Morning came quietly.
For once, Aldric woke without immediately expecting something to go wrong.
The cutter rose and fell beneath him with the gentle rhythm of the Azure Sea. Sunlight slipped through the narrow cabin window, painting a thin golden line across the opposite wall.
He remained still for a moment.
Then he listened.
No snapping rigging.
No violent wind.
No water rushing through the hull.
Nothing.
Aldric smiled faintly.
"Good."
He climbed from the bunk.
The change in his hands was becoming difficult to ignore.
The blisters from his first days at sea had begun to harden. The cuts across his knuckles were closing. They still hurt, particularly when he pulled against the rigging, but the pain was no longer unfamiliar.
He dressed and stepped onto the deck.
The morning was beautiful.
The sea stretched beneath a cloudless sky, blue all the way to the horizon. A steady breeze filled the mainsail without straining it, carrying the cutter eastward at a comfortable pace.
Aldric took the tiller.
The cutter responded.
Not perfectly.
Not gracefully.
But predictably.
He adjusted the sail.
The vessel leaned slightly.
He corrected the rudder.
It straightened.
Aldric paused.
A few days ago, he would have fought the ship.
Now he was beginning to understand that the cutter did not need to be forced.
It needed to be guided.
His father's voice returned to him.
Feel the rudder.
Aldric allowed himself a small smile.
"I finally understand what you meant."
The sea offered no response.
He found that he didn't mind.
Breakfast was better than usual.
The bread was still hard, but the fresh water made it manageable. He ate slowly while keeping one hand on the tiller.
There was something almost peaceful about it.
No schedule.
No servants.
No tutors.
No council meetings.
Just breakfast, wind, and the sea.
He found himself wondering whether his father had ever experienced mornings like this.
Not as an admiral.
Not as Lord Roland Varren.
Just as a man aboard a ship.
Aldric imagined him standing at the helm with the same quiet expression he had worn so many times during their lessons.
He could almost hear him laughing.
You're overcorrecting.
Aldric glanced at the tiller.
He was.
He laughed.
Actually laughed.
The sound carried across the empty deck.
For the first time since Harbor Square, the laughter didn't feel forced.
It simply happened.
By late morning, Aldric noticed a movement beneath the surface.
Fish.
A small school passed beneath the cutter, silver bodies flashing through the clear water.
He watched them for several moments.
His father had taught him to observe before making a decision.
Apparently, that lesson applied to fishing as well.
He baited the line.
Threw it overboard.
Waited.
Nothing.
He waited longer.
Still nothing.
Aldric sighed.
"Naturally."
He nearly gave up when the line suddenly pulled tight.
He grabbed it.
The fish fought harder than he expected.
Aldric nearly lost his footing before bracing himself against the rail.
"You're not getting away."
The fish disagreed.
Several minutes later, he hauled it onto the deck.
It was larger than he expected.
Aldric stared at it.
The fish stared back.
"You're going to be lunch."
He cleaned it carefully.
Cooking proved considerably more difficult.
His first attempt was undercooked.
His second was slightly burned.
His third was edible.
He considered this a victory.
By early afternoon, he had caught three more.
Enough to keep him fed for several days.
Aldric sat against the mast with the last fish cooking over the small iron stove.
He looked around the cutter.
His cutter.
The thought surprised him.
It still technically belonged to the Crown.
But after several days of sleeping aboard it, repairing it, feeding himself upon it, and nearly dying because of it...
it had begun to feel like his.
Not home.
Not yet.
But something approaching it.
The realization made him strangely content.
Then he heard voices.
Aldric stood.
A small fishing boat was approaching from the south.
Two men stood aboard, both weathered from years beneath the sun. Nets hung over the sides of their vessel, and several wooden crates were stacked beneath the mast.
One of them raised a hand.
"Ho!"
Aldric returned the gesture.
The fishing boat drew alongside.
The older fisherman looked over the cutter.
Then at Aldric.
Then back at the cutter.
"You sailing that thing alone?"
Aldric nodded.
The man whistled.
"You look like you've been eating rope."
Aldric glanced toward his hands.
Then toward the fish cooking behind him.
"Only occasionally."
The younger fisherman laughed.
The older one shook his head.
"Gods help you."
Aldric smiled.
They spoke for only a few minutes.
Nothing important.
The fishermen were returning to Merrow after a morning haul. They asked where he was headed.
Aldric simply said East.
They didn't press.
Before leaving, the younger fisherman reached into one of the crates.
"Here."
He tossed something across the gap.
Aldric caught it.
An orange.
He looked at it.
Then at the fisherman.
"What's this for?"
"Because you've apparently forgotten what fruit looks like."
Another orange followed.
Then another.
