Heir to a Fallen Star

Chapter 53

"Thank you. You might not think it, but you’re an honourable man. I put my faith in you Sir, don’t dishonour my word." I say before giving him a soft polite hug.

Silas freezes completely solid. His arms hang uselessly at his sides as I wrap my arms around his bulky, leather-aproned frame for a brief, gentle hug. For an old smuggler who smells of sulphur, rust, and cheap ale, a soft embrace from a lady is probably the most shocking hazard he’s encountered in years.

When I pull back, his weathered, scarred face is a deep, sudden shade of crimson that rivals my old hair dye. He clears his throat roughly, hacking a bit to hide the absolute whiplash of emotion, and shuffles his boots against the dusty floorboards.

"Honourable," he mutters, the word sounding heavy and unfamiliar on his tongue. He looks at me, his single good eye fierce and unblinking, the cynical grifter entirely gone. "Ain't nobody called me that since the King's navy stripped my rank, girl. But... a contract sealed with blood-rubies is one thing. A contract sealed with a lady's word? That don't get broken. I'll get you your ship. You have my word on that."

Beside me, Kaelen is trying—and failing—miserably to suppress a massive grin. He watches the old, terrifying quartermaster get completely undone by a bit of basic human kindness, shaking his head in sheer amusement.

"Alright, Red, let's go before you turn my old, ruthless mentor into a soft-hearted poet," Kaelen rumbles, his voice thick with fondness as he wraps a heavy, protective arm around my waist, guiding me back toward the heavy iron doors.

As we step back out into the chaotic, salt-stung air of the lower docks, Kaelen leans down, his breath warm against my ear as we walk.

"You're lethal, you know that?" he whispers with a low, raspy chuckle, his moss-green eyes sparkling under the bright midday sun. "First you feed the street urchins, then you hug the meanest black-market fence on the Shattered Coast. If you keep this up, the Siren-kin down in the trenches won't even try to eat us—they'll probably just hand over the truth and apologize for the mess."

“I have no idea what you are talking about Sir.”

Kaelen halts dead in his tracks right in the middle of the bustling wooden pier. A passing dockworker carrying a massive crate of salt-cod nearly Plows right into his back, muttering a string of colourful curses, but Kaelen doesn't even blink. He just stares down at me, his jaw slightly slack and his moss-green eyes wide with absolute, incredulous amusement.

"No effect whatsoever?" he echoes, a sudden, booming laugh tearing from his throat, drawing a few sharp glances from nearby sailors.

He steps in closer, completely blocking out the chaotic crowd with his massive frame, and loops his fingers through the leather straps of my apothecary satchel to gently tug me against him. The heavy scent of brine, pine tar, and the midday sun wraps around us.

"Iris, you just completely dismantled a hardened, one-eyed black-market smuggler who handles cutthroats for breakfast," he rumbles, his voice dropping into that low, devastatingly fond register. "The man looked like he was about to burst into tears because you called him honourable. And don't even get me started on what you do to me."

He leans down, his rugged face inches from mine, a wicked, teasing smirk playing on his lips as his gaze drops to my mouth before locking back onto my eyes.

"You've got a terrifying power, Red. You walk into the darkest, most cutthroat corners of this world, hand out silver, offer a hug, and suddenly the monsters are lining up to do your bidding. It’s a good thing you're on my side, or I'd be seriously worried about my chances."

He gives the satchel strap a playful little nudge, his smirk softening into that deeply loyal, protective gaze. "Come on, my totally 'powerless' lady. Let's get back to the inn, pack our things, and get some rest. Dusk is going to be here before we know it, and we have a hidden cove to find."

The room is cold and quiet, illuminated only by the faint, pre-dawn blue creeping through the dusty window. The heavy, chaotic noise of the docks hasn't woken up yet, leaving only the distant, rhythmic lap of the tide against the wooden pilings below.

As I buckle the straps of my apothecary satchel, checking the tight glass vials one last time, a sudden knot of anxiety tightens in my stomach. The adrenaline of yesterday—of facing Silas and throwing down rubies—has faded, leaving behind the cold reality of what we are about to do.

I look over at Kaelen, who is effortlessly hoisting his heavy rucksack over one broad shoulder, his broadsword already strapped securely to his back.

"I've never sailed before," I admit softly, my voice sounding small in the quiet room. "Never even seen a ship up close... I know crewmen have their superstitions about a woman being on board causing bad luck. Do you think I'll be welcomed?"

Kaelen stops. He adjusts the strap on his shoulder and turns to face me fully, his moss-green eyes searching my face in the dim twilight. The playful smirk from yesterday isn't there; instead, his expression is entirely steady, grounded, and intensely serious.

He walks across the creaking floorboards, stopping right in front of me. He reaches out, his large, warm hands gently taking hold of my shoulders, anchoring me to the spot.

"Welcomed?" he echoes, his deep voice a low, reassuring rumble that instantly cuts through the chill of the morning. "Red, they don't have to welcome you. They just have to obey the man who commands them—and that’s me. If any sailor on that deck so much as breathes a word about 'bad luck' or casts a foul look your way, I’ll personally toss them over the railing to see if the sharks find them superstitious."

