The Nameless Heir

At first, Poseidon turned the ocean against them.

The wind sliced across the deck. Waves hit harder each time, rolling in with a weight that felt deliberate. This wasn't weather. The sea shoved at the hull, pulling, pushing, trying to drive them back to the shore.

As they sailed farther, a shadow passed beneath the surface, broad, slow, deliberate, like a predator pacing before the strike. The water swelled. Then it broke through.

Scales the color of storm clouds. A body longer than the ship. Its head was narrow, jaws lined with teeth like jagged marble. Fins fanned out from its sides, each big enough to sweep a man into the deep. Eyes pale and glassy, like they hadn't seen sunlight in centuries, fixed on the deck. A Cetus. Bigger, uglier than the one he had fought before.

His gaze tightened.

"Oh, that ugly thing again. Dammit—do they not go extinct?"

The beast lunged, maw opening wide enough to take the ship in half. He stepped forward, blade flashing once. The strike split flesh and bone. The sea took it without ceremony, the surface closing in a churn of red.

A shield went up around the boat. He said nothing else.

Days blurred as they pressed forward. He kept to the rail, eyes fixed on the black horizon. Liz slept in short hours. The deeper they went, the heavier the pull beneath them grew. Waves rose higher, slamming against the ship. Spray stung his face.

It didn't matter.

Liz was at her peak—too strong for a demigod. His mother's training had honed her sharp, and the power from her past life was waking.

The next day, Poseidon seemed to give up trying to push them back. No monsters surfaced. The sea stayed smooth.

But the wind was different. Heavier than before. It filled the sails and drove them toward the abyssal triangle faster than expected.

It almost felt like someone was helping him.

He wondered if Zeus had decided to.

By the second day, the sea turned against them again.

The sky had gone dark, clouds pressed low and heavy.

The monsters came back. Faster. Meaner. One broke the surface, teeth snapping at the air before vanishing again. Waves slammed the hull hard enough to rattle the deck. Black rock tore up through the water, slick and jagged, narrowing the space around them.

Through the mist ahead, shapes moved. Long hair trailing like ribbons in the current. Faces too perfect. Skin pale as moonlight. From the waist down, scaled tails moved with slow, hypnotic grace. Sirens.

Liz saw them first.

"Siren!" she shouted, voice tight. "Cover your ears! Their song will drive you mad!"

He didn't move.

The first note hit like warm light breaking through cold water.

The deck, the sea—gone.

A table waited in a garden, sun pouring over the leaves in slow, golden waves. The air held the sweetness of pomegranate, the warm crust of fresh bread.

His mother sat across from him, smiling—an expression he couldn't remember ever seeing on her face. Beside her, Hades poured wine, the glass catching the light. When he looked up, there was pride in his eyes. Almost.

They spoke, but the words slid past him, lost in the drift of the air.

The weight in his chest wasn't there. The cold that had lived in him for years was gone.

He didn't think about where he was. Or why.

Only about staying.

Then the space at the table caught his eye.

Liz's seat was empty.

A small thing. Enough to crack the dream.

The garden wavered. Light bled out.

When his vision cleared, he was one step from the ship's edge, the dark water waiting below. Liz was there too, swaying, her eyes empty, caught in the same pull.

Shadows gathered at his feet, stretching upward until Lust and Envy stood beside him, their edges sharp in the dim light.

"Sing for me," he said, and they sang, their voices cutting through the sirens' song until it bled away to nothing.

He caught Liz before she could move again. Her body was cold against his arm. Panic dug in. Shadows coiled up his wrist as his palm began to glow faintly purple, pouring power into her. Slowly, her pupils returned.

Her lips trembled. Her gaze met his.

"I didn't want to wake up." The words caught, thin and uneven.

"I know." He held her tighter against his shoulder. "It's not real."

She cut in, as if refusing to let go. "It felt so real." Her voice was muffled against him, her grip tightening like she could pull the dream back if she held on hard enough. For a moment, he almost wished he hadn't woken her.

He pulled back just enough to meet her eyes.

"Don't worry. That dream will come true."

He kissed her forehead. The sea groaned around them.

As they passed the sirens, Lust and Envy's singing stopped.

His shadows moved in the same breath—shooting across the water, clamping over the nearest siren's mouth. A quick twist. Bone snapped. The body slipped under without a sound.

The rest barely had time to turn before another shadow struck. One by one, the songs died.

He didn't look back. "Stay quiet."

Only then did the island come into view—red and black clouds swirling above it, low and heavy. It had the look of the Underworld, only smaller, weaker.

The current pulled hard, dragging the sea into a single point ahead. A whirlpool—wide enough to swallow a city—turned slow and heavy, black water folding into its center.

Monsters circled it in perfect rhythm. Fins slicing the surface. Spines cutting through the spray. Pale eyes glinting before they slipped under again. None came closer. They didn't have to. Every gap between them was gone.

He could make out their shapes under the water—shadows moving with the pull, each pass timed with the swell of the waves. The hits against the hull came harder, angled to shove them toward the spin.

There was no sailing straight through. Not with the boat.

Another way, or they'd be dragged under.

His fingers dug into the rail.

If they wanted him here, why set a trap this clean?