Empress of the Sea|✔️

Chapter 42

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Aeryn ducked behind a wooden crate, taking cover from the barricade of bullets, cannons, and attacks from underwater. It seemed they had a leviathan under control because all it was doing was attacking the White Crow.

All Aeryn Branche could do in retaliation was curse Kronos' and Cronas' names out and hope they heard over the chaos.

The White Crow had already started sinking, and at this point, Erel could have too. She had no clue if Erel sprouted a mermaid tail and swam away. Or if she had died.

She shook the thought of Erel's dead body away. She ould not think of it. She would be brave.

Except she wished she'd never seen this day. She wished she had died. Aeryn could not stand the thought of Erel dying. She was everything for her and the only reason she was alive. Erel was her saviour, yet she managed to fail at saving hers.

It seemed all Aeryn had done was fail. Fail at having a proper family, at making friends, at engaging in conversation with her crew, at leading the White Crow, at everything but breathing, sleeping, and complaining.

Now that she was in the face of danger, she could no longer overlook her shortcomings. The only things she saw were her flaws. Her blatantly ignorant behaviour towards everyone, even those who didn't deserve it, her lack of emotion for those who have died, like how she didn't care for Sarah Walker's death.

She was nothing more than an empty whiskey bottle on the floor. Something to be spotted by someone else, pointed at, and forgotten. Or in this instance, thrown away.

Cronas and Kronos were only inches from fully sinking the White Crow.

Aeryn watched her crew members fight for an undeserving captain with their lives. A cannon fell at the wrong spot, and two or three of them would fall into the water. A mast would fall, a broken piece of wood would go through someone's chest.

But all she thought of was how she would tell her gunner, Reyna, that her brother, Ryker had died. How does one inform another of a death? At least the final triplet was alive, but Aeryn doubted he would be for long.

Her crew yelled orders at one another, slowly blending from general commands to ones with names as they lost volume. More than half of them had died, the rest were injured or still fighting.

It had been less than half an hour, but most of them had been wiped out.

Aeryn brought her knees to her chest, hugging them tightly. She was the only one with plain skin, with limbs that moved without pain. She hadn't done anything for her ship, in fear of her own life.

No matter what she told herself, the only name for her was "coward." She tucked herself away in the corner, trying to sit still against the waves and the attacks.

Aeryn made eye contact with River. He bestowed upon her eyes full of disappointment and anger. Not at the enemy, but at Aeryn for doing nothing.

The split-second River wasted on Aeryn cost him his life as a cannon flew and landed right behind him, sending him tumbling into the ocean.

Now both brothers of the triplets had died, and Reyna was now left to be an only child.

Aeryn couldn't help but be reminded of Han's attack on the Maiden's Cross. Instead of an adult, Aeryn was a seventeen-year-old girl, hiding to protect herself.

Her ears rang, ignoring the blasts and explosions.

She folded herself into a ball, weeping into her knees, humming to herself a song her mother had showed her.