Cursed | Armando Salazar x OC

TWENTY-SEVEN

My senses are wide awake and alert the closer we get to the Trident. I feel the ocean living within me. I'm aware of every current coursing in the vast body of water, of every whale breaking through the surface before crashing back with a behemoth splash, every living, breathing spec floating about their daily lives.

It feels like the ocean is a part of me, and I am one with it.

And once I feel the magnetic pull at it strongest, I stop and look up. there, atop a rock, the Trident of Poseidon is displayed.

"There it is," Carina breathes in awe, "The Trident."

I want to both laugh and cry at the sight of it. We did it – Henry did it. He got us this far and look, now we've found it and can finally break the curses of our loved ones. He will have his father back, Armando and his crew will be mortal once more, and I...I...

I don't know.

Will I be normal after this? Or will I be as I am now?

"What needs to be done for all curses to break?" I ask calmly, curious where this leaves me.

"The map says, 'To release the power of the sea, all must divide.' But I don't know what that means, yet," Carina explains. She opens her mouth to continue but hesitates. At last, she asks, "If you are the heir of Poseidon, wouldn't you be able to break all curses then?"

"I don't know," I shrug, "I don't even know what or who I am anymore."

"But if you are –"

"I would've done so many years ago," I cut her off, recalling how the Spanish crew referred to me as a blessing. Somehow, they claimed I restored their purpose, returned a sense of feeling back to their long dead bodies. And after studying every myth, legend, and curse of the ocean, I know curses don't bring happiness. Curses either confine you to the ocean, limit you from going on land, or sentence you to a hundred years at sea to ferry souls from the living to the dead.

"Mind if I cut in?" We turn to Jack who steps between us in a very Jack-like manner. "Now, hypothetically speaking, if you were Poseidon's long-lost heir and ruler of the ocean, wouldn't that make you the rightful wielder of the Trident, considering we're standing the Poseidon's tomb and that makes him very much dead."

I must admit, for a pirate Henry and I have been searching for our whole lives, he's not all that...threatening as the wanted poster made him seem. "Hypothetically speaking, what's your point?"

He grins, showing off those gold flaked teeth. "I think I'm beginning to like you." Then he ventures a few feet ahead on those sea legs and gesture between me and the Trident, "My hypothetical point is, the Trident controls the ocean just like you – what a coincidence! Then wouldn't it mean breaking one of the two would also mean to break the other?"

"So," I frown as I try making sense of his words, "hypothetically speaking, I'd die?"

"Hypothetically, yes."

The frown on Carina's brow conveys she thinks he's right. "I believe Jack's got a point."

"Don't I always?" He grins.

"I've never considered that before..." I confess and look toward the Trident. It calls to me, luring me closer by its sight alone. The pull is so strong, I'd wager I could have felt it all the way from St Martin. But looking up at the sky, I find the sun has already risen and we're running out of time. "Let me worry about that later. Let's just get this over with."

It seems my decision set us back on course. As I trudge through the wet sand, feeling the humidity of the ocean floor trickle down my hair and neck, Carina and Jack follow.