As morning grew dark and miserable, the sky was a drab smear of clouds that seemed to swallow the rising light. A sliver of light emerged on the Horizon's Call deck, and Seraphine gazed in shock as it created ghostly shadows. Images of twisted tendrils, a cold hand around her ankle, and Rowan's terrified, panicked expression stuck in her head like salt on her skin the night before.
She dropped her sight to her ankle and felt an odd warmth emanating from the tiny spiral bruise, as though it were a beating heart under her skin. Every pulse seemed to be carrying a subdued warning or suggested promise from below.
Rowan rested on the deck beside her, his tail slung across the planks like a sharp, glittering sword. He looked fatigued; the incident the night before seemed to have sapped his energy. Seraphine's heart hurt with unspoken questions as he stared hauntingly instead of normally focused. How had he managed to survive in a world where both mortal and supernatural beings were pursuing him?
Rowan opened her eyes, her deep ocean-blue iris precisely meeting hers as though she could feel her thoughts. Surely you can sense it. He spoke in low, almost courteous tones.
Seraphine gasped and quickly swept her fingers over the tattoo. "This...this mark," she said softly. "How is it hurting me?"
Rowan drove himself upward, his tail coiled beneath him, a wave of scales glittering in the early morning light. "It's a claim," he said, his tone somber. "A pact. Oceans do not provide them lightly. Taking this mark indicates that the water has taken you."
"What would that even mean, though?" Faced with what he may reveal, Seraphine fought to keep her voice steady.
"It marks that you're not only... yourself," Rowan said. "You have connection to the power, wrath, and will of the ocean." He inhaled deeply, staring squarely at her ankle. "That mark links you to the ancient forces of the ocean—forces that predate not only you but also your father and any mortal being able of understanding their enormity."
Seraphine's mind ran with questions. "What makes me special? I wanted nothing like this."
Rowan's eyes widened, and his attitude changed from wrath to empathy. Though you did not ask for it, you came seeking it. The river catches people who search for its secrets as well as reveals them.
His words made her shiver down her back. Like her, her father had dreamed of exploring the secrets of the sea, but death had different designs for him. Then it arrived, spangling her in mysteries she had never even started to understand.
Her voice full of hope and anguish, "Is there any way to get rid of it?" she pleaded.
Rowan gave his head a slow shake. "Once the water has claimed you, it cannot be taken off. If at all possible, you will not be able to depart until it decides to."
Her heart started to race. Limitation. She felt as though an invisible cord bound her to depths she was unable to reach. She remembered her father and the strange scars that had denigrated his body; he, too, had been claimed, and the realization hit her with terrible clarity.
"Is it the same fate with my father, Rowan?" Her tone was a little above a whisper, yet her query came out as an impassioned cry.
Rowan hesitated, his eyes straying, seeming to be retrieving memories from a place he would sooner leave in the past. "Your father..." His approach was overly intimate, addressing problems that people ought not to notice. Though Rowan's remarks stopped as his attitude grew sad, he wished to harness the power of the water. "It consumed him alive."
The words hovered there like a thick, weighty mist. Her father sadly passed away in search of knowledge, and she had unwittingly taken after his path. But what had he been searching for? For non-critical answers, why would he have jeopardized his life—and that of his daughter?
Rowan's facial changed to one of caution, as though he could read her ideas. "Seraphine, please don't pursue your aspirations. The ocean never forgives and never forgets."
Seraphine's determination got more forceful. She felt the ocean's embrace and couldn't turn back now that she had traveled so far. "Rowan, I can't. I have to continue searching for answers. There are no other options. Whether my father is alive or not, I have to push forward"
Rowan clenched his jaw, his eyelashes flickering wide. "Then you've released a threat on your life that not even I can stop."
The tattoo on her ankle started to pulse at that same instant, giving her an uncomfortable feeling up her leg as though a whisper were slipping under her skin. This feeling was like a warning and an invitation all at once: seductive and terrible.
Mumbling, "What's going on?" She gripped the rails tightly. To assist.
"It's the call of the ocean," Rowan remarked, his voice expressing his nervousness. "The mark is a waterway. It will enthrall you and send you down its depths.
Her heart pounding, she turned to look skyward. "What is it aiming for?"
Rowan shook his head, disapproving. "That is the present problem. It might be knowledge. Might be power. Conversely, it can be something terrible that the human mind cannot understand."
After that, a profound quiet seemed to be weighing heavily on them both. When Seraphine heard a harsh, guttural snarl from the black waters below, her blood froze.
Rowan drew in, and his face became white. "We have company."
Heart pounding, Seraphine peered anxiously at the sea below. The early light hardly made it to the surface; the depths were black. She watched as a huge black shadow started to circle the ship like a beast hunting its victim across the sea.
"What is that?" She asked quietly, staring down at the thing under the ship.
Rowan's voice sounded almost slurred. "A guardian. They protect the riddles of the sea. They hunt everyone who ventured to expose them."
The massive form of it rotating around once again caused the water to churn and ripple. Seraphine just saw pale, ghostly eyes, a sinuous form, and shimmered, terrible light on scales.
Her pulse pounding with exhilaration, she murmured, "We need to get out of here."
Rowan shook his head in contempt as he watched the Guardian. "It's impossible. You cannot flee once a Guardian has you in its sights."
Seraphines mind is rushing. The erratic nature of the waves makes this feel like a nightmare where a terrible beast is stalking you. When the mark pulsed once more, this time with more intensity, the Guardian seemed to sense her claiming on it.
Rowan gazed at her, his eyes clearly showing his desperation. "Only if you do what I say will you leave here alive. One must give up something for their expectations. Go with the sea's tides."
She felt a little pulse skipping through her. "Give in to the demand?"
"You yielded it now; let it entwine you. This is your only hope to win the sea. You might therefore show it that you are entitled to know its secrets." Rowan probed his hand outstretched.
Though her mind protested, Seraphine knew she had to redirect her attention to the Guardian and saw its huge body coming.
Closing her eyes and inhaling deeply, she concentrated on the mark and yearned she could sense the pulse and follow it. As she sensed the waves decrease to a faint hum, the world around her started to disappear.
She felt a great pull, as though an invisible force from below were encircling her heart.
"Seraphine, no!" The shock in Rowan's voice cleared the mist. But it was too late. She was already falling into an odd, large, and incomprehensible realm.
As the power of the ocean coursed through her veins simultaneously, she experienced an intense sense of strength and gloom. A terrible hush descended, as though the Guardian's roar had vanished from her very core.
Her eyes opened at last, and she saw that she's not on the ship anymore.
Though it was middle of the night, her sight was as clear as day. Unsettling forms whirled around her, their black features fixed on her with a consistent glance.
At the center of all was her father's face, drifting in the darkness with sad eyes.
It mumbled. "Seraphine," and the voice rang across the water. "You shouldn't have followed me."
Then his form vanished into the night before she could say anything. She reached to grab him, desperate to stop him from leaving. He already disappeared.
Behind her, the ravenous and eager growl of the Guardian, who was now approaching, reverberated back.
As the huge beast loomed in the shadows, Seraphine's heart raced; its cold, merciless eyes shining with a terrible brightness. She had nowhere to flee the beast that would eat her alive and her hold on the water.
As the Guardian descended, shrouding everything in darkness, the planet around Seraphine crumbled.