Theseus raised the looking glass to his eye, the polished bronze cool against his skin. He swept it slowly across the horizon, scanning the heaving dark of the Aegean. The waves rolled heavily and unevenly, their peaks tinged white like the spines of hidden beasts, but the sea revealed nothing else. No shadow slipping beneath, no unnatural groan, no phantom standing upon the swell.
Only water.
The crew had grown restless. Men muttered as they coiled ropes, their eyes flicking often to the rail. The chants of Serpent Prince had died away, replaced by the creak of timber and the rhythmic splash of oars. Even the gulls had abandoned them; no cries overhead, only the endless sigh of wind against the rigging.
"These waters are too quiet," Enzo said, standing just behind his prince. His hand never strayed far from his sword. "The sea hides something, or else it laughs at us."
Theseus lowered the glass, his jaw set. He could feel it too, that gnawing absence. The sea was never still—not here, not on the trade routes where ships tangled daily with raiders and storms. Yet since they'd left harbor, nothing had stirred. No enemy sails, no sudden squall, not even the playful dolphins that followed most voyages.
It was as though the ocean itself were holding its breath.
Theseus passed the glass to Caspian, who grunted and began his own sweep. "Nothing," he said after a moment. "If this shadow stalks us, it's deep. Deeper than men were meant to swim."
A low unease rippled through the deck. One sailor spat into the sea, whispering a charm. Another rubbed a token of driftwood nailed to the mast, his lips moving in silent prayer.
Theseus leaned into the helm, eyes narrowing against the wind. "Let it hide," he murmured. "The sea may keep its secrets, but not forever. When it rises, we'll be waiting."
The crew heard him, and though they said nothing, a few men straightened their backs. Hope and dread mingled like salt in their blood. For now, the Aegean gave them only silence. But every man aboard the Black Trident knew silence on the sea was never safety—it was a warning.
Days slid into one another, the Black Trident pressing further into the open Aegean under skies too calm for the season. No storms. No raiders. No sign of the entity that had devoured half a fleet.
It wore on the men.
They grew jumpy at every creak of timber, every slap of a wave against the hull. Some muttered that the sea was toying with them, dragging out their fear before the strike. Others claimed the creature had already abandoned these waters, retreating into darker depths. Both thoughts brought no comfort.
At night, they whispered of omens—strange dreams, shadows moving under their hammocks, the taste of salt turning bitter on their tongues. By day, they moved like ghosts, their eyes drawn always to the horizon, as if waiting for it to shatter.
Theseus did not show unease, but he felt it.
When the wheel was secure in Caspian's hands, he withdrew to his quarters. The lanternlight there swayed with the ship's slow roll, casting long shadows over the wide oak desk. The map of the Aegean Sea lay spread across it, the inked coastlines worn soft from constant study.
He traced them with a calloused finger—the seven sea-kingdoms of the Thalassarchates, arrayed like a crown across the blue. Pelagia, his home, bold and central. Thalora, Kymara, Okeanos, each with their harbors and fleets. Together, they claimed dominion over the Aegean, the heart of Erytheia's maritime power.
But the map did not end there.
Beyond the jagged coastline of Erytheia stretched the other seas, sketched in darker ink by cartographers who had not seen their depths but only guessed them. The Mare Thalassion to the east, wild and full of storms. The Nekraion to the south, its waters said to hide the ruins of drowned cities. And farther still, the endless gray-blue ocean that touched the western continents, where no Thalassarchate ship had ever sailed and returned.
Theseus poured himself a cup of wine, his eyes narrowing as he studied those far waters. "If this phantom stalks our sea," he murmured to himself, "does it come from beyond? From the Thalassion? The Nekraion? Or the ocean itself?"
The idea unsettled him. The Aegean was vast, but it was theirs—charted, fought over, bled for. To think of a power slipping in from beyond, from places even the bravest captains dared not sail, stoked a cold fire in his chest.
Enzo entered quietly then, bowing his head. "Still nothing, my prince. The men grow restless. Some whisper we chase shadows."
"These are no shadows," Theseus said, his finger pressing hard against the map until the vellum creased. "Something lives beneath these waves. Something that has tasted our fleets and dares call our sea its own. I will not let it."
