The sea was never silent. Even on nights when the waters were calm and the constellations gleamed like shattered crystal across the heavens, the ocean breathed with an ancient restlessness. It groaned against its own weight, shifted beneath invisible currents, and muttered in a tongue that no man had ever fully learned.
But on this night, there was no tranquility.
The sea roared like a wounded beast. Black waves surged, hammering the sides of the Eryndor as though they wished to tear her apart plank by plank. The ship's timbers moaned with each blow, the sound carrying through the hull like the cry of something alive. Lanterns swayed violently along the deck, flaring against the wind, and the salt spray stung like shards of glass.
Ardyn stood at the prow, his boots slipping on the slick boards, his hands gripping the railing with white-knuckled determination. His dark hair clung to his forehead in the rain, and his eyes grey like a storm's heart refused to look away from the horizon.
He had been at sea for a year, long enough to know the moods of the water, but tonight was different. There was a weight in the air heavier than the storm, a sense of something vast and invisible waiting just beyond the veil of rain.
Behind him, most of the crew slept uneasily in the bunks below deck, their snores and murmurs drowned by the howl of the gale. A handful of sailors lingered topside, securing ropes and muttering to themselves as they worked. None approached Ardyn. They rarely did.
It was not that he was unkind he performed his duties, pulled more than his weight, and obeyed orders without complaint. But there was something in his demeanor, a quiet brooding that kept the others at a distance. He did not join their songs, did not gamble at dice in the mess, did not share tales of the ports they had left behind. He carried his silence like armor, and the crew let him keep it.
No one asked him about his past. Sailors were good at leaving ghosts unspoken.
But ghosts had a way of speaking on their own.
Ardyn's father had gone to war and never returned. His mother had faded in sickness not long after, leaving only a hollow shack and a boy too young to fend for himself. He had learned hunger, learned how to fight over scraps, learned how to sleep on stone docks where the tide's breath was his lullaby. The sea had been his only companion sometimes cruel, sometimes kind, but always honest.
And tonight, it whispered his name.
"Ardyn..."
The voice slithered through the crash of waves. He stiffened, breath caught in his throat. He turned sharply, expecting to find someone behind him, but the deck stretched empty and dark.
"Ardyn..."
Clearer now. Lower. As though the sea itself had found a voice. His heart slammed in his chest. He gripped the rail harder, telling himself it was only the wind through the rigging, only his weary mind conjuring illusions. But the sound had weight. It pressed into him. It demanded.
And then he saw it.
Far across the frothing black, a glimmer. It flashed once, then was gone. He blinked against the sting of rain, and there it was again a trembling pulse of gold just beneath the surface, vanishing and reappearing like a heartbeat.
"Still awake, boy?"
Ardyn jerked. The golden light was lost as a lantern glow fell across him. Brannick, the quartermaster, was trudging toward him, his thick boots thudding against the deck. His beard was matted like coiled rope, and the scars on his face mapped decades at sea.
"A storm's brewing hard," Brannick said, raising his lantern. "Best keep your wits about you. Many a sailor's lost himself staring too long at the dark."
"Yes, Quartermaster," Ardyn answered, his voice clipped, the reply automatic.
Brannick studied him a moment, the old man's eyes narrowing. "Strange thing, though. You've the look of one listening. Storms come, storms go, but you stand like the sea's whispering something only you can hear."
Ardyn gave no answer.
Brannick snorted, spitting over the side. "Keep your secrets then. The sea will swallow them, same as it swallows men." He left, lantern bobbing, until the dark reclaimed him.
Alone once more, Ardyn searched the waves. And there the light again. Stronger now. Not random, not illusion. Calling.
He remembered stories whispered in taverns: of a crown lost to the deeps, forged in an age when kings commanded tides and fleets with a single word. They said the crown had been swallowed by the sea after its last bearer betrayed the gods themselves. A relic of power that could summon storms, calm oceans, and sink empires. Most dismissed such tales as sailor's drink born fancy.
But tonight, as the sea murmured his name and gold shimmered beneath the waves, Ardyn was not so sure.
Rain struck harder. Thunder rolled, shaking the bones of the Eryndor. The captain's voice rang out, barking orders. Men stumbled from their bunks, hauling lines, shouting through the downpour. Sails strained, ropes snapped taut, and the deck pitched violently.
Ardyn did not move. He should have been helping, bracing the masts, but he was frozen, his eyes fixed on that impossible light. The storm swelled, black clouds split by ragged lightning, and yet through it all the glimmer burned steady, golden and patient.
It was waiting for him.
A wave slammed across the deck, knocking sailors sprawling. Water filled Ardyn's mouth, choking him, but when he wiped his eyes the vision had not gone.
"Ardyn..."
The whisper thundered now, drowning even the storm. It reverberated in his chest, a summons written in salt and thunder.
The captain seized the wheel, cursing, fighting to keep the ship from broaching. Lightning carved the horizon, and in its flash Ardyn saw more than just water. He saw shapes moving beneath the sea, vast and ancient, coiling like serpents, circling the light. He blinked, and they were gone, but his blood ran cold.
This was no common storm.
The deck pitched again, hurling him to his knees. He forced himself upright, gasping, clinging to the railing. His mind screamed to turn away, to join the crew, to fight the storm like every other sailor. But his heart pulled him back to the golden pulse, steady in the chaos, impossibly bright.
Something ancient stirred below.
The storm howled, but beneath its fury, he heard words in the waves. Not just his name now, but a promise.
The crown waits. The tide chooses. The last mariner shall rise.
His breath came ragged. The world tilted, and he realized this night was not chance. This voyage was no accident. The sea had brought him here, drawn him like flotsam to a truth buried in its depths.
And in that moment, as lightning split the heavens and waves rose like walls, Ardyn knew: his life had just been claimed by the ocean.
The last mariner's tale had begun.