Chapter 117: The Baited Storms
The ocean slept uneasy.
Poseidon stood at the prow of the Abyssbreaker, his hand resting on the cold ironwood rail. Around him, the sea was glass — unnaturally still, as if the world held its breath. Gulls wheeled above but did not cry. Even the wind, ever his companion, was absent.
He closed his eyes and listened. Not with ears — with the deeper sense that came from being bound to the very pulse of the ocean.
There.
A ripple.
Not the rolling touch of a natural current, not the subtle shift of tide against moon. This was sharp-edged, deliberate. The sea was speaking to him, though the words were not its own. Something heavy was moving far to the south, disturbing the waters in steady, unnatural rhythm.
Ships. Many of them.
---
"Captain?" A voice broke through, low and respectful. It belonged to Kaelen, his first mate — a mortal, but one who had crossed more storms than most sailors dared dream of. "Scouts say a convoy’s forming along the southern driftline. They’ve got ironclads with them."
Poseidon opened his eyes. "Ironclads," he repeated, the word tasting almost bitter. "They know I’ll come."
Kaelen hesitated. "Could be a trap."
A slow smile touched Poseidon’s lips — not warm, not amused, but edged like a wave about to break over a jagged reef. "It is a trap. But it’s not meant to catch me. It’s meant to cage me."
---
He walked away from the prow, his boots thudding against the deck in a rhythm almost as steady as the deep. Every crewman who crossed his path stepped aside instinctively, as though sensing something heavier than his presence pressing down on them.
On the quarterdeck, his generals awaited him — not mortal captains, but lords of the deep.
Theron, the Sharklord, bare-chested and scarred, his teeth filed into points.
Naia, the Tidecaller, her hair drifting in an unseen current, eyes the green of drowning shallows.
And Brine, the armored crab-giant, his shell scored by a hundred battles, each mark a victory or a narrow escape.
"They gather to the south," Poseidon said without preamble. "With bait fat enough to tempt the hungriest predator."
Theron grinned, savage and certain. "Then let us feed."
Naia tilted her head. "You think they mean to kill you."
Poseidon’s gaze drifted toward the horizon. "They mean to drag me where the sea will not answer. They will fail."
---
Brine’s claw clicked, the sound like a rock split under a hammer. "And if they do not fail?"
Poseidon turned to face them fully. The air itself seemed to tighten around him, the faint tang of salt sharpening until it burned in the lungs.
"If they do not fail," he said, "then we make the sea remember why it bows to me."
---
That night, the Abyssbreaker sailed without lanterns. The stars overhead burned cold and clear, the moon a thin blade in the dark. Below, shadows moved — massive, sinuous shapes pacing the ship like wolves alongside a hunter.
Theron dived once every hour, returning with reports of currents, positions, and the strange taste of ash in the southern waters. Naia whispered to the depths, her voice pulling small fish in swarms around the hull, sending them darting off like messengers.
By dawn, they had their answer.
The convoy was not moving at normal speed. It drifted deliberately, slow enough to invite pursuit, yet with an escort pattern designed for maximum defense. The ironclads formed a crescent, their guns angled outward, their wakes steady and practiced.
And beneath it all, the water was... wrong.
Not poisoned — not like before — but hot.
---
Poseidon stood at the rail, eyes fixed on the southern line where sky met sea. "Volcanic vents," he murmured. "They think to burn the water from me."
Theron spat over the side. "Cowards’ trick."
"No," Poseidon said softly. "A desperate one. They know the sea is mine. So they seek a place where it will not obey."
For a long moment, he said nothing more. The wind began to stir again, playful and eager, swirling through the rigging. His crew waited in tense silence.
Finally, he spoke — not loudly, yet the words carried to every corner of the deck.
"We sail south."
---
The reaction was instant. Some of the mortal sailors exchanged uneasy glances, but none dared object. His generals were another matter.
Naia’s brow furrowed. "You would walk into their chosen waters?"
"Yes."
"Why?" she pressed.
"Because the hunter who turns from bait teaches his prey that fear is possible." His gaze swept the horizon like a blade. "And I will not have the sea think I can be driven from any corner of it."
---
As the Abyssbreaker surged forward, Poseidon descended into the heart of the ship — to the chamber no mortal crewman entered willingly. Here, the walls sweated brine, and the deck pulsed faintly as though alive. In the center stood a column of water, spinning slow and deliberate, reaching from floor to ceiling without spilling a drop.
He stepped into it.
The cold hit like a living thing, wrapping him in the pulse of the deep. Through it, he felt every current for leagues around, every whale-song, every drifting tendril of kelp. But he also felt the wound ahead — the place where the water boiled, restless and angry.
The volcanic storm was not yet risen, but the signs were there. The seabed shifting, vents yawning wider, bubbles of heat rising like warning breaths. The Council meant to awaken it fully when he entered.
They thought this would turn the sea against him.
He smiled in the dark.
Then I will turn their fire against them.
---
When he emerged, the ship was already heeling to the south, sails snapping as the wind gathered strength. The creatures below kept pace — shadows too vast to name, stirred from the depths by his call. They would not follow him into boiling waters, but they would circle the edges, waiting for the slaughter to spill outward.
By the second day, the air itself had changed. The wind carried the faint stench of sulfur, and the sea was warmer beneath the hull. Here and there, patches of dead fish floated belly-up, their eyes boiled white.
Kaelen approached quietly. "We’re close."
Poseidon nodded once. "Rouse the crew. All of them. And tell them this — the Council thinks they have trapped us. But they have only brought us to the place where the sea will be reborn."
Kaelen hesitated. "Reborn... in fire?"
"In fire, in ash, in blood," Poseidon said. "And in the bones of those who thought to bind a god."
---
By sunset, they saw the convoy.
It gleamed in the dying light — ironclads glinting like teeth, smaller ships riding low with the weight of their cargo. And in the far distance, beyond them, a faint plume of smoke curled into the sky where the vents breathed.
Poseidon stood at the bow, the salt wind whipping his hair back, the taste of the coming battle sharp on his tongue.
He could feel the sea’s hesitation here, its pulse uneven, its voice muffled by heat and strange currents. It would not be as easy to command.
But command it he would.
"Ready the spears," he said. "Tonight, we end their courage."
And deep below, as if in answer, something vast and ancient stirred in the dark.