Enzo hesitated, then asked softly, "And if it comes not from our sea at all, but from beyond?"
Theseus's sea-gray eyes lifted, sharp as steel. "Then I will hunt it beyond. To the edge of Erytheia. To the western continents themselves, if need be."
****
Outside, the sea rolled black and calm, the silence as deep as the abyss. And still, nothing came. The Black Trident drifted onward, its oars cutting the dark water with measured strokes. Yet each day passed the same—no groan from the deep, no phantom figure on the waves, only the endless hiss of sea against hull.
The men began to unravel.
At first, it was whispers, muttered between hammocks, charms clutched tighter around necks. Then came shouting matches over dice games, knuckles split on jaws, knives drawn in the galley before Caspian's booming voice broke them apart. One sailor spat over the rail and cursed Theseus by name, only to be beaten bloody by his comrades for daring to say it aloud.
The stillness ate at them worse than storms. Storms could be fought, endured. Silence was a slow drowning.
And through it all, Theseus remained fixed at the helm, his hands steady on the wheel, his eyes narrowed against the horizon. When Caspian or Enzo offered to relieve him, he refused. This was his duty, his burden. For Theseus was no mere captain—he was bound by the Mystery he had gained through insight.
A Mystery born not of inheritance but of insight: the world itself had whispered its hidden truth to him once, and he had listened. As a result, he had gained a power within him whenever he touched the tiller, a second sight that let him read the sea like others read a scroll. He could feel the currents shifting beneath the waves, sense the moods of wind before they stirred the sails.
His father called it the Serpent's Gift, a fragment of Poseidon's power left behind after the gods vanished. Some named it the Compass of the Deep. Whatever its name, it was more than skill—it was instinct, a Mystery that bent sea and star to his will. He had never steered astray. Never once. Until now.
Theseus poured over the map in his quarters at night, the candle burning low while the ship rocked gently beneath him. His finger traced the bold lines of Pelagia's coast, out to the Aegean, to the jagged waters where the fleet had vanished. His instincts had drawn him here, tugging his hands at the helm, the compass of his blood pointing unshakably to this stretch of sea.
And yet—nothing.
Why had his gift brought him here if the waters were empty?
"Theseus," Enzo said one evening, leaning against the doorway, his eyes shadowed with worry. "The men are fraying. They whisper that your compass has failed. That your Mystery is broken."
Theseus's gaze lifted from the map, his sea-gray eyes hard as iron. "The compass does not fail. The sea speaks, Enzo. Always. If I am here, it is because something wants me here."
Enzo frowned. "And what if it never shows itself?"
Theseus turned back to the map, tracing his finger into the darker ink where the cartographers' knowledge ended, where the Thalassion bled into uncharted waters. His voice dropped low, almost reverent. "Then it waits. And I will keep waiting until it rises. For the sea hides nothing forever."
Outside, the waves lapped softly against the hull, as if mocking him. The men tossed sleepless on their hammocks, whispering prayers or curses into the dark. And still the compass of his blood pulled him deeper, into silence.
By the seventh day, even Theseus's patience frayed. The men worked in grim silence, eyes hollow, their prayers muttered louder with each passing hour. Caspian's voice could no longer bark them into courage, and Enzo's glares no longer stilled their hands. The crew was breaking, and Theseus knew it.
That evening, as the sun sank behind a veil of gray clouds, he stood at the helm, the salt wind cold against his face. His hand tightened on the wheel. For the first time since leaving Pelagia, his sea-born compass gave him no pull, no certainty. Only stillness.
He exhaled slowly, tasting iron in the air.
"Enough," he said at last, his voice carrying across the deck. "We turn back—oars to port. Raise the mainsail. We return to Pelagia."
Relief washed over the crew like rain on parched earth. Men sprang to the rigging, others gripped their oars with newfound vigor. Caspian gave a short nod, and even Enzo's shoulders eased.
But then the sea changed.
The waves heaved, not with storm, but with force, as though something vast and unseen shifted beneath them. The Black Trident groaned, timbers shuddering. Water darkened around the hull, turning from steel-blue to ink.
A sound rose from the deep—not the groan of earth, not the bellow of any beast, but a mechanical shriek, cold and alien, echoing like iron dragged across stone.
"Hold fast!" Caspian roared.
