Captain Caspian Marlowe
"HARD TO STARBOARD!"
My voice cut through the roar of cannon fire like a blade cutting through a silk. The Erebus groaned under my boots, her timbers shuddering as another volley tore past our bow. Salt spray stung my face, mixing with the dangerous smoke that choked the air.
"Captain!" First Mate Davies appeared at my elbow, blood streaming from a gash above his eye. "The pirates are breaking formation! They're retreating into the cove!"
I gripped the helm, every muscle in my body singing with purpose. This was what I was born for, the dance of battle, the weight of command, the righteous fury of bringing justice to those who terrorized innocent merchants.
"Load chain shot!" I screamed. "I want their masts down before they reach those caves!"
"Aye, Captain!" The crew moved like a well-oiled machine, my machine, responding to every command with precision that made my chest swell with pride.
The Erebus was the crown jewel of His Majesty's fleet, and I, Caspian Marlowe, youngest captain to ever command a first-rate ship of the line, was about to deliver the killing blow to the most notorious pirate haven in these waters.
Thunder cracked overhead, but I barely noticed. The storm had been building all day, dark clouds boiling on the horizon like an omen I was too proud to read.
"Sir!" Davies clutched the rail as the ship pitched violently. "The waters ahead, something's not right. The charts showed no structures in this cove, but I swear I see…"
"Pirates hide their bases well, Davies," I said, never taking my eyes off our prey. Three ragged ships limped toward the narrow inlet, smoke pouring from their decks. "That's why we're here. To root them out and burn their nest to ashes."
A grin split my face. Admiral Thornwood would have to eat his words now. Called me too young, too reckless, too hungry for glory. But when I returned with news of this victory, when I laid the pirates' colors at his feet...
"FIRE!"
The Erebus unleashed hell.
Our cannons roared in perfect sequence, a symphony of destruction I'd orchestrated myself. I watched the shots arc through the storm-dark sky, trailing smoke like falling stars.
The first volley struck true.
But instead of splintering wood and canvas, I heard something else. Something that made my blood turn to ice.
Stone, shattering stone. "What in God's name.." Davies whispered beside me.
Through the smoke and rain, I saw it. Not a pirate base. Not a smuggler's den. A temple.
Marble columns rose from the water itself, glowing with a soft, impossible light. Intricate carvings covered every surface, waves and fish and figures that seemed to move in the flickering glow. And at its heart, a statue of a woman, beautiful and terrible, her arms outstretched toward the sea. My second volley was already in the air.
"CEASE FIRE!" I screamed, but it was too late.
The cannon balls smashed into the temple's heart. The statue exploded in a shower of white stone. And behind it, God help me, behind it was someone real.
A girl. No more than sixteen, her dark hair flowing around her like seaweed, her eyes wide with shock. She didn't scream. She simply looked at me across the distance, her lips forming a single word I couldn't hear.
Then my third volley hit. The temple collapsed. The girl vanished into a cloud of marble dust and sea foam. And the ocean… The ocean began to bleed.
"Captain!" Davies grabbed my arm, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. "Captain, look at the water!"
Red. The sea was turning red. Not the rust-red of clay-heavy rivers, but the deep crimson of fresh blood. It spread from the ruins of the temple like a plague, staining the waves, turning the foam pink.
The wind died. Just... stopped. The cannons fell silent. Even the crash of the waves ceased, leaving only an awful, ringing quiet. Then the water began to rise.
Not in waves. In a column. A pillar of blood-red seawater that climbed toward the storm clouds, defying every law of nature. Lightning danced around it, turning the spray into rubies and garnets.
My crew backed away from the rails. Grown men, hardened sailors who'd faced hurricanes and hostile fire, whimpering like children.
"What have you done?"
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. From the sea and the sky and the very boards beneath my feet. It was rage and grief and loss given sound, and it drove me to my knees.
The water column took shape. A woman, tall as my mainmast, formed from the crimson waves. Her eyes were empty voids that somehow still wept. Her hair was the current itself, flowing and shifting with a life of its own.
Thalassa. The name came to me from some half-forgotten story my mother told when I was a boy. The Sea Goddess. The Mother of Depths.
