Tempest Bound: The Fisherman's Lure

Chapter 4: The Relic'sTruth

Though Seraphine thought her universe had contracted to the questions churning inside her, back on the Horizon's Call's deck the great heavens extended eternally above. Her ankle pulsed gently, a steady warmth that heightened her will. She looked to Rowan, who laid on the deck across from her, after staring out over the black oceans and their calm surface hiding the secrets they contained.

Rowan's tail coiled under him; his shimmering scales sensed the first traces of morning. Though he couldn't stand as she did, he was constant. Though he had been her friend on this strange road, more than ever Seraphine felt she needed answers right now. Between them hovered a quiet thick with all the facts still to be communicated.

Breathe deeply, and at last Seraphine spoke out. "Rowan," she said, her voice stuttering with both dread and will, "I need to know everything." She waved to her ankle and said, "and my father—they're connected, aren't they?"

Rowan's eyes focused, and for a few seconds he seemed to be choosing which of his own memories to show. Like a wall she could not break without his consent, she could sense his resistance. Then he sighed, his shoulders slack as he looked to be deciding.

"Seraphine," he whispered low, softly, "the mark isn't just some symbol." The sea itself is in a covenant with you, a relationship. Regarding your father..." He came to stop and his voice altered. "He looked for something strong, ancient, and that search helps to explain why you're marked now."

Her heart twisted with terrible force. Though he had never told her that weight or revealed the gloom accompanying his obsession, her father had always been enthralled with the secrets of the sea. She could feel legacy crushing down on her shoulders while standing on the Horizon's Call deck.

"What would he be looking for?" She whispered gently, almost audible but powerful.

Rowan turned her blank gaze toward another. "An old relic called the Coral Crown," he remarked, sounding both courteous and terrified. That's a weapon, a source of infinite power, not merely a treasure. Stories have claimed that it emerged from coral embodied as the spirit of the sea.

The cold started to shingle Seraphine's spine. Though they had always seemed to be far-off legends, she had heard murmurs of the Coral Crown before and stories of its fatal appeal. Rowan's comments now brought everything too real.

Would he gamble all for that? Her voice seized as she asked. For anything so deadly would he abandon me?

Rowan started to show mild sad overtones and his voice softened. "He felt it contained answers to things no mortal has ever really known, solutions to the secrets of the water." Still, the Crown kills a terrible lot of people. Seeking it marks one; tied to the river, they cannot go until it calls for them. your granddad... He trailed off, pain blazing in his eyes. Your father compensated for that outlay.

Her heart hurt as the truth of it hit her. Her father had been following something old, something that had claimed him totally, not only looking for knowledge. Her life now fixed to the Crown, she was unintentionally caught in the same cycle.

Her will sharpened, a ferocious fire burning inside her. Then I have to find it; she stated with great voice. "I have to know the truth apart from all other considerations. I have to know why he is publishing all on online.

Rowan turned away, but his features darkened with concern. " You are choosing a course from which you cannot readily turn back. The sea does not pardon those looking for the Crown; it recalls.

Seraphine had already straightened her head. She sensed the Crown calling her straight through her own skeleton. " This is my father's legacy; right now I cannot go back."

Their silence was broken as the morning sun started to peep the horizon and softly shone the silvery deck. A booming voice. Eyes skeptical, Old Man Harlow, the eldest and most superstitious sailor on the ship, stepped forward to see her.

After the Coral Crown then are you? His voice had the rasp quality. asked.

Bracing herself for the stories she knew, Seraphine nodded. I have searches to do for it. She paused then Harlow's face softened with understanding. Boy.

The elderly sailor softly shook his head as a shadow swept over his worn-out face. Lass, the Crown is not a basic object. It is under protection from invisible to human species. The Guardian Ye saw was only one; more worse exist elsewhere.

Rowan's eyes grew fixed, but Seraphine's interest sparked. "What then does everyone mean?"

Harlow's face seemed far off, as though he were a past-life ghost. Indeed, stories of sea witches—old entities with power beyond our understanding abound. Some battled with other for the Crown's power; others claimed their spirits still linger, shackled to the depths by curses ancient beyond time. There then are the siren queens.

Her gaze widens. She had heard of sirens, animals taking sailors to their death, but queens—she hadn't dared grasp their might. "Sirens..." with queens!

"Aye," Harlow said in a low voice. Every one of them rules their species and protects sea secrets. Prize they battled long ago, the Coral Crown; if they knew you were chasing it, He halted, his voice low enough to whisper. "Be careful lass." They treat invaders not very politely.

Though Seraphine sensed the weight of his words, her craving for explanations would not lessen. She was destined to follow this road just as certainly as the water was linked to the tides now. She committed herself.

Rowan's fingers lightly stroked her shoulder; his contact was consistent. "We will need to get ready," he continued, his voice mixing with wisdom. "Our road forward will try both of us. The Crown is somewhere nobody dares visit, at which the fury of the sea is unbounded.

She nodded; her mind spun with all they would need to be ready. Driven to get the answers her father had sought, she was eager to meet whatever lay ahead even knowing this road would test her.

Harlow looked at her, his voice both sad and appreciative. He said, you have lass, the soul of your father. Still, be advised the Crown will try you. It will cause you to doubt everything—including the things you most cherish.

Seraphine swallowed but cast a straight ahead glance. She would go ahead knowing Rowan at her side. She had chosen and was ready.

Rowan and Seraphine prepared as the dawn light climbed higher and heated the ship. They created instruments, studied maps, and listened closely as Harlow related stories of the unexplored oceans. Every narrative presented a world more perilous than anything they had known.

Her last words from Harlow stayed with her like a sober admonition. "The ocean isn't just waves and water," he remarked, his voice harsh but curiously soft. "It's a realm of spirits and creatures older than man; the Coral Crown... is in the central point of it all."

Seraphine developed hope tempered with increasing caution. This journey was about conquering the ocean, outwitting its guards, and surviving the immense powers laying under, not merely about locating the Crown.

Rowan's voice pierced through her ideas, solid and stable. " Are you fit for this?"

Her determination was sharp, and she fixed him. "I would be ready." Let us so immediately locate the Crown.

Their eyes gazed toward the horizon, to uncharted waters of peril, of stories, of maybe the answers she had been looking for.