Then it breached.
The sea split as something metallic surged upward, shedding torrents of black water. A vessel unlike any the Aegean had ever known—a sleek body of burnished steel, longer than a trireme, bristling with strange ridges and slits that gleamed faintly with pale light. Its hull was smooth yet scarred, as if it had sailed the depths for centuries. The shape was no beast's—it was a ship, but not one of wood or sail.
A submarine.
It rose higher, water cascading from its sides, until it towered above the Black Trident. Its surface gleamed like the hide of a leviathan forged in iron. Strange circular eyes glowed blue-white from its flanks, casting beams across the waves.
The crew froze, terror etched in their faces.
Enzo's hand flew to his sword. "By all the gods… what is it?"
Theseus gripped the helm tighter, his sea-gray eyes locked on the impossible vessel as the compass of his blood surged alive in his veins, pulling directly toward it.
He bared his teeth in a grin, fierce and unyielding. "What we've been hunting," he said.
The submarine's lights narrowed, focusing on the Black Trident. The sea around it roiled, as though the depths themselves bowed to its presence.
And then—hatches along its hull split open, steam hissing, the sound like a beast exhaling before it strikes.
The Black Trident rocked violently as the metallic leviathan loomed above it, water streaming down its flanks in great sheets. Every groan of the hull was drowned out by the hiss of steam venting from its seams. The pale lights along its sides flickered and swept across the sea like searching eyes, each beam cutting through the mist and smoke.
The crew stood paralyzed. Some clutched charms at their throats. Others knelt, whispering prayers into their hands. Caspian barked at them to hold steady, but even his voice cracked at the edges.
The silence pressed down like a weight. No gulls cried. No waves slapped the hull. Even the wind had gone still.
Enzo's fingers tightened on his sword hilt until the leather creaked. "It isn't alive," he muttered, eyes wide. "It can't be alive."
Theseus didn't answer. His sea-gray eyes never left the vessel. The compass of his blood hammered in his veins, pulling toward the thing as if it were the center of the ocean itself. His instincts screamed at him—this is it.
For long, breathless moments, the submarine simply hovered there, water sluicing down its sides, its lights glaring across the waves. The sailors' breaths came ragged, the air thick with salt and dread.
Then—movement.
Sections of the hull hissed open with the sound of grinding metal. Panels shifted, sliding back to reveal rows of circular openings that glowed with a pale, unnatural fire. The crew gasped, some stumbling back from the rail as the lights grew hotter, brighter, aimed directly at the Black Trident.
Caspian's roar shattered the paralysis. "Brace yourselves!"
A sound split the air—shrill, mechanical, nothing born of sea or storm. A keening whine that climbed higher, sharper, until it was a scream. Then, in a blinding flash, the first of the strange weapons fired.
Bolts of searing blue-white energy streaked across the water, cutting into the waves with explosive force. One slammed against the Black Trident's mast, splintering wood into fire and shrapnel. Another struck the deck, sending men flying, their screams mingling with the hiss of steam and the roar of shattered timber.
The sea had finally answered.
Theseus tightened his grip on the helm, jaw set, eyes blazing with something equal parts fury and awe. "So," he murmured under his breath as the crew scrambled to arms, "you bleed light instead of blood."
The next volley was already charging.
The deck shuddered as another blast tore through the mast, showering sparks and splinters. Men scrambled for cover, shields raised against weapons no steel had ever been forged to resist. Fear swelled like a tide about to break.
Then Theseus roared.
"Hold your posts! This sea is ours!"
His voice cut through the chaos like a blade. The men froze, then slowly steadied, drawn by the authority that thrummed in his tone. At the helm, Theseus shut his eyes for a heartbeat, the wheel warm beneath his palms, the pull of the waves threading into his veins.
The Mysteries within him stirred—both the Serpent's Gift of Pelagia's bloodline he had inherited from his mother and the revelation he had grasped as a youth, alone at sea during his trial of passage. The ship moved with him now. His hands on the helm were not steering—it was guiding, bending the rhythm of sea and current to his will.
"Port side, brace!" he barked.
The Black Trident rolled hard, the submarine's next volley searing just wide, explosions sending geysers of steam into the air. Men cried out but did not break. Theseus's sea-gray eyes gleamed as he pressed his hand against the rail, feeling the ocean's pulse answer his own.
