The Siren.

The first time I should’ve died, the water was black and cold enough to burn. We found the wreck at dawn—what was left of it. A broken mast, a splintered hull, torn sails snagged on rocks like white flags that had come far too late. The sea was calm, but there was a weight sitting on it, as if the surface were holding its breath.

“Deep one,” Rourke said, squinting over the rail. “She went straight down. Might not be worth the risk, Cap’n.” “Worth” is a flexible word when you owe the world more than you can pay. “It will be,” I affirm. “Send a hook. We’ll see what we can haul up. If it’s good, I go down.” The crew grumbled, but they moved. Hooks went over. Ropes creaked. Bits of canvas, shattered planks and a few unremarkable crates came up—nothing that justified the way my skin prickled, the way something under my ribs hummed like a drawn bow. “Cap’n.” Rourke’s voice was low now. “This feels wrong. Deep water, no current, no gulls… I don’t like it.” “Neither do I,” I said. “That’s how I know something’s down there.” I stripped my coat, my boots, the heavy things that loved to drag a man to their watery grave. The air bit at my bare arms; the sun hadn’t warmed much of anything yet. A line went around my chest, the knot snug under my arms.

“If you’re not back up in two minutes, I’m hauling you up myself,” Rourke yells.

“Even if I have to bring half the ocean up with you.” “Touching." “You watching the clock, then?” He jerked his chin toward the slow climb of the sun over the horizon. “I’ve got an excellent hourglass.” I smirked, rolled my shoulders once, and walked to the rail. From up top, the water looked like any other patch of sea—grey, mildly offended, indifferent. But when I climbed up and looked straight down, I saw it: the faint suggestion of a shape far below, a ghost of a ship pressed into the dark. Something in my chest clenched. "Mine." It whispered. I dove in before I could decide I was imagining it.The cold hit like a fist. My body seized, then remembered how to move. I kicked down, down, the rope tugging against my chest as I went. The light thinned fast. Sunlight shredded itself on the surface and disappeared above me. The world turned green, then blue, then almost black. The only sounds were my own pulse and the shift of water against my ears. The wreck rose out of the dark like a skeleton. A snapped mast. A broken rail. A figurehead half-eaten by something with too many teeth. My lungs burned a little—not enough to turn me back. In another life, I might’ve listened.

I pushed deeper, fingers catching on splintered wood as I slid along the hull, looking for an opening. A jagged tear near the stern caught my eye—a wound in the ship’s side big enough for a man to squeeze through if he didn’t mind losing skin.

I minded. I went anyway. Inside, the world shrank. No sky, no sun, just gloom and the slow sway of wreckage. A chair bumped the ceiling above me, upside down. A table floated sideways. A body drifted, its face eaten down to bone. My chest tightened harder. Two minutes, Rourke had said.

I found the captain’s cabin by feel and stubbornness—broken door, smashed desk, a locker wrenched off its hinges. No gold, no neat chest with a smug lock. But there was something else. A faint glow near the floor, where the shadows were thickest. Small. Soft. Pulsing. I kicked toward it, one hand out in front of me, fingertips brushing over splintered wood and then—

Glass. A pendant, wrapped in a twisted knot of rope and silk, wedged under a fallen beam. It was shaped like a teardrop, clearer than ice. Inside, a dull ember of light beat slow and steady. The moment my hand closed around it, the world shifted.

The burn in my lungs vanished for one clean, horrifying heartbeat, like something had reached in and turned that part of me off. Then everything went wrong.

The beam above me shifted. The wreck groaned, old wood complaining at being disturbed. The rope around my chest snagged on something—a jagged hook, a splinter, fate. It jerked tight. I kicked up. The rope held. I might as well have been nailed to the floor. The burn came back, sharper now. My lungs spasmed. Black flecks danced at the edges of my vision.

I yanked at the rope, at the wreckage, at stupid, useless knots. Nothing. The pendant’s pulse climbed, faster, harder, as if responding to mine.

Thump. Thump..Thump...

The water pressed in. Every instinct screamed: Up. Air. Now.

My body wanted to do anything but stay still and untangle ropes. I did the wrong thing for a drowning man: I tried to think.

Knife, my brain supplied. Belt.

My fingers fumbled for the hilt at my hip. Too slow. Too stiff. My chest heaved on an empty breath, and pain ripped through me. Reflex tried to make me inhale.

Water flooded my mouth, my throat, my nose. Fire. Acid. Panic. My grip on the knife slipped. It sank, tumbling out of reach.

Well, I thought, distantly. That’s that, then.

The world dimmed at the edges..

My body’s fight went slack...

And then.. I see her.