The older fisherman shook his head.
"Don't waste the whole crate on him."
A small wooden crate was pushed across the boats.
Inside were perhaps a dozen oranges.
Aldric stared at them.
"I can't pay for these."
"Didn't ask you to."
"But—"
"Keep them."
The fishing boat began pulling away.
The younger fisherman called back.
"Fair winds!"
Aldric raised the orange in his hand.
"Fair winds."
The boats separated.
Aldric watched them disappear toward Merrow.
He looked down at the orange.
Something about it felt strangely familiar.
He peeled it.
The scent immediately transported him somewhere else.
Varren Manor.
Winter.
A warm kitchen.
His mother's voice.
Oranges taste better when they're cold, Aldric.
He smiled.
Helena had always insisted upon it.
He took a bite.
It was sweet.
Cold.
Perfect.
Aldric leaned against the mast and closed his eyes.
For a few moments, he simply enjoyed it.
No politics.
No exile.
No Crown.
No House Varren.
Just an orange beneath an open sky.
By afternoon, the sea remained calm.
The cutter continued east.
Aldric spent the hours maintaining what he had.
He checked the rigging.
Inspected the mast.
Repaired a small tear in the sail.
Secured the water barrel.
He even managed to tie a knot without having to think about which end went where.
That realization stopped him.
He looked at the knot, then laughed quietly.
"I really am learning."
The words carried more weight than he intended.
He looked toward the horizon.
Several days ago, he had been a nobleman who knew almost nothing about the world outside his island.
Now his hands were rougher.
His clothes smelled of salt.
His meals came from whatever the sea was willing to give him.
And somehow…
he was still here.
The sun began descending.
Aldric ate another orange while sitting at the stern.
The sky turned gold.
Then orange.
Then deep crimson.
The sea reflected every color.
He looked toward the horizon.
Perhaps tomorrow would be better.
The thought came so naturally that he almost dismissed it.
Then he smiled.
Maybe it would.
For the first time since Harbor Square, Aldric allowed himself to feel hopeful.
Not ambitious.
Not vengeful.
Not determined to reclaim his family.
Just hopeful.
He had food.
Water.
A functioning vessel.
His hands were healing.
He had met strangers who had treated him with kindness despite knowing nothing about him.
Perhaps the world was not as cruel as he had believed.
Aldric finished his orange.
He placed the peel beside him.
The last light disappeared.
Night settled over the Azure Sea.
Stars appeared overhead.
Aldric secured the cutter's lines one final time.
He checked the mast.
The sail.
The helm.
Everything was in order.
He stepped toward the cabin.
Then stopped.
Something moved beneath the water.
Aldric frowned.
The cutter rocked.
Once.
He waited.
The sea settled.
He glanced over the side.
Nothing.
He turned toward the cabin.
The cutter rocked again.
Harder.
Aldric grabbed the mast.
"What..."
The water around the vessel began to churn.
Not from the wind.
From beneath.
His stomach tightened.
The cutter lurched violently.
Aldric was thrown against the side of the cabin.
Then—
BOOM.
The sea exploded.
A colossal plume of water erupted beside the cutter.
A wall of ocean crashed over the deck.
Aldric was drenched instantly.
He slammed against the cabin wall and caught himself with both hands.
Water poured from his hair.
He blinked rapidly.
"What the hell—"
The sea began to settle.
For one brief moment, there was silence.
Then something rose.
Aldric looked upward.
And kept looking.
The creature breached the surface.
It was enormous.
Not merely large.
Enormous.
Its body emerged from the Azure in sections, long and serpentine, disappearing beneath the water long before Aldric could see where it ended. Dark, wet hide covered its body, ridged with thick plates and scars.
Its head alone dwarfed the cutter.
The shape was difficult to understand.
Aldric had heard stories of monsters like this since childhood.
Sailors spoke of them in taverns. Naval histories recorded encounters in careful, skeptical language. His tutors had once dismissed them as exaggerated accounts of unusually large sea beasts.
Leviathans, they had called them.
Ancient creatures of the deep.
Rare enough that most men would never see one.
Dangerous enough that entire ships had been lost to them.
Aldric had always imagined something vaguely resembling a great serpent.
He had been wrong.
The creature rising before him possessed the long, serpentine body of something built to move through the deepest parts of the ocean, but its frame was impossibly massive. Thick, armored ridges ran along its back, disappearing beneath the water like the spine of a submerged mountain.
Its head alone dwarfed the cutter.
Four thick, horn-like protrusions framed its skull, worn smooth in places by age or battle. A pair of narrow eyes glowed beneath heavy ridges of flesh, one of them clouded by an old injury.
Its jaws opened.
