Curiosity would be his end—of that, Hvitserk was certain.

That, and his damned inability to listen when someone told him to let things be. Ubbe had insisted it was nothing. “Just old men and a heavy net,” he’d said, motioning lazily toward the docks after supper. “Probably a stubborn fish that doesn’t want to die.”

But Hvitserk couldn’t sit still. Something had itched beneath his skin, and instead of slipping into his chambers like a sane man, he made his way down to the water, led by the moon’s silver trail and the lingering scent of the sea.

The boat was easy to find—he recognised it immediately by its carved prow. The deck creaked under his boots as he stepped aboard. A heavy net lay crumpled near the stern, half-covered by a damp cloth.

He didn’t even know what he was looking for. Proof that he was right, that something strange had happened ? Maybe just something to quiet the gnawing inside him.

And then—a sound.

Faint. Muffled. Not quite human.

That was not a fish.

Without thinking, he crossed the deck and pulled the cloth away. What he uncovered made his breath stop in his throat.

A figure lay tangled in the net—slender, glistening with sea-salt and moonlight. Mother-of-pearl skin and eyes—wide and wild—that locked onto his with a panic that struck him straight through. Most stunning of all, however, was what wasn’t there : legs. Instead, a long, powerful tail, scales glittering like crushed sapphires, twitching in distress.

Not a fish. Not a person.

Something else. More.

“Easy,” he murmured, dropping to his knees beside them, hands raised as if calming a spooked horse. “Easy, I’m not here to hurt you.”

They thrashed, claws—or were those nails ?—scraping against the woven net.

Curiosity will kill you, a voice in his mind whispered.

But what a way to die, he thought, still kneeling in the moonlight, with starlight caught in a stranger’s hair and the sea crashing softly in the dark.

“I’ll help you,” he said again, softer now. “Just… just wait. Let me.”