.
Alaric stepped beside me, wiping blood from his lip with his thumb. “We continue,” he said as if it were simple, as if monsters and ancestral sea magic weren’t real things. “We get what’s deeper inside.”
He moved toward the doors without hesitation. For someone who feared nothing, it made sense. He pressed his palm against the stone.
The room reacted instantly.
A violent crack of magic burst outward, like thunder under the ocean. Alaric’s body flew back across the chamber. He hit the bone-rib wall with a sickening thud and collapsed, grunting, blood streaking down from his eyebrow.
I gasped. “Alaric!”
He pushed himself up, breathing hard, jaw clenched as if to break it. “I’m fine.” But his hand trembled—barely visible but real.
The runes on the doors glowed brighter—rejecting him.
Kaine muttered something to himself. The others exchanged looks that tasted like fear, awe, suspicion. Someone whispered behind me:
“She opened the altar… not him.”
A ripple of unease slithered through the crew.
Alaric rose fully, wiping the blood with his sleeve. His eyes—sharp as cut obsidian—locked onto me.
“Your turn, princess.”
Not mocking. Testing.
My throat went dry. “It nearly killed you.”
He smirked with cracked lip. “Try not to die, then.”
My heart beat like drumfire. I stepped closer to the doors. The air vibrated. Not metaphorically—literally. The bones under my boots hummed like strings pulled taut. My fingertips tingled before even touching the runes.
Everyone watched.
I reached out slowly, afraid—but more afraid not to. The second my palm brushed the stone, heat shot through me like lightning wrapped in ocean-cold silk. Runes blazed. The doors pulsed under my hand like they were breathing with me.
Then the whole cave shuddered.
Not collapsing—responding.
Wind whipped through my hair. Water pooled at my feet from no visible source. The pirate mark on my wrist glowed the same color as the runes—sea-blue, ancient, alive. I sucked in a breath as the doors recognized me.
Me. Not us.
The vibrations grew stronger. Dust rained from the ceiling. Skeletons above rattled like teeth chattering in fear. The others backed up a step. Even Kaine, beast of steel spine, looked shaken.
Alaric stared. Really stared. Like he was seeing me for the first time.
“What are you?” he whispered—barely audible, but I heard it. He wasn’t mocking now. He wasn’t amused. He was… wary.
Like I was something dangerous.
The doors cracked open with a groan—stone grinding against bone like the world exhaling. A slit between them revealed swirling darkness, faint green light deep beyond. Something powerful waited inside—I could feel it pulling at me like tide pulls at sand.
Behind me someone hissed, “She’s cursed.”
Another muttered, “No human makes doors sing like that.”
My spine stiffened. Their fear pressed against my ribs like stones.
I turned slightly. “I don’t understand it either.”
“You don’t have to,” one pirate spat, stepping back. “Just stay away from me.”
Heat stung my eyes. I forced myself not to flinch. I’d fought too hard to cry over cowards.
Alaric stood, wiping dried blood off his cheek, gaze burning into me with something new—suspicion… and something else flickering underneath. Interest? Fear? Hunger for power? I couldn’t tell.
“You’re connected to this place,” he said slowly. “To the sea. To something older than all of us.”
“And that bothers you?” I asked, voice low.
He stepped closer—one step, two—until he was close enough to feel the warmth from my skin, or maybe the cold magic radiating from me. “It makes you unpredictable.”
He wasn’t trembling anymore. Neither was I.
“I’m not your enemy, Alaric,” I said softly. My voice almost surprised me—part truth, part lie, part something I wished I could believe. “I want my father. I want my revenge. That hasn’t changed.”
He studied me, unreadable.
“And yet,” he murmured, “the sea listens to you, not me.”
A knife disguised as words. Sharp. Honest.
I opened my mouth—but before anything else could pass, a distant echo boomed through the opened doors. A roar like something ancient waking. The torches flickered. Water slithered toward the gateway like it recognized home.
The crew stepped back further.
“Close it,” one pirate urged.
“Or push her inside,” another muttered.
My jaw clenched. “Cowards.”
Alaric didn’t look away from me. “We go deeper. But no one touches anything unless she does first.”
A murmur. Fear and resentment tangled.
Kaine nodded slowly. “If she opened it… she leads.”
Lead?
The weight of that settled in my bones.
I turned toward the pitch-black corridor beyond, heart hammering like war drum. This was insane. Unnatural. Wrong. But something deeper-than-fear whispered inside me:
Forward.
I took the first step.
The chamber behind me fell silent. Even the ocean hush outside held its breath. I felt them watching. Judging. Wondering if I’d explode into salt or summon monsters again.
Maybe I feared that too.
But step by step, I walked deeper. And the door—as if bowing—parted wider for me.
Alaric followed last. And before I could disappear into the corridor, he leaned close enough that I felt his breath on my ear.
“Whatever waits in there chose you,” he whispered. “Not me. Not any king.”
My pulse spiked.
He stepped back and the moment snapped like a rope under too much weight. I inhaled steady, squared my shoulders, and crossed the threshold.
The darkness swallowed me whole.
And for the first time, I wasn’t sure if I was trapped—or finally home.