He leans down, catching my gaze and holding it, forcing me to see the absolute certainty in his eyes.

"But the truth? Those old stories about women on ships being bad luck are for lazy captains who needed someone to blame when they crashed into a reef. The men Silas is bringing are desperate, and they know you are the one paying their wages. More than that, they’re going into the most terrifying waters on the map. When the fog rolls in and the waves start hitting the hull, they aren't going to care what's between your legs. They're going to care that we have a master apothecary on board who can brew a counter-toxin and keep them from losing their minds to the deep."

He slides his hands down my arms, catching my small hands in his massive palms and giving them a firm, encouraging squeeze.

"You aren't cargo, Iris. You're the heart of this expedition. I'll be the steel, Silas will be the navigator, but we don't move a single inch into that trench without you. Do you believe me?"

I place a soft lingering kiss onto his lips before mutter the words “I always believe you. But before we go I would like to stop at an old shop that holds stories, tales and truths about the deep. I want to be well versed in Siren-kin if I’m about to be responsible for the lives of a several men running into danger on my behalf…One of those lives in particular meaning more than the world to me.”

Kaelen melts into the kiss, his large hands sliding up from my shoulders to cradle the back of my neck, holding me against him for a long, fierce beat. When I pull back just enough to mutter those words, a soft, breathless sound escapes him. His eyes darken with a profound, quiet intensity as he hears just how much he means to me.

"More than the world," he repeats in a rough, tight whisper, his thumb brushing a slow circle against my jawline. He swallows hard, his gaze burning with a fierce, unbreakable vow. "I hold you to that, Red. You keep me safe up here, and I'll keep you safe down there."

He lets out a slow breath, his pragmatic commander side clicking back into place as he processes my request. He nods, a look of deep respect replacing the raw emotion in his eyes.

"An old shop. Aye, that's smart," he rumbles, adjusting the heavy rucksack on his shoulder. "If you're going to brew countermeasures against the Trench-Weavers, you need more than just sailors' ghost stories. You need the old ink. The charts and journals of the madmen who actually survived the deep."

He guides me toward the door, checking the hallway before ushering us out into the crisp, pre-dawn air. The harbour is still mostly asleep, shrouded in a heavy, rolling grey fog.

"There's a place," Kaelen says, his voice low as we navigate the quiet, cobblestone alleyways away from the main docks. "On the edge of the Scholar's Quarter, right where the old city wall meets the sea. It's run by an old eccentric named Abernathy. He collects the logs of sunken vessels and texts the church tried to burn. If there's a grain of truth about the Siren-kin's song or the anatomy of what secretes their toxin, it’ll be in his stacks."

He tightly loops his arm through mine, pulling me flush against his side as the first pale orange rays of the sun begin to bleed through the fog. "Let's go get you your truths, master apothecary. Let's make sure we're ready for whatever is waiting in the dark."

The bell above the heavy oak door lets out a dull, brassy ping that feels instantly swallowed by the heavy silence of the room. The shop is less of a*****e and more of a forgotten tomb for dead trees. The air is thick and dry, smelling heavily of ancient parchment, crumbling leather, and the sweet, slightly vanilla scent of decaying paper.

Mounds of old maritime charts, rolled-up maps, and towering stacks of books occupy every square inch of the floor, rising up like unstable towers of stone that threaten to collapse if we breathe too hard. The only light comes from a single, sputtering tallow candle on a cluttered counter at the back.

At the sound of the bell, a shadow shifts behind a mountain of leather-bound folios.

An old, heavily hunched man emerges. He looks as though he’s been carved from the very dust settling on his shelves. A wild mane of wire-grey hair erupts from his head, matching a long, untamed beard that reaches halfway down his stained velvet waistcoat. Small, perfectly round spectacles sit precariously on the bridge of a crooked nose, reflecting the candle flame.

"Who's there?" he asks gruffly, his voice sounding like a rusted gate scraping open. He blinks rapidly through his thick lenses, his sharp little eyes darting between Kaelen’s towering, armed silhouette and my satchel. "The shop isn't open for casual browsers. If you're looking for cheap poetry or romance, buy a penny-dreadful at the corner and get out."

Kaelen doesn't move, but his posture remains entirely relaxed, his hand resting casually on his belt. He gives me a slight nudge with his elbow, letting me know the floor is mine to charm yet another eccentric old man.

“Good morning sir. I am not here for pretty stories or tales of romance. What I seek is lore…no…Truth pertaining creatures of the deep, mermaids, sirens... Siren-kin per say...”

The old man freezes mid-shuffle, his gnarled hand hovering over a stack of yellowed charts. The gruff, dismissive scowl on his face slowly morphs into something far sharper. He tilts his head back, adjusting his tiny round spectacles so he can peer at me through the bottom of the lenses, his keen, intelligent eyes scanning my face with a sudden, intense curiosity.

"Siren-kin," he repeats, the words dragging out of his mouth like a secret. He turns his gaze to the massive, broad-shouldered warrior looming silently at my back, then looks right back at the leather apothecary satchel strapped across my chest. "You say you don't want pretty stories, girl. Good. Because the true texts of the Trench-Weavers don't contain a single shred of romance."

