Chapter 87: Suspicions Abound

Chapter 87: Suspicions Abound
Hale adjusted his stance, bow at the ready. “Southron soldiers know the seas… but not like these shadows. Be alert.” He cast a quick glance at Varian, who only nodded once, stern. Even in silence, the weight of command pressed down on the deck.

The wind shifted suddenly, carrying a smell faintly metallic. Coletta’s ears flattened; her wolf senses screamed — blood. Something was injured. She crouched low, scenting the water, teeth bared beneath her lips. “Someone fights ahead,” she whispered. “Not us. Someone else… guarding the shard?”

Seren moved forward, blades glinting faintly in torchlight. “They are fast, but reckless,” she said, wolf tail flicking. “I can flank them. But we need coordinated attack — Damien, with me?”

He nodded, eyes scanning the horizon. “I’ll cover the prow. Coletta, you take the starboard side. Keep your pack tight. Nireya, Maeron — shield the ritual compass. We cannot lose our focus.”

Varian’s hand brushed against Hale’s shoulder briefly, a silent signal: trust your training. Hale’s jaw set. “Understood, Your Majesty.”

The first cove revealed itself as the night thickened, cliffs rising like dark sentinels against the silvered waves. Shadows moved among the rocks, subtle and fast. The pulse beneath the water quickened — the shard’s call intensifying. Coletta flexed claws, fur raising along her neck instinctively. This was not just a chase — it was a test. And the tide knows.

Suddenly, from behind a jagged rock, a figure surged onto the water with a small skiff, bearing the shard atop a hollowed chest. Its movements precise, almost ceremonial, but cruel in intent. Coletta’s eyes narrowed, wolf nose twitching. “There! There it is!”

Hale raised his bow, whispering low. “Steady… wait for my mark.”

The water roared beneath them as currents shifted unnaturally. Something — the shard itself? — seemed to stir, tugging at the waves, testing the skill and resolve of all who approached. Damien’s claws flexed subtly beneath the water-stained gloves. He stepped forward, eyes locked on the approaching figure. “Now,” he commanded.

The battle erupted in a controlled frenzy. Knives splashed, cloaks tore, and the deck of the leading skiffs shuddered under the chaos. Wolf instincts sharpened every movement — ears, claws, scent — each pack member responding without human deliberation, flowing as one. Coletta’s senses guided her, tail lashing for balance, teeth flashing at the first assailant who came too close. Nireya’s staff arced through the air, sending arcs of light into the waves. Priest Maeron chanted, tracing runes in the air as though weaving a net of spiritual restraint over the combatants.

Amid the fray, Coletta glimpsed the figure carrying the shard — cloaked, precise. But she did not know who it was. The human mind puzzled; the wolf-side hunted, smelled, predicted, adapted. The shard pulsed like a heartbeat beneath the waves, synchronizing with her own, and she understood — it wanted to be found, but only by those strong enough to take responsibility for its power.

Seren darted, flipping from one small skiff to the next, intercepting incoming attackers, whispering commands in clicks and low growls. Damien moved with Alpha authority, every strike calculated, guiding, shielding, commanding without hesitation. Varian’s ship remained just behind, providing archers to suppress any reinforcements. Hale’s bow sang with deadly precision, arrows streaking through moonlight.

And all the while, the shard’s pulse drummed through the waves — deeper, heavier, as if the ocean itself had become its heart. Each throb tugged at Coletta’s chest, urging her forward, urging her wolf to break free of the restraint she forced upon it. Her claws raked against the planks as she lunged across the skiff, snapping jaws and steel together in a blur.

The cloaked bearer’s eyes glowed faintly beneath the hood, their scent cloaked with herbs and seawater. Coletta snarled — wolf-instinct recognizing something twisted, unnatural. Whoever this was, they had bound themselves with magic strong enough to smother their identity.

“Damien!” she barked. “They’ve masked their scent!”

Her mate was already moving. His Alpha presence roared across the decks like a storm. A dozen enemy wolves faltered, their hackles lowering instinctively under the weight of his command. He struck with claws instead of blade, his wolf breaking through as his fangs lengthened, a flash of raw power.

Priest Maeron’s voice rose above the chaos, words in the old tongue spilling into the wind. Symbols flared across the tide — glowing nets of light cast like snares between the skiffs. Every rune held back the enemy’s momentum, yet Maeron’s body trembled with strain, sweat pouring down his face.

Varian’s archers released in volleys, cutting down shapes that darted from rock to ship. Hale’s arrows never missed — each strike pinning an enemy to mast or plank. Still, more shadows emerged from the coves, as if the sea had been harboring an army of ghosts.

Seren was everywhere at once. Her wolf speed blurred her across the skiffs, her blades cutting, her growls echoing commands that only the wolves could instinctively follow. She leapt onto the cloaked bearer’s craft, daggers flashing toward the chest that contained the shard. But the figure twisted unnaturally, movements slippery as oil, and hurled her back with a surge of water magic that drenched the deck.

Coletta’s wolf howled in her chest. Her body arched as fur rippled along her arms, her half-shift spilling claws and teeth into the fray. She leapt after Seren, striking the bearer directly. The impact rattled the skiff, knocking the chest sideways. For a breathless heartbeat, the shard’s glow escaped the lid — silver fire piercing the night.

Everyone froze. Every wolf, every soldier, even the sea itself seemed to still in reverence. The shard pulsed with living rhythm — and then the water surged violently, dragging the chest half overboard.

“Secure it!” Damien roared.

Varian’s ship closed in, Hale loosing an arrow that pinned the chest’s straps to the wood. But the bearer lashed out, summoning a wall of seawater that struck with the force of a hammer. Coletta was hurled back against the mast. Pain lanced through her ribs, but her wolf-side forced her upright, growling.

“Show yourself!” she snarled, her voice both human and beast. “You cannot hide behind shadows forever!”

The hood fell back, just for a moment — enough to reveal the face beneath. A Southern soldier. One sworn to Varian’s crown.

Gasps rippled across both ships. Varian’s face went cold stone, eyes like a drawn blade.

“Traitor,” Hale whispered, his bowstring quivering.

The soldier sneered, eyes fever-bright, words slurred as though chanted from a foreign tongue. “The shard… does not belong to kings or queens. It belongs to the tide. And the tide… is ours.”

Coletta’s wolf ears flattened. That voice — it wasn’t wholly his. Something older, darker, was speaking through him.

Damien growled, low and dangerous. “Who commands you? Speak!”

The soldier’s laugh was half-drowned in seawater. “The serpent has two mouths… one in the South, one in the North. Both hunger. Both betray.” His gaze snapped toward Coletta, then Varian. “And Thorne… walks with the tide now.”

The name struck like lightning across the decks.