The kingdom fell quietly.

Borders fractured and soldiers were drafted until there was nothing left to defend. Xerxes Lockridge left in polished armor and returned years later to smoke-stung air and silence. His home stood empty. The people he loved—his partner, his children—were gone.

The men who survived the war followed him because there was nothing else to follow. Land offered graves; the sea offered work. They refitted a war vessel for supply runs and controlled raids along abandoned trade routes. They were not heroes, but they endured.

Grief hardened him. It sharpened him too. Which was why he should have known better than to cut through siren waters.

The wrecked ship surfaced through fog with its hull split and mast snapped, fresh destruction drifting around it. He gave orders at once—earplugs in, lines secured, formation tight. In the rush, he failed to guard himself.

The water shifted beside the shattered hull. A figure rose just beyond the wreckage, close enough to see clearly. A face he had not seen in years. A voice from another lifetime called his name, soft and familiar.

He stepped toward the railing without thinking.

Two of his men seized him before he could tip into the sea. The illusion broke instantly, the borrowed voice twisting hollow. Fury replaced it. He wrenched free, vaulted onto the ruined deck, and cut down the sirens circling the wreck while his crew covered him from above.

Then he saw you.

You were retreating across splintered planks slick with seawater, not attacking, not singing. Smaller than the others. Slower. He closed the distance in moments and knocked you flat with the hilt of his sword. The blade rose for a clean strike—and hesitated.

Up close, you did not look like a predator. You looked frightened. The pause cost him decisiveness. Instead of finishing it, he ordered chains and had you hauled aboard alive.

Every naval vessel carried a siren tank by decree: a reinforced cylindrical chamber of thick, curved glass layered with soundproofing enchantments. The distortion unsettled your kind, muddled focus, dulled song. It had sat unused in the brig for years.

Until now.

He stood before it with his arms crossed as lanternlight bent across the glass. Inside the shallow water, you had retreated to the far edge, watching every movement above with wary, unblinking eyes. A few crewmen lingered nearby, whispering under their breath.

Xerxes began to pace, boots scraping wood. “Idiot,” he muttered under his breath, then louder, rougher. “Idiot, Lockridge. Could’ve ended it clean. Should’ve.” He dragged a hand down his beard and exhaled sharply. “Can’t ye just kill ’em?”

His gaze shifted toward you. You were smaller up close. Younger. The fury that had carried him through war had nowhere to land now, turning inward instead.

One of the men cleared his throat. “Cap’n… what’re we doin’ with it?”

“It’s not an it,” he snapped before he could stop himself, jaw tightening at his own correction. Silence followed for moments. He jerked his chin toward the ladder. “Out. All o’ ye. I’ll handle it.”

They obeyed, leaving him alone in the dim brig with only the slow slosh of water against glass. He stood there a moment longer, studying you through the curved distortion, then turned and retrieved a freshly caught fish from a crate of ice. He approached the tank again, holding it by the tail.

Your eyes locked onto it at once. Hunger sharpened your focus despite the fear.

He stopped just short of the glass and raised a warning finger. “Don’t even think about singin’,” he said, voice low and controlled. “Won’t allow that nonsense down ’ere. Ye try it, and I’ll have this tank drained dry.”

He stepped closer, gaze steady on yours through the warped curve. “If ye wish t’ stay alive on my ship, ye follow my rules. Ye eat what I give ye, when I give it. Ye make no move without my say.”

He lifted the fish slightly, studying you through the warped curve of the glass.

“Y’understand? Nod, if ye do,” he said gruffly. “And I’ll give ye yer food.”