And then—his lineage answered. The second mystery within him answered his call. The Sea Serpent of Okeanos, the Noble Creature Mystery bound in his blood, awakened. The air thickened with brine, the waves darkened, and the hull of the ship groaned like something alive beneath it. From the swell around the Black Trident, coils of water rose, spiraling like serpents, their translucent bodies glimmering with phosphorescent light.
The crew gasped, awe choking their fear.
Theseus raised his arm, his voice carrying like thunder: "Rise, children of Okeanos!"
The serpents surged forward, slamming against the submarine's gleaming hull with crushing force. The sea itself bent to his command, tides whipping in unnatural fury. A low hum rattled through the deep as he pressed harder, summoning the crushing weight of abyssal pressure. The ocean squeezed the metallic leviathan, groaning as though the abyss itself sought to drag it down.
The vessel shuddered, its pale lights flickering under the strain. For the first time, the crew of the Black Trident felt the enemy falter.
Caspian roared, raising his axe. "The Serpent Prince! The Serpent Prince!"
The chant returned, louder, fiercer, the men slamming their shields and oars as the sea around them became a weapon under Theseus's command.
Yet even as his serpents coiled and the tides raged, the submarine's lights brightened again, and deep within its hull came a sound not of strain but of awakening. Its alien presence pushed back against the pressure, the water boiling around it as if it, too, commanded the sea.
Theseus bared his teeth, leaning into the helm. "So you can fight back," he muttered. "Good. Then this will be a battle worthy of song."
The sea between man and machine writhed, serpents of water clashing against beams of pale light, the ocean itself screaming under their struggle.
The sea writhed like a battlefield, serpents of water thrashing and coiling around the metallic vessel, their jaws snapping with the weight of tides behind them. The abyssal pressure Theseus summoned groaned through the waves, bending the ocean itself to crush the intruder. For a heartbeat, it seemed to work—the submarine's hull trembled, its pale lights flickered, and the men of the Black Trident roared in triumph.
But then the hum came.
A deep, resonant vibration that rolled through the water, rattling bones and timbers alike. The submarine's panels split wider with a hiss of steam, revealing rows of strange ridges along its flanks. From them burst a storm of smaller constructs—sleek, metallic shapes that darted through the water like shoals of predatory fish. Their bodies glimmered with pale light, and as they swarmed, the sea itself seemed to ignite.
The serpents met them head-on, but the constructs were too fast. Blades whirred from their sides, slicing through coils of water as if cleaving flesh. Bolts of searing energy lanced out, punching through the serpentine bodies, scattering them into harmless spray. One serpent exploded in a burst of steam; another unraveled under a dozen strikes at once.
The crew watched in horror. "Gods preserve us!" one shouted, his voice breaking.
"Theseus!" Enzo barked, eyes wide as the sea lit with alien fire. "It's breaking your Mystery!"
The submarine pressed its advantage. Its lights flared brighter, beams converging on the Black Trident. Explosions ripped across the deck as the strange weapons struck—one blast tore through the bow, showering men in splinters and flame; another sheared away the aft oars, sending sailors screaming into the sea.
The ship lurched, half its power crippled.
Theseus gritted his teeth, every muscle straining as he gripped the helm. The sea still answered him, but the weight pressing back was immense, unnatural. The abyssal pressure he had called was buckling, forced outward by a counter-force he did not understand. His veins burned as if the ocean itself was rejecting his command.
"No…" he hissed, sweat streaking down his temple. "This is my sea."
But the submarine's swarm closed in, their metallic shrieks mingling with the screams of the wounded. Caspian fought like a lion on the deck, hacking at the constructs that breached the surface, splitting them apart with his axe, but for every one destroyed, three more rose from the depths.
The tide had turned.
For the first time since he took the helm, Theseus felt the Black Trident slipping from his control. His Mystery, his birthright, the Serpent of Okeanos—outmatched, overpowered.
The crew looked to him, eyes wide with dread, waiting for their prince to turn the impossible back. But Theseus's sea-gray gaze, fixed on the metallic leviathan, burned with something sharper than fear: fury, and the grim realization that the sea itself had birthed a rival.