Smith stands on the quarterdeck, pistol raised. I scan the targets pinned along the rail from bow to stern, mark the angles, the swing I’ll need to cut through them all in one long arc. I steal a quick look at Mira; she’s already measuring the same geometry, green eyes bright as a flare. There’s a heat in that look, more than competition. This is a battle of crews and captains now, and neither of us is stepping down.
The crew erupts in cheers. Smith fires his pistol, the signal. I push off the yardarm and swing down, body cutting through the air. The rope burns my palms, the rush of wind sharp as cutlass steel. My first three shots land true, each target splintering clean.
Mira follows close behind, her shot cracking through the air, two clean hits in rhythm with the swing. She moves like wind, fluid and fierce, her laughter carried off by the sea spray.
Then she’s ahead of me, drops to the deck, runs full speed across the planks, and catches another rope. The move is reckless, brilliant. She launches back up, swinging opposite me, skirts of her coat flaring like fire. I keep my path steady, though my eyes keep wanting to find her. I land four more shots. Then five.
She hits six. I take seven. And then, she’s flying in again, fast as a hawk diving for its kill, three perfect shots in a row. The crew roars. She’s winning. I grit my teeth, twist midair, and mirror her movement exactly.
I glance to where the last target should be, but those sneaky bastards have moved it. Mira and I stand on opposite sides of the deck now, ropes in hand, boots balanced on the railing. The sea churns below, salt wind snapping at our coats. For a moment, all sound drops away.
We spot it at the same time, the final target, hanging high above the helm. A near-impossible shot. We move without a word, climbing the rigging higher and higher until the ship shrinks beneath us. The higher, the better.
I brace against the mast, plant my boots, and push off the wood for balance. I fire. Another gunshot answers mine in the same breath.
Two bullets. Two hearts. Perfect shots.
The crew erupts below, voices rising like a storm, but all I can hear is my own heartbeat and the echo of hers beside it. I’m not sure whether I’ve found an enemy or my equal. Because we hit the same spot, at the same exact time. We tie.
We land side by side at the helm, the boards shuddering beneath us. For a long breath, neither of us moves. Just the creakof rope, the crash of the tide, and her eyes on mine. The crew is silent, every man waiting to see which of us will break first.
Jay clears his throat, breaking the tension. He made his way up the stairs, standing between us. “Well,” he says, half-grinning, “looks like we’ve got ourselves a tie, aye?”
I drag my gaze from her and look at him. “Seems so,” I say, voice low. “But I’ll still take the next round when we make port.” She smirks, all pride and challenge, and it does something sharp to my chest. I turn away before she can see it.
Because what I felt for her at that moment wasn’t part of the plan. And I don’t like when my plans start to unravel.
Chapter twelve
Kai
Unraveled
The sea’s balance has been off for over a century, but Mira doesn’t know just how deep the roots of that imbalance reach. Whispers ripple through every dark cove and tidepool about the Soul of the Ocean, twisted and corrupted by something ancient and cruel. It’s been birthing horrors, creatures of kelp, shadow,bone, and rage. An army of drowned things, growing slowly beneath the waves.
The corrupted Soul was once a mermaid, long ago. That’s what the old stories say. But its original form is long gone, warped into something unrecognizable. Now, it can wear any face it wants, man, woman, monster, but it can never go back to what it once was. It chooses its victims carefully, pulling them under one by one until the sea has taken its due. Once it marks you, there’s no escaping what comes next. You drown, but your soul doesn’t rest, it festers, trapped beneath the waves for eternity, forgotten by the living and unwanted by the dead. And the worst part, they whisper, isn’t the dying. It’s the begging that comes after, the pleading for release the ocean never grants.
Being the new Soul of the Ocean is already enough to paint a massive target on Mira’s back, but add her siren blood to the mix, and she’s walking straight into a storm with no way out. Pirates have always despised sirens, me being one of them. They blame them for lost ships, dead men, sunken treasure. Most would kill one on sight, some out of revenge, others for profit. Siren blood is a powerful bargaining chip, passed between witches and pirates like dark currency. It’s rare. Nearly impossible to come by. Few survive a siren encounter, let alone spill their blood.
But Mira, she carries it in her veins. If the corrupted Soul’s army discovers what she truly is, the danger multiplies tenfold. They don’t just hunt, they consume. Anything that threatens their queen’s reign becomes theirs, body and soul. What keeps me up at night isn’t just the threat, it’s the question of how. How does she have siren blood? Was it a blessing from the ocean while she grew in her mother’s womb? Or was she marked as an infant, touched by a siren, or something worse? Maybe her father’s past holds more shadows than even Mira knows. Or her mother's past…
What terrifies me most is that the sirens know. They always know. And sirens protect their blood with a vengeance. Like she said, they’ve never attacked her. She feels safe with them, but that safety is an illusion.
Her story plays in my head again: a small girl on a dock, feet skimming the water, a siren rising from the deep to meet her. Any other child would’ve been dragged under, torn apart. But not her. She walked away untouched, even content. That kind of mercy doesn’t happen by chance. If they’ve decided she belongs to them, they’ll come for her. And I don’t know if I could even stop them.
It’s the morning after our little game. I tell myself it’s for the best, that whatever’s trying to claw its way to the surface needs to stay buried. Feelings complicate things. They make men weak, and I can’t afford weakness right now. I’ve made deals with dark creatures, and I intend to keep them.
Still, when I catch the echo of her laugh somewhere on deck, it sticks like salt in an open wound. She slept before I did, sleeps longer still. Maybe she’s trying to forget what happened between us. Maybe she already has. I wish I could say the same.
On deck, I check how close we are to Pike, the coastal town swallowed by thick jungle where Veyra lives. We were en route when the kappas made their unexpected appearance. Seeing Veyra will help. She sees, hears, and feels everything. A tether between us and the heartbeat of the earth itself. She keeps the land whole, while the Soul should govern the ocean’s wrath. I’m not sure which burden is heavier.
Veyra faces the chaos of humans, politics, greed, war. The Soul answers to monsters, sirens, mermaids, pirates, witches, and the ancient things that drift in the dark. But Veyra has a way of getting along with all of them. Even the sirens.
I climb the stairs to the quarterdeck where Jay stands at the helm, his favorite place, hands steady on the wheel. The sunhas just broken over the horizon, casting a golden glow across the sea. Everything shimmers: the sails, the waves, even the sky itself looks like it’s been kissed by firelight.
“Are we close?” I ask, stepping up beside him.
Jay doesn’t look at me right away. “Aye,” he says after a pause. “Few hours out, give or take.”The Leviathanis the fastest ship on the sea. We can reach places days—sometimes weeks—faster than any other, depending on the winds and tides.
