Eris POV

The days had blurred together, one after the other in a never-ending cycle of waves, salty air, and the rhythmic creak of the ship’s timbers. I had started to get used to the motions of the sea, to the constant shuffle of the crew and the gruffness of their voices. But there was one thing that never seemed to change: my confusion.

The conversation with Rubeus—the one where he had told me the orb was mine, that it had chosen me—had haunted me. The weight of his words clung to me like a second skin, but the more I tried to unravel it, the more tangled the threads...