The leviathans didn’t pursue .
They could have. Gods, they should have. I was within a tail sweep of more than one of them—massive, world-ending things that made the shipwreck look like a toy left too long in the bath. They circled, coiled, lood beneath the surface like shadows made flesh. I stood on the raft with nothing but water and faith beneath , the brick still humming in my pack like a dying star, and yet... they didn’t co.
I could’ve told myself it was the chaos—the whale vs. kraken fight rumbling just beneath the horizon like a goddamn apocalypse ballet. That maybe the blood in the water distracted them, that maybe they didn’t see , maybe they were busy.
But no.
I knew better.
The creatures that sensed the brick didn’t give up. I’d seen them tear through hulls, rip chains, bash steel. They were zealous. Obsessed. They wanted the brick like it was a missing organ in their own body. If Moby Dick himself had risen from the depths and started reciting scripture, they wouldn’t have blinked.
But now? They sward the ship. Not the raft. Not .
I couldn’t explain it fully, but I could feel it in my blood—literally. The blood that had soaked into from the raft. The brick. The mark. Sothing about the raft confused them, shielded . Maybe it made less of a beacon, more like... one of them.
Not invisible. Just... unrecognizable.
But it wasn’t foolproof.
I found that out the hard way when the vomit—yeah, vomit—from the raft dripped into the sea. It attracted the little fishes which attracted the komodo dragon look a like bastard. And when they saw as a easy al.
They surged toward .
Even the baby whale noticed. It broke the surface like a mountain coming up for air. Saw . Locked eyes. And flipped the raft.
One second I was upright, the next I was face-first in saltwater and darkness. The roar of rushing sea filled my ears. I could barely breathe, let alone think. All I could feel was the deep dark blue.
I clung to it, dragging myself over the edge, coughing out salt and blood. I looked down and saw movent—shapes circling like vultures in reverse.
But they didn’t strike again.
Sothing held them back.
Now? They turned away. They forgot I was there.
It was working.
Crude. Ugly. Terrifying. But working.
This raft—it wasn’t so blessed escape pod. It wasn’t safe. But it was the only thing we had. No fortress. No salvation. Just a shard of wood wrapped in blood magic, bobbing above a sea full of monsters that couldn’t quite decide if we were food or kin.
And even the rman—son of the sea—couldn’t survive that water anymore. If he jumped in now, he’d be torn to shreds. I knew it. He knew it. You could see it in his eyes every ti he glanced over the edge. His kingdom had turned on him.
The girl, too, understood.
She had been watching ever since the raft flipped and I crawled back aboard. She watched the water, then looked at . Watched how it moved around —not toward. Not against. Just... around.
She saw the calm. She felt the change.
And she understood.
She and the rman began preparing the raft without a word. Not a command. Not a plea. They just moved. She started tying ropes to the far end, securing them to rusted hooks and iron rings. Trying to lower the raft gently into the sea. Smart. Careful. Hopeful. As if delicacy might keep the illusion going longer.
The rman helped, slower, more pained. But deliberate. He kept glancing down into the water like it might still recognize him. But it didn’t. The sea he once ruled had forgotten him.
And ?
I stood on the raft, looking down into the abyss.
Waiting.
Hoping.
Not for safety. Not even for survival.
I was hoping for the motherload—the final piece of the ritual. The last offering. The thing that would make this whole ordeal an sothing.
The sea was still full of them. Creatures, corpses, old gods sleeping in the trenches.
I knew what I was looking for.
Sothing final. Sothing whole.
Sothing that could end this, or complete it.
As the ropes groaned and the raft began to lower, I didn’t take my eyes off the water.
It was calm now. But not dead.
Never dead.
Just quiet. Like it was waiting too.
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