Heir to a Fallen Star

Chapter 50

"Iris! Iris, I've got you!"

Kaelen’s voice isn't a distant whisper anymore—it’s a raw, trembling roar right next to my ear. His massive arms are wrapped around me so tightly it crushes the air from my lungs, anchoring me fiercely against his chest. He is shaking. The cold memory stone is forcibly wrenched from my numb fingers and hurled across the room, where it hits the floorboards with a dull thud.

He buries his face into the crook of my neck, his hot breath coming in jagged, terrified hitching gasps. One of his large hands cups the back of my head, pressing me into him so hard I can feel the frantic, terrifyingly fast drumming of his own heart against my ribs.

"I've got you, Red," he chokes out, his voice thick and fractured with a pure, unadulterated terror I've never heard from him before. "You're back. You're safe. Breathe, damn it... just breathe with me."

“I cant… remember… the light.”

"No, no, no—Iris, look at me!" Kaelen’s hands instantly fly to my face, his palms hot and trembling against my cheeks as he forces my head up. His moss-green eyes are wild, searching mine with a desperate, panicked intensity. "Don't let it slide away. Hold onto it, Red!"

The room is still swimming, the bitter aftertaste of the elixir pulsing in my veins like a toxic fog, trying to wash the memory clean. The words feel like sand slipping straight through my fingers.

"He... he hid..." My tongue feels heavy, my mind scrambling through the dark. "Where the light... no..."

"Where the light touches the sea," Kaelen repeats for me, his voice a fierce, steady anchor in the middle of my confusion. He leans down, pressing his forehead hard against mine, his breath rushing over my lips. "You said it, Iris. You repeated it over and over. He hid the truth where the light touches the sea. I’ve got it. I’m holding it for you."

He slides one hand down to firmly grasp my nape, squeezing gently to keep me tethered to the present, while his other hand presses over my racing heart.

"Breathe," he commands softly, his voice dropping into that low, steady captain's rumble. "Just focus on my voice. The words are safe with me. You don't have to fight the fog alone anymore. I’ve got them."

“I saw her, she held me, she smelt of vervain, she was beautiful” i tell him still breathing heavy

Kaelen’s thumb gently brushes a tear I didn't even know was falling from the corner of my eye. The fierce, terrifying adrenaline in his frame slowly shifts, melting into a profound, aching sorrow for me as he listens to my breathless words.

"Your mother," he whispers, the realization softening his rough voice into something incredibly tender. He doesn't question it, he doesn't doubt it—he just holds me closer, letting me bury my face right back into the warm hollow of his neck. "She found you in there."

"She was so warm," I breathe against his skin, my hands clutching at the fabric of his shirt as the phantom scent of vervain finally begins to fade from my senses, replaced entirely by his familiar scent of pine and rain.

"I know, Red. I know," Kaelen murmurs, his large hand gently stroking through my hair, pressing me tight against his chest. He rocks me slightly in the quiet dark of the inn room, grounding me back into the land of the living. "You found her, and you got the message. You did it."

He pulls back just enough to look down at me, his moss-green eyes fierce with a quiet pride and a deep, protective vow.

"Where the light touches the sea," he repeats softly, making sure the words are locked safely between us. "We’re going to find it, Iris. Whatever your father hid, whatever it takes to get us that quiet shop and that house—we’re going to find it together. But right now, you just breathe. I’ve got you."

“What does it mean, I ask him ... you've sailed many times … she was giving me a message before she was pulled back, she seemed serious, she wanted to tell me something, it seemed like a warning.”

“There was a song, it was beautiful… behind the door… it had me in a trance.”

My voice cracks slightly on the last note, the melody hanging eerie and fragile in the quiet of the inn room.

The moment the name Johnny Sailor Bold leaves my lips, Kaelen goes completely, unnaturally still. The steady, comforting rhythm of his breathing hitches, and his hands, which had been gently stroking my hair, lock tight against my back. The warmth in his moss-green eyes vanishes, replaced by a sudden, icy stillness that sends a shiver straight down my spine.

"Iris," he says, his voice dropping into a register so low and hollow it doesn't even sound like him. "Sing that again. Exactly those words."

"My heart was pierced by Cupid... I disdain all glittering gold," I whisper, my throat tight as the memory of that sickening green light flashes behind my eyelids. "There is nothing can console me... but my Johnny sailor bold. Kaelen, what is it? You know that song."

He doesn't look at me. He stares past my shoulder at the blank wooden wall, his jaw clenching so hard the muscle feathers.

"It's not just a song, Red," he rumbles, a dark, heavy dread settling into the space between us. He slowly lets out his breath, his hands sliding down to grip my forearms, his touch fierce. "That’s The Female Cabin Boy. It's an old privateer's tune, but out on the black waters of the Shattered Coast... it means something else entirely."

He finally brings his eyes back to mine, and the sheer gravity in his gaze makes my breath catch.

"The Johnny Bold isn't a man, Iris. It’s a ship. A cursed war-galleon that went down in the deep trenches fifty years ago, right beneath the Eye of Elas—the oldest lighthouse on the eastern cliffs. Where the light touches the sea." He swallows hard, his grip tightening. "If your father hid the truth there... he hid it inside a sunken graveyard. And whatever was singing to you in that stone... it's down there waiting in the dark."

The low, haunting hum of the melody vibrates between us, and as I describe the dancing green light—the way it moved like it was swimming, fluid and predatory, right before that terrifying screech—Kaelen’s face goes entirely pale.

"Sirens?" I whisper, looking up at him.

