That night, Captain Everard Locke sat at his desk, the pages of the incident before him. Torn from his log. His hands were steady, but his mind was not as he burned the parchment with the lit candle. Some things should not be remembered. He removed the gem from his desk drawer, tucking it within his coat.


    Walking to the ship’s rail, he gazed out over the moonlit waters. The ocean whispered, his name. Somewhere between his heart’s hammering and the hush of the waves, he found his hand lifting the gem. Holding it high, watching the firelight dance inside.


    The wind bites through his coat, salt stinging his lips, but he feels none of it. All he feels is the weight — heavier than it should be — the gem is cradled in his calloused hands. It pulses faintly, or maybe that’s just his own heart pounding through his fingertips.


    He stares at the dark horizon, waves ever rolling in, stars hung above like nails driven into the sky. The sea has always been his truth. He was born on it, lived by it. The sea is the only thing that’s ever made sense.


    This—this thing—made no sense at all.


    He mutters questions to it. No answer, of course. Just silence and the wind, but in his mind madness, chaos, and atonement.


    The men crossed themselves when they saw it, others spat for luck. They think it cursed. Maybe they were right. Maybe it is some devil’s trinket that should have remain deep in the earth. Maybe it was meant to be swallowed by the deep, never to touch human hands.


    His fingers curl tighter around it. He could cast it overboard right now. One clean throw, and it would vanish into the black, gone forever, secrets swallowed by the cold. The ship would be lighter. His soul would be lighter.


    But he doesn’t throw it.


    Because the truth is that he feels something when he holds it. Like a voice, not in his ears but in his bones, whispering of lands no map has charted and skies no eye has seen. It’s madness. It’s folly. It’s hope.


    But he knows, deep in his heart he is not worthy...


    “The sea giveth and the sea taketh away.”


    “Keep it, and it may damn them all.”


    Did it hum under his touch? Either way, he knows this moment will follow him to his grave, whatever choice he makes.


    And still — he, does, not throw it.


    then, lightening fast...


    …Locke, casts it far into the ocean''s depths. For a moment, the water swallows the light...


    Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    ...Good and begone... he thought...


    But just before it vanished—It cried out. Primal, Locke felt it deep within his soul. and then it started to pulse beneath the waves—


    Locke stood frozen. He tried to convince himself he had imagined it. But the glow did not fade.


    nor did the thing sink, it was heavy, heavier than it looked, it should have dropped like and anchor...he thought.


    Instead, it lingered beneath the water, pulsing, like a heartbeat in the abyss. And then- the whisper again. Not from the sea, nor from the wind, but from inside his skull and this time he understood the words.


    “Beyond these stones, a hallowed shrine…To all unworthy, cross not this line…”


    He staggered back, gripping the railing. Your deeds shall carve your soul a tomb,


    The words seeped into his bones, he slapped his hands over his ears as if that would stop the words from coming.


    “Shall rise within… and seal your doom.”


    And then…an answer to the cry was returned, from where, Locke looked around panic seizing him, inside his mind…no…it came from, the fortress high on the hill, Domus Custode.


    The creature''s screech shattered the night—a sound both ancient and raw with vengeance and of sovereignty. It was a shriek that was out of place in this world, a wail of fury and reclamation, a call that sent a primal terror surging through even the hardest men on board. It was not merely a scream—it was a reckoning.


    As the captain struggled to comprehend the events, the words continued to thunder in his mind, it was then that something very large hit the ocean from above, unleashing a torrent of water that drenched the deck. Then from the depths, the colossal creature surged forth—exploding out of the water with the tear shaped gem, still pulsing its eerie red glow.


    The air filled with the furious beating of massive wings, their force casting twisted shadows against the moonlit sails, throwing the ship and the emerging men into chaos.


    Talons, each as long as a cutlass, slashed through the night, piercing flesh and bone, sinking deep into Everard Locke’s shoulders. Madness and terror overtook him, and he started screaming—but none could be heard over the deafening roars that now consumed the sky.


    And then, silence. A void where moments before there had been fury and flame. The men stood frozen, their faces etched with disbelief, as if their minds refused to grasp the terror they had seen.


    By the time The Revenant made port, the men had already begun to speak in hushed voices of what had transpired. Their captain, Everard Locke, had been seen falling overboard. So the men claimed—he fell. But none would say how. None would say why.


    It was the making of legends and of sailors curses.


    The first mate, grim-faced and silent, took the Captain’s log in his hands, expecting to find and then try explaining, the recordings of the madness of those last hours, yet when he opened the book,


    The pages were gone. No hint of the crazed man. No fire held within the gem, nothing of the warnings carved in stone. No, explanations recorded. The book lay open in his hands, pages torn from the history, as if the past days had never happened at all.


    Date: July 26th, Anno Domini Eleven 82 Captain’s Log – Final Entry, Recorded by William de Clare, First Mate of The Revenant, Port of Caerhaven, Southern Coast of Brittany


    The voyage had been steady, our cargo secure, and the wind favored us well. By all accounts, it was an uneventful and profitable journey, with no ill fortune upon our course unto our departure.


    Alas, the sea is a fickle mistress, and she claims whom she will. While off the coast of the Isle of Wight, still in the shadow of The Keepers’ fortress, Domus Custodes, our esteemed captain, Everard Locke, is now counted among those lost to her depths.


    Late in the night, while taking in the air on his nightly stroll along the deck, he fell overboard. How it happened remains unclear, though many men have testified that they were there and that there was no foul play.


    Captain Everard Locke, strong-willed and steady of hand, shall be on the lips of sailors long after his Revenant is docked, for the sea keeps her own counsel, and so too, shall we.