Her eyes were locked on the merman. That flicker of worry wasn’t just concern. It was something deeper—protective, aching, human. I could see it in the way her brows creased, in the way she bit her lip every time the merman took another blow from the demon’s fists.
He had protected her before. I’d seen it in the prison cell. When she was just another ragged survivor, shaking and weak, and the demon had stalked the corridor with that hollow hunger in his eyes. The merman had put himself between them, and he didn’t budge—not even when his jaw shattered from a single punch. He bled for her. He’d nearly died for her. And now, even with his bones half-broken and healing in real time, he was still doing it.
The more I looked at her, the more I felt like I’d seen her before.
There was something about her posture. The curve of her jaw. The blue hair, ridiculous and defiant, whipping in the wind like a war banner. It scratched at the edge of my memory like a claw. But I didn’t have time to search through the fog of my past. Not now.
The ship trembled. The demon and the merman clashed again, and every time they collided, the deck splintered beneath them, groaning like the ship itself was begging for mercy. Each blow was titanic. Brutal. No finesse. Just raw, primal rage.
The girl fired again.
The shot rang out sharp, slicing through the chaos. It struck the demon in the shoulder, tore through, and vanished into the black blood that leaked out like oil.
He didn’t even flinch.
I waved a hand at her—wild, urgent.
She turned to me, eyes narrowing. I jabbed a finger toward the cannon mounted at the bow, still unused, half-primed.
Her expression lit up with understanding, and she muttered something in a language I didn’t catch. Maybe it was thanks. Maybe it was prayer. Whatever it was, she took off toward the stairs, sprinting down toward the lower deck where the cannon sat waiting like a sleeping god.
I moved to follow her. My goal was the gunpowder. We needed enough force to do more than scratch that bastard. But before I could even take two steps—
Crack.
The demon was faster than I thought. A blur of black limbs and hate. He slammed into me like a freight train, his clawed hand catching my ribs and hurling me backward.
I flew.
A brief, weightless moment of flight—then impact. My back hit something hard, then something sharp punched through my chest. Not a punch. A spear. A jagged wooden splinter, torn from the ruined railing. It drove clean through my body and pinned me like a trophy on display.
My breath stopped.
I stared down and saw the wood jutting out of me, soaked in my blood.
For a second, everything slowed.
I didn’t feel pain, not really. Just pressure. Just heat. My fingers twitched as I tried to lift myself off, but my limbs felt like they were underwater.
The demon came at me again.
But the merman was already there. He moved like a tidal wave—silent until he crashed. His foot connected with the demon’s side, launching him off-course. The crunch echoed like bones breaking underwater. The demon skidded across the deck, crashing through barrels and iron chains.
The merman didn’t chase.
He stood guard.
A wall of scale and fury between me and the thing that had nearly ended me.
And then she was there.
The girl.
She ran toward me, reckless, eyes wide, hair streaking behind her like a blue flame.
She dropped to her knees beside me, her hands hovering, shaking. She reached for the splinter, then stopped. She didn’t know what to do. She was panicking. Her mouth moved, silent at first.
Her hands pressed gently at the edge of the wound. Blood coated her palms.
I watched her, and in that second, she wasn’t just a survivor. She wasn’t a soldier. She wasn’t a symbol.
She was a girl—scared, furious, and somehow still holding it together in a world that had chewed sanity into pulp.
And God, she was beautiful.
Not delicate. Not fragile. She had that kind of beauty born from chaos. A war-torn kind of grace. Her features weren’t soft—they were sharpened by hunger, by nights without sleep, by choices she’d never wanted to make.
But they suited her.
The blue in her hair caught the firelight, turning it violet at the ends. Her eyes glistened, not from tears, but from focus. I reached up, fingers trembling, and touched her lips. She froze.
Then I brought that same finger to my own mouth and made a soft, breathless sound.
"Shhh."
She blinked.
I managed a small smile.
"I’m not dying." I rasped. "Not yet."
Her eyes darted to the wood in my chest.
The blood won’t let me.