Kaelen’s chest heaves with a sharp, heavy breath. He doesn't answer right away, but the dark, rigid set of his shoulders says everything. He reaches out, his large, calloused hands coming up to cup my face again, his thumbs sweeping across my cheekbones as if to convince himself I'm still entirely intact, still breathing, still here.

"Worse," he rumbles, his voice rough and laced with an old, nautical dread. "Siren-kin, but not the ones from the sailors' tall tales, Iris. If the light was green, and it was nesting inside a sunken wreck like the Johnny Bold... those are Trench-Weavers."

He leans in closer, his moss-green eyes fierce and unblinking in the dim candlelight.

"They don't just lure you in with a pretty face. They mimic the voices of the things you crave most to paralyze your mind, and they use the bioluminescent rot of the deep sea to blind you while they drag you under. That’s what was happening to you in the stone. It felt the magic of Aster's elixir, it tasted your memories of your mother, and it tried to hollow you out from the inside."

A fierce, possessive anger flares in his eyes, his grip tightening just enough to anchor me.

"Your father didn't just hide the truth where the light touches the sea," Kaelen whispers, his forehead dropping against mine, his heart slamming against his ribs. "He locked it inside a literal hellmouth. To get to it, we’re going to have to sail right into the Eye of Elas. We're going to need a crew, a deep-diving bell, and more luck than the gods usually grant men like me."

He pulls back just a fraction, his gaze sweeping over my face, fierce and unwavering. "But I told you, Red. Every single step of the way. If we have to dive into the black water and fight the deep itself to get our future back... then that's exactly what we're going to do."

“You are not going in that water. Sirens lure Sailors to their death. there is no way to heaven or beyond I’m allowing you near them”

“But I am a woman! Siren’s lure men to the deep! all the stories say so, they pull you under and do... unspeakable things... The things I do to you... but instead they eat you after... how rude."

Kaelen blinks. The tense, dramatic gravity of his protective vow completely stalls out, hanging in the air for a bewildered second before his jaw slowly slackens. He stares down at me, his moss-green eyes blinking once, then twice, as his brain tries to process the sheer, unadulterated whiplash of what I just said.

Then, the corners of his mouth twitch.

A sudden, deep chuckle starts low in his chest, vibrating right against my ribs, before it breaks out into a full, breathless laugh. He shakes his head, burying his face in the crook of my neck again, his shoulders shaking with a mixture of profound relief and utter amusement.

"How rude?" he rumbles, his voice muffled against my skin, dripping with a rich, dark humour. "Iris, you just compared a horrific, flesh-eating monster of the deep sea devouring me... to what you do to me in the dark. Gods above."

He pulls back, his eyes sparkling with a wicked, teasing light that completely banishes the lingering shadows of the memory stone. He places his large hands firmly on my hips, looking down at me with a slow, devastating smirk.

"First of all, Red," he murmurs, his voice dropping into a low, raspy purr that sends a very different kind of shiver down my spine, "what you do to me in the dark leaves me breathless, but I usually get to keep my skin. I'm not sure a Trench-Weaver has the same... delicate touch."

He leans down, catching my lower lip in a slow, lingering bite that is entirely possessive, tasting of the remnants of the bitter elixir and the sweet, sudden shift in the room's air.

"Second of all," he whispers against my mouth, his thumb stroking a slow, teasing circle on my hip, "Those old sailors' stories were written by lonely, superstitious men who wanted an excuse for why they ran their ships into rocks. The true lore? Trench-Weavers don't care what's between your legs. They don't care if you're a man or a woman. They hunt desire. They hunt blood. They hunt whatever soul wanders into their web."

He softens, his smirk fading into that deep, fiercely loyal gaze I know so well. He bumps his forehead gently against mine.

"So, nice try trying to bench me based on gender politics, master apothecary. But you're stuck with me. If any overgrown fish tries to do... unspeakable things to me down there, I'll tell them I'm strictly spoken for by a very territorial, very stubborn redhead."

“You mean gold head?”

Kaelen pauses, his eyes dropping to the crown of my head as if truly seeing the shifting tones of my hair in the dim moonlight for the first time in hours. The faint, warm gold strands gleam where the deep crimson used to cling, a physical reminder of just how much time has passed, how many miles we've travelled, and how long we've been running.

A slow, incredibly soft smile spreads across his face, the crinkles appearing at the corners of his eyes.

"Gold head," he tests the words out loud, his deep voice rolling over them with a quiet, appreciative warmth. He reaches up, his large, rough hand gently filtering through the curls, letting the golden-blonde strands slide across his calloused knuckles. "Well. You might be a gold head under the moonlight, Iris..."

He slides his hand down to the nape of my neck, his thumb resting right against the pulse point at my jaw, his smirk returning with a wicked, fond spark.

"...but you are always going to be Red to me," he rumbles softly, leaning down until his lips are brushing against mine, his breath warm and intoxicating. "The beetroot dye might be gone, but that temper? That stubborn, fierce, completely terrifying fire that keeps you fighting when the whole world is falling apart? That's pure crimson, sweetheart. It's the brightest thing in every dark room we walk into."

He nuzzles his face into the side of my neck, taking a deep, long breath of my skin, his arms tightening around me as if locking me into his chest for good.

"Besides," he murmurs against my skin, his chuckle vibrating straight into my bones. "'Red' rolls off the tongue a lot better when I'm trying to yell at you to stop walking into monster-infested memories. Now lie still, my fierce little beetroot. Let the room stop spinning. We've got a ship to find."