I'd destroyed her temple. I'd killed her...
"My daughter," Thalassa said, and the words broke like waves over rocks. "My innocent child. You slaughtered her for your glory."
"I didn't know!" The words ripped from my throat. "It was a mistake! I thought, the pirates.."
"You thought." Her laugh was the howl of a thousand drowning men. "You did not look. You did not ask. You saw what you wanted to see, and now she is gone."
The goddess descended, her massive form shrinking until she stood upon the waves themselves, walking toward the Erebus with terrible purpose. My crew scrambled back, abandoning their posts, but I couldn't move. Her gaze pinned me in place like a butterfly to a board.
"Please," I whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Sorry." She reached out with a hand that flickered between solid flesh and flowing water. Her fingers touched my face, cold as the deepest trench. "Your sorrow means nothing to the dead, Captain. But you will learn. Oh, you will learn such sorrow."
Her hand moved to my throat.
"Your voice commanded your crew. Your voice brought death to my child. So let your voice become death itself." Her grip tightened. I couldn't breathe. "May every word you speak be a siren's song. May all who hear you be drawn to the depths. May your voice, once the call of heroes, become the song of death."
Pain. Fire racing down my throat, into my chest, burning through my lungs. I tried to scream but only bubbles emerged. Because I was underwater.
The goddess had pulled me from my ship, dragged me down into the blood-red depths. I thrashed and fought, but I might as well have fought the tide itself. Down, down, into darkness so complete I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or closed.
My lungs burned. My vision darkened. This was death, then. This was justice.
But I didn't die.
Something tore. On both sides of my neck, skin split open in lines of white-hot agony. Water rushed in, through the wounds, directly into my body and suddenly I could breathe again. Gills. She'd given me gills.
The goddess's voice echoed through the water one last time: "Live, Caspian Marlowe. Live with what you've done."
Then the current took me, tumbling me through the darkness like a leaf in a storm. I spun and rolled, no idea which way was up, feeling my body change in ways I couldn't understand. My eyes burned. My bones ached.
When I finally washed ashore, I don't know how much time had passed. I lay on the sand, coughing, retching, feeling the new slits in my neck flutter closed as they met air. Each breath was agony. I reached up with trembling fingers, felt the ragged edges of the gills, the blood that still oozed from them.
"Help," I tried to say. My voice came out wrong, too beautiful, too perfect, like music made from moonlight and memory. "Please, help me."
I heard footsteps. Heavy boots on sand.
"Ho there!" A sailor's voice, rough and kind. "Are you alright, mate?"
I looked up. He was young, maybe twenty, with a honest face and concerned eyes. He walked toward me, his hand extended.
"Stay back," I tried to warn him, but my voice was still that strange, melodious thing. "Don't come closer."
He smiled. "It's alright. You're safe now. Let me help you up."
His eyes glazed over. The smile froze on his face, becoming something empty and awful. He walked past me, his movements jerky and wrong, like a puppet on strings.
"No!" I screamed. "STOP!"
But he didn't stop. He walked into the sea, one step, then another, the water rising to his knees, his waist, his chest. He never looked back. He never hesitated. I watched him disappear beneath the waves. I understood then. I understood what she'd done to me.
A scream built in my chest, born of horror and grief and soul-deep despair. I tried to hold it in, tried to swallow it down, but the weight of what I'd done, what I'd become was too much. The scream tore free.
It echoed across the beach, across the water, up into the village that sat on the cliffs above. It was beautiful. It was terrible. It was irresistible. And they came.
They poured from their homes like water from a broken dam. Hundreds of them, men, women, children, elders, all walking with that same empty smile, that same glazed expression. They flowed down the cliff path like a human river, heading for the sea.
Heading for death.
"NO!" I tried to shout, but that only made it worse. More voices answering mine, more feet marching toward the waves. "Stop! Please, stop!"
But they couldn't stop. They wouldn't stop. I clamped my hands over my mouth, but I could still hear them. The splashes. The awful, final silence that followed each one.
I had destroyed a goddess's daughter. Now, with every word I spoke, I would destroy countless more. The curse had begun..