The air felt too still.
Even this far out, the sea should have been roaring—waves breaking against the hull of the Vigil's Wake, wind tearing at the sails. But now there was only silence. The water stretched flat and glassy in every direction, a mirror of an empty sky.
Cilian gripped the rail and stared ahead. The horizon wasn't blue anymore. It bled white.
"We're close," Captain Halgrave said behind him. His voice was softer than usual, carrying a strange weariness that made Cilian turn. The captain looked older than ever, as though the years had been pulled out of the sea and laid across his shoulders. "Too close, maybe."
Cilian forced his voice steady. "You've hunted it before. What happens now?"
Halgrave's lips twitched in a smile that wasn't really a smile. "The same thing that always happens." He held up the talisman: a circle of bone, split down the middle, the crack stitched together with brass wire. The crew believed it was the only thing keeping the White Ridge from tearing them apart. "We wound it, or it wounds us. Then we wake and do it all again."
Cilian felt a cold knot in his stomach. "What do you mean 'again'?"
The captain didn't answer.
Around them, the crew moved like ghosts. Anders checked the rigging with trembling hands. Brynn sat cross-legged on the deck, whispering prayers to gods no one believed in anymore. Even Old Wren, usually unshakable at the helm, stared at the glassy water like she saw her own grave.
The sea was wrong. Too still. Too quiet.
Then the sound came.
A low, guttural moan that seemed to rise from beneath the ship, vibrating through the hull into their bones. The water convulsed, rippling out in concentric circles.
Cilian's breath caught as he saw it: the White Ridge.
At first it was only a shadow beneath the surface. Then it breached, its ridged spine arching high into the air, a mountain of pale flesh and scar tissue. Water cascaded from its massive body in shimmering sheets. Its roar split the air, deafening, shaking the sails loose from their bindings.
"Ready harpoons!" Halgrave bellowed.
The crew scrambled, but their movements were sluggish—as though the sound had sunk into their bones, weighing them down. Cilian grabbed a coil of rope and tied it around his waist, anchoring himself to the mast.
The whale turned, an impossible mass churning the sea to foam. Its mouth opened—not teeth but rows of jagged ivory ridges that seemed to grind against each other.
The first wave hit.
The Vigil's Wake heaved, planks screaming as water flooded the deck. Anders was swept overboard, his scream cut short as the sea swallowed him whole.
"Hold steady!" Halgrave shouted. He raised the talisman high, its cracked surface glowing faintly. For a moment, Cilian thought the light might drive the whale back.
But the whale charged.
It struck the Vigil's Wake broadside, sending the ship spinning. The mast cracked like a bone. Cilian's rope bit into his waist as he clung to the mast, watching in horror as the talisman flew from Halgrave's hand. It hit the deck and shattered in two.
A scream tore from Brynn's throat. "The talisman! It's broken!"
The glow faded.
The air grew colder. The sky dimmed, the clouds bleeding white.
Cilian felt it then—a strange pull in his chest, as if something inside him had come unmoored. Images flickered in his mind: himself as a boy, scrubbing the deck; himself as a captain, issuing orders; himself staring into the White Ridge's gaping maw again and again.
We've been here before.
He staggered to Halgrave's side. "What's happening?"
The captain's eyes were glassy. "The loop. It's closing."
The whale roared again, and the sound wasn't just a sound—it was a memory. Every hunt, every failure, every death layered atop the other.
Cilian felt his body giving way. The deck seemed to tilt beneath him, though the sea was perfectly flat.
"Don't fight it," Old Wren whispered from the helm. Her voice was low, almost kind. "Let the sea take you. It always does."
The whale's shadow passed beneath them one final time. The Vigil's Wake bucked violently—and then everything went still.
The air was silent.
The sea turned black.
One by one, the crew collapsed where they stood. Brynn slumped against the rail. Anders' lifeless body floated just out of reach. Halgrave dropped to his knees, clutching the broken talisman.
Cilian's knees buckled. The world tilted, spun, blurred into a haze of salt and light.
Not again, he thought. Please, not again.
But the thought faded as darkness closed around him.