Chapter 395:

Smith

The mood on the ship is somber.

We’re reaching the waters known to be the home of the monster. The sea is different here—darker, calmer, wrong. The waves have lessened, as if the water itself is holding its breath. A fog is growing around us, thick and gray, swallowing the horizon.

Cannons are prepared. Harpoons. Every weapon we have.

"Relax." A voice says.

I exhale forcibly.

Naia is standing beside me. Her beads click softly in the stillness. Her dark hair is loose, blowing across her face. She’s watching the fog, not me.

Normally, I would never be with someone like her.

But I suppose this journey has taken its toll on me.

I’m about to respond when—

"I see something!"

Someone shouts.

I turn. Look where they’re pointing.

The fog shifts. Parts.

Something is floating toward us—drifting on the current, caught between waves, lost.

I move closer. Curious.

The fog clears.

The object bobs in the water. Wood. Cloth. Colors.

I recognize them.

My heart stops.

It’s the flag of the kingdom. The one that had been on Prince Xavier’s ship. The one he flew when he sailed into these waters, never to return.

The crew hauls it onto the deck. Wood groaning. Ropes creaking.

I shove my way there. Push past sailors, past soldiers, past anyone in my path. I grab the flag before anyone else can touch it.

Xavier’s flag.

I choke out a sob.

I was aware that Prince Xavier lost his life here. That he sailed into these waters and never sailed out. That his ship was destroyed, his crew scattered, his body lost.

But seeing this.

This.

It hurts me. Wounds me. More than I was aware of.

The fabric is torn. Faded. Stained with something dark—blood—that has long since dried. The edges are frayed, chewed by salt and sea and time.

I hold it to my chest.

A hand rests on my shoulder. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

"We’ll avenge him." His Highness’s voice is steady. Firm.

I can only nod, not trusting my voice.

The closer the ship sails, the more debris we find.

Discarded pieces of ships. Broken masts. Shattered barrels. Tattered sails. Some are from vessels we don’t recognize—merchant ships, pirate ships, ships that have no name.

But some are familiar.

A piece of railing with the royal insignia. A cannonball stamped with the mark of the kingdom’s foundry. A boot,with a sole I recognize.

Most people who volunteered to sail with Prince Caspian had some connection to the crew that lost their lives. A brother. A father. A friend.

I watch a young recruit fall to his knees, clutching a locket. His shoulders shake. His sobs are silent.

Others gather around him. Hold him.

I look away.

The fog thickens.

The water darkens.

The ship sails on.

***

Caspian

The mood is somber.

I stand at the bow, watching the fog curl around us like something alive. The water is dark—darker than I’ve ever seen it, darker than the deepest trenches, darker than night. There’s no wind here. Just unnatural stillness. The sails hang limp. The ship drifts.

I clench my fists.

Larissa clutches my shirt. Her fingers are cold. Her face is pale. She looks nervous—her eyes darting, her tail twitching beneath the water where she swims alongside the hull.

I’ve never seen her nervous in water before.

I take her hand. Squeeze it.

A shout goes up from the crew.

They’re trying to pull something onto the ship—something heavy, something large. I watch as they heave on the ropes, grunting, sweating, struggling.

The ropes slip.

They fall back.

The thing they were pulling—the body—splashes back into the water.

I see it before it sinks.

Decomposing. Bloated. Wrong.

Large claw marks rake across its chest—deep, parallel, familiar.

The same marks I saw on the man in the tavern. In Port Vermilion. The survivor with the milky eye and the scarred face.

This man didn’t survive.

My stomach turns.

Unfortunately, that man was just the beginning.

More wreckage floats past. More body parts. Torsos severed at the waist. Limbs torn from sockets. Heads—just heads—bobbing in the current, their eyes open, their mouths frozen in screams.

Some bodies are in half. Cut clean through the middle, as if by a blade the size of a ship.

Some are mangled—crushed, torn, destroyed.

The silence is palpable.

No one speaks. No one moves. The crew stands frozen, staring at the water, at the remains, at the proof of what awaits us.

This is what the monster does.

This is what killed Xavier.

This is what we came to destroy.

But now, seeing it—

Now—

"What a bunch of cowards."

A voice cuts through the silence. Loud. Sharp. Dismissive.

Everyone turns.

The Devil is standing at the railing, arms crossed, her face hidden by her hat.

She kicks off the railing.

"Seriously, where’s the courage?"

She clicks her tongue.

"You’re all standing here, trembling like children, because of a few bodies?"

No one answers.

"It’s just a couple of bodies."

She jumps.

Off the ship.

Over the railing.

Into the dark water below.

I gasp. Several others rush to the railing, looking down, expecting a splash, expecting her to surface, expecting something.

There’s no splash.

I lean over.

She’s balancing on a barrel. Standing upright, arms spread, coat billowing, which is odd because there’s no wind here.

The barrel bobs gently in the current, surrounded by debris, by bodies, by death.

She jumps to a piece of wreckage. Lands gracefully. The wood tilts beneath her weight, but she doesn’t fall.

She jumps again. To another piece. And another.

She moves from wreckage to wreckage with unnatural grace—light as air, quick as water, wrong.

Like it’s a game.

I watch her hop from a shattered mast to a floating crate to a barrel that shouldn’t support her weight. She doesn’t slip. Doesn’t stumble.

She balances on a broken spar, arms spread, coat billowing in the still air.

Then she cups her hands around her mouth.

"Here, monster, monster, monster!" Her voice echoes across the water, loud and mocking. "The Devil’s calling!"