POV: Beth
The sky warned us long before the first wave hit. I felt it in my teeth, raw metal taste, like the ocean was breathing too fast. The wind sharpened, ropes snapping against masts like furious whips, and Kaine muttered the kind of curse men save for funerals. Alaric stood at the helm, jaw tight. He didn’t joke. He didn’t smirk. He just stared into that gathering blackness as if it were an enemy he once loved.
“Reef the sails!” he shouted. Men ran. Thunder cracked open the world.
Water slammed over the deck—icy, merciless. My body hit wood hard enough to bruise and I scrambled back up, coughing salt. A barrel rolled past, smashing into the railing. Someone screamed. Another lightning strike lit Alaric’s profile like a carved god of war, hair soaked, coat whipping behind him. He never looked more like a king than in the moment nature chose to kill us.
I crawled to the mast, gripping thick rope with burning hands. “What do I do?” I yelled over the storm.
“Stay alive!” Alaric fired back.
Comforting.
Waves grew monstrous, rising like living mountains. We climbed one, dropped—my stomach ripped through my spine. Rain stabbed like needles. The ship groaned, wood splitting somewhere below. Kaine bellowed for buckets, for ropes, for order, but chaos was louder.
A breaker hit us sideways and half the crew went down. I watched a man vanish into black water before I even learned his name. Another nearly followed—and I lunged, grabbing his wrist, digging my heels into the boards. He was heavy and slick, and for a heartbeat, I thought I’d go with him when the sea yanked.
Then Alaric’s hand closed over my shoulder—hard, anchoring. Together we pulled the sailor back. His breathing rattled. Mine burned.
Lightning flashed again.
And then the mast snapped.
The sound was like bone splitting. The world turned white, then black—weightless, breath stolen. I flew—or fell. Water swallowed me in one bite. The sea wasn’t cold anymore; it was alive and furious and everywhere, filling nose, throat, lungs. I kicked—up, up, up—but currents dragged me deeper, spinning like hands made of storm.
No air. No sound except my heart hammering once—twice—slower—
Beth.
The voice wasn’t heard. It was remembered. Felt. An ancient whisper inside salt.
Saltborn. Storm bride. Child of tide and crown. Open your eyes.
I saw nothing but dark at first. Then light surged—green-blue radiance weaving through currents like threads of a forgotten myth. Shapes moved within it: spectral whales, broken ribcages of leviathans, a woman crowned in coral and moonlight. Morwenna? Or the sea itself?
I tried to scream but water filled the cry. My lungs seared.
Do not beg the ocean to spare you. Command it.
Images burst behind my eyes—Rowan in chains, the Prince smirking, Alaric bleeding on dungeon stone, Kraken devouring ships whole. Rage burned hotter than fear. I reached outward—not with hands, but with will. Like touching a memory of power instead of the object itself.
And the ocean listened.
Heat pulsed through my veins like liquid fire. The water shuddered around me—vibrating, bowing? I didn’t swim upward. The sea lifted me. I shot through the surface like a blade breaching flesh.
Air returned with a gasp that felt like rebirth. Lightning illuminated the deck—men clinging to whatever they could, eyes wide at the miracle tearing itself from the waves.
At me.
I stood—no, I was held by swirling columns of water rising around my body like serpent guardians. My hair lifted despite rain. Salt glowed on my skin. Magic—wild, violent, hungry—raged beneath it.
Kaine stared like I was death in human bones. “By the drowned gods…”
Someone dropped to knees. Another crossed themselves.
Alaric did not kneel. He stared as if trying to solve me like a weapon blueprint. Fear and fascination warred in his eyes. I should have looked away. I couldn’t.
Another wave thundered toward us—towering, monstrous, a god’s fist. The crew braced for impact.
I lifted my hand.
The wave STOPPED.
It hung suspended mid-air, frozen by will I didn’t know I had. One breath. Two. The world held its lungs. Rain slowed. Thunder faded to a distant heartbeat.
I trembled—not from fear, but from knowing. I could destroy them, drown them, save them. I was salt and storm and something new.
My voice came out strange, layered, echoing: “Calm.”
The wave dropped harmlessly back into sea. The storm unraveled like ripped silk, winds falling, clouds thinning as if ashamed to continue fighting me. Water obeyed like a tamed beast.
Silence swallowed everything.
My knees buckled. Power drained like spilled blood. Alaric caught me before wood kissed my skull. His hand on my back burned hotter than lightning.
“What are you?” he whispered, voice rough, shaken in a way I never imagined hearing.
I could barely breathe. “I… I don’t know.”
But part of me did. Storm bride. Saltborn. Something not meant to kneel.
The crew stared at me like I was crown, curse, and prophecy. Whispers slithered through damp air:
“She commands water—” “Not human—” “Dangerous—” “Blessed—”
My heart pounded. I felt their fear more than awe.
Alaric’s hand lingered, fingers curling slightly as if confirming I was real. His voice low, unreadable:
“We’ll talk when you can stand.”
Not tender. Not mocking. Something heavier.
Something dangerous.
I pushed him away—not gently. “I don’t need your help.”
He straightened, mask returning, but cracks showed. “You almost drowned.”
“I saved the ship.”
Lightning flashed far away, only a ghost of storm now. Alaric’s eyes reflected it like steel being tested.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “And you could’ve sunk it just as easily.”
That hurt more than waves. Because it was true.
I turned from him, trembling. Crew parted like water around Kraken. Not touching. Not trusting.
I climbed below deck alone, dripping magic and fear, knowing nothing would ever be the same after tonight.
Not me. Not them.
Not us.