Rows of uneven teeth emerged from the darkness of its mouth.
Some were broken.
Some had been replaced.
Others were stained nearly black.
Scars covered the creature's body.
Long pale wounds crossed its neck. Deep grooves disappeared beneath its armored hide. One particularly vicious scar ran from above its left eye, across its face, and vanished beneath its jaw.
Whatever this creature was...
it had survived things that should have killed it.
Aldric stared.
The beast's broad jaw opened slowly, revealing rows of irregular teeth.
Along its face were several long scars.
One ran from above its left eye down across the side of its skull.
Another disappeared beneath its jaw.
Deep marks covered its neck and shoulders, some old enough to have healed into pale ridges.
This was not an untouched beast.
It had fought.
And survived.
One eye remained fixed upon Aldric.
The other was clouded and half-shut.
Aldric could not move.
The creature breathed.
The sound was enormous.
A deep, rumbling exhalation that vibrated through the water beneath him.
He had no weapon.
No crew.
No escape.
The cutter suddenly felt very small.
The creature tilted its head.
It looked at him.
Not with rage.
Not with hunger.
Something worse.
Recognition.
As though it had decided what he was.
Prey.
Aldric slowly backed away.
"No."
The creature moved.
Aldric barely had time to react.
Its head lunged forward.
The impact obliterated the cutter's helm.
Wood exploded.
The tiller vanished.
Aldric was thrown across the deck.
The cutter twisted violently beneath him.
He grabbed for the mast.
Missed.
The sea swallowed him.
Cold.
Darkness.
Aldric plunged beneath the surface.
He kicked upward immediately.
His lungs already screamed.
He couldn't see.
Something struck his shoulder.
He spun.
The current dragged him sideways.
He fought it.
Hard.
His arms clawed through the water.
Up.
He needed to go upwards.
Another wave passed overhead.
Light shimmered somewhere above him.
Too far.
Aldric kicked again.
His lungs burned.
Then the creature moved.
Its enormous body shifted through the water.
The pressure alone sent a violent current through the depths.
Aldric was thrown backward.
Wreckage rushed toward him.
A broken section of the cutter slammed into his side.
Pain exploded through his ribs.
His grip failed.
He spun downward.
The wreckage continued sinking.
Aldric reached for the surface.
Nothing.
His lungs convulsed.
He tried to breathe.
Water filled his mouth.
Panic finally broke through his discipline.
He kicked violently.
His arms thrashed.
His fingers clawed at the darkness.
Up.
He couldn't tell which way was up.
The wreckage drifted above him.
Below him.
Around him.
Everything had become darkness and pressure.
His chest felt as though something were crushing it from the inside.
His vision began narrowing.
He needed air.
Now.
He kicked again.
Nothing.
His legs were becoming heavy.
His arms slowed.
The sea pressed against him from every direction.
A piece of timber drifted past his face.
Then something orange.
A single orange from the crate.
It floated slowly through the dark water.
Aldric stared at it.
For one impossible second, he remembered the sunset.
The fishermen.
His mother's voice.
Oranges taste better when they're cold.
His vision blurred.
He reached for it.
His fingers missed.
The orange disappeared into the darkness.
Aldric kicked again.
His body barely responded.
He could no longer feel the cold.
That frightened him.
His lungs spasmed.
His mouth opened.
No air came.
His vision darkened further.
Father.
The thought came without warning.
He remembered Roland standing beside him on the deck of the family flagship.
A hand resting upon his shoulder.
A smile.
Kind.
Patient.
Proud.
Don't fight the sea.
Aldric's eyes closed for half a second.
He forced them open.
No.
Not yet.
He kicked.
Once.
Nothing.
Again.
His body refused.
The darkness swallowed more of his vision.
Then—
something changed.
The current stopped.
Aldric's body drifted motionless.
The pressure around him shifted.
He looked upward.
A vast shadow hung above him.
The creature.
It had stopped moving.
Its enormous silhouette filled the darkness.
Aldric tried to swim.
His arms barely moved.
His lungs burned.
His chest convulsed as his body demanded air that wasn't there.
He kicked upward.
Nothing.
The pressure around him seemed to grow heavier with every heartbeat. His arms moved, but they felt impossibly slow, as though the sea had wrapped itself around his limbs.
He could no longer tell which way was up.
His vision narrowed.
The last thing he saw was the fractured silhouette of the wreckage drifting above him.
And for one fleeting moment, through the wavering blue, he thought he saw two familiar figures reaching toward him.
His father's hand.
His mother's.
Aldric reached for them.
His fingers closed around nothing.
Then went still.
Aldric could no longer feel the water around him.
He could no longer feel his own body.
His eyes closed.
And then there was nothing.