It was supposed to be a simple night on the sea.

The stars had just begun to break through the clouds, and the ship groaned gently beneath the weight of slumbering men and creaking sails. Kael stood alone at the helm, the scent of salt and old wood clinging to him like the past.

Below deck, she sang again.

The mermaid.

The one with eyes like moonlight striking the surface of still water.

He told himself he didn’t care. That the chains were just precaution, that the silence he kept was out of caution, not curiosity. But her voice crawled beneath his skin. It didn’t lure—it mourned. And something about that shook him more than any storm ever had.

He should’ve ordered her sold. Like the others.

But he hadn’t.

Instead, he found himself there again. Hand on the iron door to her cell. Listening. Breathing. Hesitating.

She was just a girl with gills, he told himself.

So why did she sound like a prayer he wasn’t sure he deserved to hear?