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She wasn't just mine, was she?

By a fate none of us had chosen, she belonged to us both.

She was… ours.

The rot withered, tightening around my heart in a painful throb with every slowing heartbeat.

I reached out slowly, before shoving her backwards. The back of her knees hit the edge of the bed, and I shoved her down until she was sitting once more. I wiped my thumb along her cheek bone, collecting a shimmering tear that had betrayed her.

“I know what you are doing, little drownling. It is not going to work,” I said, before trailing my tongue along my thumb, the sweetness of her tear almost making me moan. The shadows quietened enough for the pain to ebb and my eyelashes fluttered shut for a moment. “I could be angry, let you push me away because you think you do not deserve my love, or you think you will protect me. But it would be a waste of however long I have left with you.”

I sank back onto the heels of my saturated boots so we were almost eye to eye. “And as for Helion… I am not happy about it, but would you blame a storm for following the wind?”

Her nose scrunched with irritation. “The destruction left in its wake is still the storms to answer for.” Venom dripped from her voice, filled with a self-loathing so strong that I wanted to pick up every broken piece of her and hold it together for eternity.

“Storms do not choose where they break, Little Drownling. Only whether they keep raging once they arrive.”

A war seemed to be raging inside her. Her body leant towards me, as if wanting to fold herself into my embrace. But she stopped, that unbridled rage replacing the momentary softness I’d glimpsed.

She let out a frustrated shriek, her voice fracturing into a thousand layered harmonies, reverberating through the sea with enough force to make the ship lurch violently beneath our feet as the ocean answered her fury.

She drove both hands into my chest. I rocked backwards on my knees, catching myself with one hand as the deck groaned beneath me.

“That was not very nice,” I tsked.

Iridescent light flooded her eyes until there was nothing Mortal left in them.

I could see it then, even if she kept her feelings caged off from me. She was grieving. Grieving the life, she would never get to live, love she would never get to keep because of a life she did not remember living.

I could see how the prophecy would come true.

The sea would mistake her grief for a command. Kingdoms would sink beneath the weight of it, and she would spend an eternity believing she had become the monster she feared, when in truth, she had only loved too deeply.

Unless I helped her accept it.

Her chest heaved, her body tense as though the strings were being pulled too tight. She would not listen to soothing words. No, she needed to snap.

I lifted a hand between us, gesturing for her to come closer.

“You want to fight, Little Drownling. Fight me.”

Before the last word left my mouth, she had lunged from the edge of the bed.

I rolled to the side, and she crashed against the hardwood planks with a heavy thud. The ship crashed over a wave, pitching us sideways as she gathered herself and lunged towards me again.

I jumped to my feet, but my little drownling was fast. Though, not fast enough to land a strike on me unless I allowed it, even in my decaying state.

Without hesitating, she let out another screech. My muscles froze against my will as she gripped the water in my body and tugged on it like restraints. If I were the gentleman that I once was, I would have let her hold me there. Let her feel a sentiment of control.

But I was a monster.

I slipped through her power like smoke through outstretched fingers and it passed through me as though there was nothing solid enough for it to seize.

She threw strike after strike and I dodged them, her frustration growing with every missed swing.

I knew her body, the subtle way she shifted before her weight followed through with her fist.

“I know your every move, love.” I smirked as I evaded another swipe.