He lets out a low, dry cough and turns around, his hunched back disappearing into a dark, narrow aisle lined with crumbling black leather volumes.

"Everyone thinks it's a beautiful woman on a rock," his voice echoes from the shadows, sharp and mocking. "A sweet song to make a sailor homesick. Hah! A comforting lie invented by families who didn't want to admit their boys died screaming in the dark."

There's a heavy thud from the dark aisle, followed by the sound of a heavy, rusted latch being thrown. Abernathy emerges a moment later, carrying a massive, water-damaged folio bound in cracked, blackened hide that looks suspiciously like shark skin. He drops it onto the cluttered counter with a violent smack, sending a small cloud of ancient dust exploding into the candle-light.

"The real lore? The old ink?" The old man taps a filthy, ink-stained fingernail against the cover. "They don't sing with vocal cords, master apothecary. They are apex predators of the deep trenches. They secrete a highly volatile, airborne pheromone—a neurotoxin that alters the brain's perception of reality. It hits the olfactory senses and forces the mind to hallucinate its deepest, most desperate desire. You don't jump into the water because you hear music. You jump because your brain is entirely convinced the person you love most is drowning in the surf."

Kaelen’s jaw tightens beside me, his moss-green eyes narrowing as he stares at the heavy book. The description hits dangerously close to what happened with the memory stone.

Abernathy leans over the counter, his small spectacles sliding down his nose as he looks dead into my eyes. "If you're going down into the Shattered Coast, you aren't fighting a myth. You're fighting a biological horror. This journal was written by a mad ship's surgeon who dissected a drowned specimen a hundred years ago. It lists the glandular composition, the effects on the human nervous system... and the failed attempts at an antidote."

The old man pauses, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "It costs five silver pieces just to open the cover. Do you still want the truth, girl?"

I look at him, a stern but knowing look telling him to continue. "I’ve heard Sirens don’t like the light? They are creatures of the deep and fear anything resembling light, hence, why they come out when a ship is asleep."

Abernathy’s eyes widen slightly behind his round spectacles as I match his intensity, my stern look letting him know I am not here to be frightened off by a horror story. When I mention the light, a dry, raspy chuckle rattles through his throat, and he nods his head so fiercely a bit of dust falls from his wire-grey beard.

"Smart girl," he grunts, his tone shifting from dismissive to deeply impressed. He quickly flips open the heavy, shark-skin folio, his ink-stained fingers flying through pages covered in meticulous, cramped handwriting and terrifying, hand-drawn anatomical sketches.

"Aye, they hate the light, but it's not a simple fear of the dark like a child," Abernathy says, tapping a sketch of a massive, elongated skull with empty, cavernous eye sockets. "Look here. Their eyes are entirely useless—milky, degenerate lenses. Down in the trenches under the Eye of Elas, there is no sun. They navigate by sensing pressure waves and electromagnetic fields. But their skin? Their skin is incredibly sensitive, covered in deep-sea photoreceptors designed to catch the faintest bioluminescence."

He leans closer, the tallow candle casting long, dancing shadows across his wrinkled face.

"When you expose them to sudden, intense light—true sunlight or a brilliant, magical flare—it doesn't just scare them. It literally burns their nervous system. It blinds their sensory pores, overloading their brains with input until they can't track a ship's hull anymore. It breaks their concentration, which means..." He slides his gaze up to me, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. "...it breaks their ability to project the toxin. If they are burning, they cannot weave the illusion."

Kaelen steps forward, his heavy hand resting on the wooden counter as he absorbs this, his tactical mind already turning the information into a weapon. "So, if we run with high-burning magnesium lanterns or chemical flares on the deck... we can keep them at bay?"

"For a time," Abernathy warns grimly, looking at Kaelen. "But don't be a fool, soldier. If you're dropping a diving bell into the black trenches, you are entering their living room. A lantern only throws light so far. If the fog is too thick, or if they attack from directly beneath the keel..."

He leaves the sentence hanging, turning back to me and tapping the open book. "The failed antidote notes are right here, apothecary. The ship's surgeon tried using concentrated mint and belladonna to shock the olfactory system, but it wasn't strong enough to break the hallucination once it took hold. You need something that can completely block the neural receptors before the toxin enters the lungs."

He closes his hand over the page, looking at me expectantly. "The book is yours to read further... if you've got the silver."

Kaelen doesn't hesitate. He slides five bright silver pieces across the dusty wood of the counter, the coins clinking sharply against the silence of the shop. Abernathy’s gnarled hand sweeps them up instantly, disappearing them into his vest with the speed of a seasoned street magician.

I tuck the heavy, shark-skin bound folio firmly under my arm, its rough texture scraping against my sleeve, carrying a weight that feels far heavier than mere paper. It feels like the key to our survival.

As the brass bell chimes behind us, we step back out onto the cobblestones. The pre-dawn grey has given way to a pale, misty morning gold. The air is crisp, biting at my cheeks and carrying the sharp scent of the upcoming tide.