Blood clouded the water. Rowan's chest tightened as he watched the body of the loyal Thalriss drift into the deep, chains still clutched in his lifeless hands. The man had come to free his prince, and instead had been struck down like nothing.
The corrupted captain shoved the corpse aside, his spear gleaming pale in Midg's glow. Coral armor clung to his body like a disease, fused into black-veined flesh. His pale eyes fixed on Rowan, merciless and patient.
Rowan gripped his harpoon until the wood creaked. Grief and fury twisted inside him. One ally already lost. He would not let the prince be next.
The captain did not rush. He let Rowan feel the weight of his presence—three arm-lengths away, spear circling lazily, daring Rowan to make the first move.
Then he struck.
---
The spear lunged with terrifying speed. Rowan twisted, the barbs grazing his ribs. Pain flared white. He answered with a thrust of his harpoon, but the captain slid aside, parrying with ease.
They clashed in silence broken only by the muted ring of metal and the rush of water. Fighting here was nothing like on land. Every movement dragged, every strike resisted by the sea. Rowan's harpoon pulled heavy with each thrust. The captain, born to salt, moved like the water belonged to him—sliding through currents, striking from angles Rowan couldn't predict.
Rowan kicked off a rib, driving forward. His harpoon glanced across the captain's coral armor, leaving only a shallow nick. The captain's spear answered instantly, cutting a line of fire across Rowan's shoulder. Blood blossomed.
Midg pulsed in his chest, giving him bursts of speed. Rowan darted, spun, jabbed. He managed shallow cuts along the captain's thigh and arm, tiny victories marked by threads of dark blood. But the corrupted warrior pressed harder, every strike sharper, heavier, pushing Rowan back step by step.
The harpoon cord snagged on a rib. Rowan yanked, it cinched tighter. The captain lunged to pin him—but Rowan let the shaft spin, drove forward with his shoulder, and shoved the spear away with both arms. For a heartbeat they were chest-to-chest, snarling through bubbles. Then they broke apart, circling again.
The chains around them swayed. The sound carried like a bell tolling in the deep.
---
The prince hung in the cage behind the captain. Shackled, weak, but alive—his eyes watching Rowan as if all hope rested on this single fight.
Not one more, Rowan thought. Not after the Islander dragged under. Not after Lyra's haunted whispers of the sea's hunger. Not after Darin's mad dive to save Tharos. Not after the Thalriss ally now drifting lifeless into the abyss.
Not one more.
He feinted high. The captain didn't flinch. He feinted low. The spear waited. So Rowan overcommitted, drove straight in, knowing it was the wrong move. The spear flashed for his throat.
Midg jolted in his chest, screaming warning. Rowan twisted, slamming his shoulder into a rib to take the angle. The spear carved across his collarbone instead of through his heart. Pain burst through him.
He countered anyway—driving the harpoon upward, slicing the captain's palm. Blood welled dark from the cut. The spear wobbled. Rowan lunged for it, greedy—too greedy.
The captain let it wobble, caught Rowan's harpoon shaft, and yanked. They crashed together. Too close for long weapons. Coral cracked Rowan's brow with a headbutt. Stars filled his vision. He rammed the butt of his harpoon into the captain's side and felt a rib give. The captain snarled, shoved off, and reset the distance.
Rowan's arms shook. His lungs burned though Midg still breathed for him. His cuts bled freely, stinging. The captain pressed harder, relentless, driving him toward the cage.
Rowan knew the truth: he could not win by skill. He could not outswim a man born of the sea.
So change the water.
---
Rowan planted his feet on nothing and thrust his harpoon—not at the captain, but at the sea itself.
Midg convulsed in his chest, light flaring white-hot. The water answered.
Currents twisted around the captain's legs. He kicked, slashed, tried to tear free—but the spiral clung. Silt and bone fragments rose, caught in the pull, circling faster and faster. Chains rattled against the whale's ribs.
The whirlpool dragged him inward.
Then the water began to boil.
Bubbles streamed upward in a furious hiss. The current shimmered, edges glowing white-hot. Steam curled from the spiral's heart. The whirlpool became a scalding gyre, froth and foam churning as if the sea itself had caught fire.
The captain shrieked soundlessly, armor blistering, flesh splitting. He spun helplessly in the burning current, dragged through it again and again.
Rowan felt it too. The heat surged through his veins, burned in his chest, clawed at his bones. His vision darkened at the edges. He wasn't just controlling the whirlpool—he was inside it. It would break him as surely as it broke his enemy.
Still he held.
The captain's pale eyes locked on him, not just in hatred but in recognition—as though he knew this power, had seen it before, feared it. With a final desperate surge, he tore himself free, fleeing into the gloom. His skin blistered, his armor cracked, but he still swam with deadly purpose. Before vanishing into the dark, he jabbed a finger at Rowan, a promise of vengeance.
The whirlpool collapsed. Steam drifted away in ghostly threads.
Rowan sagged against the prince's cage, harpoon trembling in his grip. Every breath rasped, his arms numb, his body shaking from the strain.
He didn't understand what had just happened. The sea had answered his rage with something vast, terrible, and raw—and it had nearly consumed him.
The prince stirred, chains clinking weakly, his eyes wide with awe or fear.
Rowan pressed his forehead to the bars, voice rising only as bubbles: "I'll get you out. I swear it."
Above, faint and distant, came the clash of steel, Darin's roar, and the cries of freed captives.
But here, in the ribs of a dead leviathan, Rowan had awakened something that could change the course of the war—or drown him in it.