There wasn’t a sky in the brig. Just cold planks and rust and silence that knew too much. Lark hadn’t spoken in two days.
Not since they took Mara. It was sudden, late into the night with no warning.
He’d fought. Of course he had. Bit down on a guard’s hand hard enough to break skin, earned a boot to the ribs that made his breath wheeze out in wet, red coughs. They beat him until he couldn’t stand.
And when he could, he did something worse. He waited.
The guards liked it better when you screamed. When you broke in agony, begging for mercy. He didn’t give them that.
He just sat there, cross-legged in chains, his head bowed like he was praying. He wasn’t. Not to Eluun, Mother of the Moon, nor Atherion, the Storm King. Not to anyone who could answer.
Three days passed before the silence snapped. He leaned against the stone wall, lips split, eyes ringed in purple shadows, and began to sing.
Barely audible, the hum of an old tavern tune he’d picked up years prior, twisted into something… vulgar.
“Oh, the captain’s mum wears boots of lead,
Kicks down doors and sleeps in a shed,
She once drank rum ‘til her eyes turned red,
Then married a goat and called it Fred.”
CLANG.
The bars rattled. A guard kicked the door and barked something, but Lark just grinned, blood in his teeth.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“You want a verse about your sister next?” he offered, cocking his head.
They left the food bucket just out of reach that night.
On the sixth day, one of them—young, dumb, red-haired—came too close. Lark met his eyes and said, sweet as honey:
“You ever wonder what your father really did in the war? You think it was hero work? You think he came home clean?”
The guard stared, and Lark didn’t blink.
“I heard he ran. I heard he pissed himself in the dunes and bribed the captain to say he was brave. Sound familiar?”
The boy lunged, grabbing the bard through the cell bars. Got a punch in. Two, maybe. Didn’t matter. Lark spat blood at his boots and laughed.
“Tell your mother I miss her,” he called, as the boy stormed off.
They made the mistake of uncuffing him from the wall on the eighth day. Just for a few minutes. Just for transport. Dark grey clouds formed overhead, chilled water flooded the belly of the ship. He was being moved to the upper deck for something, some formality. They didn’t say what, but he knew. They underestimated what a bastard grief had made him.
By Atherion‘s grace the storm raged, the ship groaning as it tilted from the brash of waves. It knocked Lark into the man on his right. He hit the first guard in the throat, grabbed the second by the ears and slammed his face into the railing hard enough to break teeth.
Wether it was Zevara’s rage shining down on the bard or not, he didn’t know. He ran. Limping, soaked in blood, one wrist still half-bound in chain. The ship groaned beneath him like it was as sick of the game as he was.
He made it to the helm. Somehow. Chest heaving, arms shaking, mouth coppery with blood and fury.
And that’s when he heard it.
The song.
A siren’s wail—Iris’s voice, not the soft velvet that had lulled him to sleep in the dark. No. This was rage and storm. This was power.
Still, his heart jumped. He turned, searching the black waves beyond the bow, and for a flicker of a moment—it was her.
He didn’t care if it wasn’t. With a final exertion of strength he grabbed the wheel.
He turned the ship. Hard. Toward the rocks. Toward the sound. Toward whatever fate would take him if it meant seeing her again or dying trying.
The hull shrieked as it scraped something. Sailors shouted, shards and scraps of the ship’s wood sprouted from the deck, impaling some, throwing the others into the bone-chilling waters below.
Still, Lark turned the wheel. And something rose out of the water, sharp, jagged edges of rock and sweet solid surfaces. The song grew louder, steering his faithful hands towards the figure perched at the edge of stone below. He didn’t see her face. Didn’t need to.
The ship cracked, the mast fell. Wood split and screams blurred into white noise. Water exploded up over the rails and dragged the remaining men under like toys in a bath. The last thing Lark saw was muted figures below the fog and the crushing black of the sea as it swallowed him whole. And then, Nothing.
should i keep introducing the different gods of this universe? 👀
