The creature didn’t stop thrashing until the second dawn.

  Saltwater had dried in lines across the stone, and Lark had barely moved from his spot. He sat cross-legged, bandaged leg stretched, watching the tidalrook breathe.

  It wasn’t peaceful. Just… tired.

  Azalea brought him half a smoked fish, tossing it wordlessly into his lap. She stood behind him, arms crossed, studying both him and the beast with a wariness that bordered on reverence.

  “You’ll die before it yields,” she said, softly.

  Lark didn’t look at her. “Maybe. But then it’ll have to remember me.”

  Azalea scoffed. “That thing doesn’t remember. It feeds. Fights. It’s feral.”

  “So was I, once.”

  She watched him for a long moment, her expression unreadable, then stepped down toward the rocks. “You, a pathetic feline. She, a mighty beast. There’s difference.”

  The creature floated just off the stone shelf, ropes cutting faint lines into the water’s surface. It was younger than she had first thought, maybe the length of a whaleboat from snout to fin, with scales like slate and translucent frills that shuddered when the wind touched them.

  “She?” Lark asked, tilting his head.

  Azalea crouched by the tide’s edge.

  “She is female,” she said at last, quiet as foam. “You would’ve known if you’d been paying attention.”

  “Forgive me, I didn’t check under the hood when i was being smashed down by her pectoral.” Lark muttered, brow furrowed.

  She ignored him.

  “We don’t name deep ones,” she said. “Not unless we mean to keep them. And even then, it’s considered… sacred. A name binds a soul, do you understand?”

  Lark met her eyes. “Then name her.”

  Azalea looked at the creature. At the scars on its skin. One of her eyes, a pale green, locked onto hers.

  She hesitated. Then, “Myrrkaal.”

  The wind shifted. Somewhere in the belly of the cove, the rocks gave a quiet groan, like the sea had exhaled.

  “Myrrkaal?” Lark repeated.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “In our tongue,” Azalea said, rising to her feet, “it means something between mournful flute and one who howls beneath the moon. She’ll never love you. But she might learn to carry you without killing you.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  Azalea sighed. “Of course you will.”

  They began the process that morning.

  Azalea taught Lark how to hum in a low, vibrating tone—not song, not quite. A resonance. Something the deep beasts understood instinctually. It was a siren thing, a trick of the throat and chest. Lark fumbled with it for hours, sounding like a drowning goose. Azalea and Myrrkaal winced every time.

  “You’re not trying to seduce her,” she said, arms crossed.

  “Seduction is the plan, just not the romantic kind.”

  Eventually, he got close again—hand on Myrrkaal’s ridged side, voice vibrating low, fingers gently brushing against the thick rope muzzle. Myrrkaal thrashed but didn’t bite. Her breathing calmed when he hummed. Not because she liked him, at least not now.

  “She knows your smell now,” Azalea muttered, watching from the ledge. “You’re an irritant, not prey.”

  “Romantic.”

  The work was slow. Grueling.

  Lark was thrown three more times into the water, twice dragged by rope until Azalea had to cut him free. Once, Myrrkaal dove with him still clinging to her back, and he only survived because Azalea followed, cutting through the water like lightning and slicing the netting before he drowned.

  He emerged coughing and blue, and she screamed at him in a language he didn’t understand.

  But the next day, she handed him a strip of dried eelskin to braid around Myrrkaal’s makeshift bridle. A small truce.

  One night, after the tide had rolled in and the stars blinked open above them like eyes, Lark lay beside the fire, outside the cove now, arms folded behind his head. Azalea sat a few feet away, her tail curled neatly beneath her, eyes on the black waves.

  “Why do you care?” he asked softly.

  She didn’t turn. “About you?”

  “No. About the rules, about naming. About any of it.”

  A long silence.

  Then, “Because once, I was named. And it bound me.”

  “To what?”

  Azalea’s lips thinned. “To my kind.”

  Lark turned his head, silent.

  She looked older in the firelight. Not in years—never in years—but in weight.

  “We believe names are sacred because we were once named. Nai’elun, we were called.”

  “And then?”

  “When our mother, Irdia—fell in love with a god not of the sea. She chose someone above the tide. And the sea never forgave her. Atherion cursed her and her children, binding them to the image of Sirens, to this sea.” Azalea breathed. “The strong stay in control, the weak…they end like the one I killed for you.”

  There was no bitterness in her voice. Just stone.

  Lark swallowed. “You didn’t have to.”

  “I did.”

  “Because of me.”

  Azalea turned to look at him, her silver eyes catching firelight.

  “Because she was going to kill you. And I had already saved you once. I don’t like to repeat myself.”

  He chuckled, soft. “You’re the worst.”

  “You’re worse. Naming a Vireth’ilk. Trying to ride it.” She scoffed.

  “It’s not just about the ride. It’s a way out.”

  Azalea blinked. “Out?”

  “I’ve got people waiting. A promise to keep. lAnd there’s a little girl who still doesn’t know her mother is dead.” He didn’t look at her as he said it. Just stared at the stars.

  Azalea’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I see.”

  And then, without a word, she lay down beside him. Just close enough for her hair to brush his shoulder.

  “Tell me,” she said, eyes half-lidded. “About the girl. About your friends. About the world.”

  And he did.

  He told her more about Thalen and his spear. About Eira, radiant and strange, and how she’d thrown herself into fire once just to save strangers. About Maravelle, laughing in a dark cell in the belly of that ship as she told stories of her captain days. Some more grotesque than others.

  He spoke until his voice cracked. And when he had run out of story, Azalea remained—silent and still. Lark turned his head towards her and asked.

  ”You mentioned being bound—to the sea I mean. What happens if you leave?”

  ”I will turn to a statue of salt.” Azalea answered truthfully. Her expression was unreadable.

  Lark scooter closer, just an inch.

  And close by, nestled to the shallows, Myrrkaal stirred. And did not fight.