He had eaten fish, snakes, and a slice of Sea King. But the taste of men returned before he asked for it.
The harbor fist had not closed on him, not yet. But men talk, and talk is the one net you cannot see until you are inside it.
Rumor carried his shadow from reef to dock. Sailors whispered of a boy who lived in water and ate like sharks. Some made him bigger, some smaller, some made him a ghost. Ghosts are currency in places where men fear the dark.
He did not know their words. He knew only the change in the air when boats began watching water instead of sky.
⸻
The first men came at night.
Not soldiers with banners, not Marines with drums — just men who had bought cheap powder and carried knives ground down from farming tools. They smelled of sweat caked into leather and fear varnished over with drink.
They waited until the moon cut the water into iron shards and then rowed toward the rocks where rumor said eyes sometimes shone.
He was there. Not because he wanted to meet them, but because the reef was food and stone, and he was both.
He watched them come with their oars squeaking like rats. He tasted oil on the water — the kind used to keep blades from rust. He pressed his cheek to stone and waited.
One spoke low: "We gut it, take its teeth. Proof enough for coin."
Another laughed too loud. "If it bleeds red, it's no demon."
Xerxes's body remembered the Pits. Men in corners, waiting for someone smaller. He had been smaller, once. He had learned what corners do.
He let them pass above. Then he rose.
The boat rocked when his hands caught its belly. A man cursed, thinking reef. Then another cursed louder when black eyes stared back from under the planks.
One thrust a spear down. Xerxes slid aside, let it strike water. He closed his fist on the shaft and pulled. The man above screamed when wood splintered in his grip.
He surged up, water falling from him like glass.
The men saw him whole for the first time — too lean for his years, too scarred for any, black hair plastered to his skull, crow crouched on his shoulder with three eyes turning slow as a clock.
One shouted "devil!" and tipped the boat himself trying to get away.
The others lunged.
Xerxes met the first with his forearm. Armament flashed thin and hard just at the bone ridge. The knife broke against it like poor pottery. His return strike was not planned — it was hunger moving through his shoulder — but when it landed, the man's teeth clattered on the planks.
The second tried to come behind. Xerxes felt it. Not sight, not sound — the tug in his chest that had warned him of Sea Kings. He spun before thought and caught the man's wrist. Armament on the fingers only, enough to stiffen bone. He twisted. The wrist popped. The man screamed.
Screams made the last one bold. Screams meant the world was still ordinary. He charged with a rusted hook, aiming for Xerxes's ribs.
Xerxes did not move. He let the hook come. He let the tug in his gut choose for him. At the last blink he dipped sideways. The hook scraped skin but not meat.
His hand, darkened at the knuckle, struck the man's throat. Not a kill. A lesson. The man dropped, clutching, gagging, learning that breath is rented, not owned.
The crow cawed once — low, slow, as if counting.
Xerxes stood in the boat among them. None were dead. All were broken.
He looked at his hands. They shook, not with fear, but with memory. The Pits had filled with men like this — not strong, not great, just desperate and cruel. He had hated them most because they proved you did not need strength to make suffering. Only choice.
He could kill them now. He could eat.
But the crow tilted its head, and he remembered the Sea King scar, the hinge left alive. Some lessons are not for eating.
He tipped the boat. Water swallowed them. He listened to their thrashing. He did not help. He did not follow. He climbed back to stone and let the night carry their sound away.
⸻
By dawn, more talk.
A cutter in another cove swore three men had crawled back half-drowned, mumbling about a boy with black eyes who bent wood and broke wrists like sticks.
A tavern girl said she saw one spit blood when he coughed and thought it proof he had swallowed the sea.
A man with a scar on his jaw wrote a letter to a contact in Mock Town: "If true, there's coin in it. A freak sells, dead or alive."
The letter never reached Mock Town. But others would.
Xerxes did not hear those words. He only felt the sea tense in lanes men began to walk with weapons instead of nets.
⸻
The next men were different.
Mercenaries, not peasants. They came with rope ready, with nets knotted for things stronger than fish. Their boat sat lower in water from steel hidden under tarps.
They came at dawn, when light makes eyes sting.
Xerxes was ready.
He waited under ledges, letting his ears learn the shape of their oars, the scrape of metal under canvas. He felt their eyes on water before he saw them.
"Spread the net," one said. His voice had command in it. Not much, but enough to herd lesser men.
The net sank, heavy with lead rings.
He did not swim away. He swam through.
The cords caught him, bit into skin. He stilled. He remembered chains in the Pits. He remembered what happened when you fought chains too soon.
He let them think they had him. The boat pulled closer. Faces leaned over, sharp with hunger for coin.
Then he breathed once, and his will breathed with him.
Conqueror's slipped from him like cloth unrolled. Not wide, not loud — just tight, pressed against the men in the boat like a second skin.
Two dropped where they sat, eyes rolled white. One fought it, teeth gritted, veins bulging. The leader swayed but held, though sweat sprang on his brow.
Xerxes flexed. Armament sharpened along his arms in strips, not whole. He twisted once, and the cords frayed. He rose in a storm of rope.
The leader drew steel — a short blade, oiled well, carried by a man who had used it before.
Xerxes stepped into the boat. His feet were bare. His eyes were not.
The blade cut his shoulder. Pain flared, hot then cold. He let it in. He closed on the man, wrapped fingers around his wrist. Armament met steel, coin against coin.
The man's strength was real. For a moment, they strained — boy against mercenary, will against muscle.
Xerxes leaned his forehead into the clash. He remembered the Pits. He remembered Sea Kings. He remembered drowning men calling the dark.
His thumb pressed down. Armament under nail. The wrist bent. The blade dropped.
He struck once — open palm to chest, Conqueror's humming faint like a bell. The man fell as if the sea had pulled him by the ankles.
The crow hopped onto the blade where it lay, tilted its three eyes.
Xerxes stood in the boat again. Blood on his shoulder. Rope at his feet. Men silent around him, except for the ones whose mouths still moved, whispering prayers or curses — he did not know the difference.
He looked east. Then west. The sea hummed, unchanged.
But men had teeth. And they would use them again.
⸻
By evening, a story spread further.
In taverns: "A boy with eyes like anchors broke my brother's net."
In alleys: "A crow with three eyes followed him. Bad omen."
Among mercenaries: "Stay clear. Not worth the coin."
But for every man who said not worth, another said worth more. Because fear sells too.
Xerxes sat on stone, binding his shoulder with strips torn from the net. He felt the ache deep, inside muscle where Armament had not reached. He pressed his palm there, not to heal but to remember. Pain is a mark. Marks are truth.
He did not speak. He did not need to. The crow did.
"More will come."
Xerxes nodded. He had always known. The Pits had taught him the one lesson the sea only echoed: if you are not hunted, you are nothing.
He leaned back, let spray salt his wound, and closed his eyes. Not sleep. Just stillness. Just the waiting before the next teeth closed.