LUKE CASTELLAN

The Princess Andromeda cut through the black water like something that should never have been built, its steel hull slicing through the waves with a low, relentless groan. Moonlight slid across the metal in fractured silver, illuminating nothing for more than a heartbeat before the darkness swallowed it again. Beneath the surface, the engines thundered steadily, carrying the ship farther into the night—and farther into the war Luke had convinced himself was already inevitable.

Inside, everything had been reduced to shadows. The chamber smelled faintly of oil, metal, and smoke from the weapons stored along the walls. Maps covered the tables, marked with routes and battle plans that stretched across half the country, while celestial bronze glimmered beneath the dim lantern-light like the last remnants of a dying fire.

Luke had been speaking.

He had been talking about Kronos. About the next stage. About what would happen when the gods finally realised they could no longer stop what they had started. His voice had been certain, steady, almost convincing, because it always was. But beneath that certainty was something you had begun noticing more often lately: tension. The slightest hesitation before certain words. The way his fingers sometimes tightened around the edge of a table. The exhaustion hidden beneath his eyes, buried so deeply that he seemed to believe nobody could see it.

He had built an entire world around the idea that he had chosen the right side.

He needed to believe it.

Then the explosion came.

There was no warning. One moment, Luke was speaking, his voice filling the chamber with promises of victory and revenge. The next—

Everything disappeared.

A flash of white swallowed the room. The force struck with enough violence to throw everything apart. Metal screamed. The floor lurched violently beneath you. Maps tore from the walls, weapons were hurled across the chamber, and the lanterns shattered, plunging the room into a darkness so complete it felt like the world had been erased.

Luke barely had time to react.

Then the world became fire, smoke, and noise.

You were thrown backwards. The impact stole the air from your lungs as the floor rushed up to meet you. Something struck nearby with a sickening crack. Steel groaned overhead. For several endless seconds, there was no distinction between the ceiling and the floor, between sound and silence, between one moment and the next. There was only pain, heat, and the terrible sensation of being buried alive.

Then—

Nothing.

Not true silence.

The ship was still screaming around you. Alarms wailed somewhere beyond the wreckage. Fires crackled through the broken corridors. Water thundered against the hull, and somewhere far away, people were shouting for help, their voices distorted by smoke and twisted metal.

But to Luke, everything sounded distant.

He forced himself upright. Blood trickled from somewhere near his temple, warm against his skin, and his hands shook as he pushed debris away. His ears rang so loudly that he could barely hear his own breathing.

"Kronos—"

The word died in his throat.

He didn't look for Kronos.

He didn't look for the escape route.

He didn't look for the people who had caused the explosion.

He looked for you.

And when he saw you lying beneath the wreckage, something inside him simply stopped.

"No."

It came out barely louder than a breath.

Luke stumbled across the ruined chamber, nearly falling as the floor shifted beneath him. He dropped beside you and began tearing pieces of broken metal away with frantic hands, cutting his palms without seeming to notice. The calm commander from moments ago was gone. There was no strategy left in him. No calculated response. No grand speech about destiny or sacrifice.

Just panic.

"Hey."

His voice cracked.

"Hey, come on."

He reached for you, hesitated for half a second, then carefully checked whether you were responsive. His fingers hovered near your face, terrified of touching you too hard and even more terrified that you would not react at all.

"Please."

Nothing.

Luke's breathing became uneven.

"Please, wake up."

He looked around wildly, as though someone else might suddenly appear with an answer, as though the right person could walk through the smoke and tell him this was not happening.

"Somebody!"

His voice echoed through the wreckage.

"Get in here! I need help!"

No answer came.

The ship groaned around them, a deep, dying sound that seemed to come from the bones of the ocean itself. A section of the ceiling shifted dangerously overhead, showering the floor with dust and fragments of metal.

Luke didn't move.

"Come on."

His voice had become quieter.

"You can't do this."

His eyes flicked over you again, desperately searching for some indication that you were still there: a twitch of your fingers, the rise of your chest, anything at all.

"You can't..."

He swallowed hard, but the fear lodged in his throat refused to go away.

For once, Luke didn't have a plan.

And that terrified him more than anything.

The war could be replaced. Kronos could be defeated. The Princess Andromeda could sink beneath the sea. He could lose everything he had spent years fighting for, every promise, every victory, every piece of himself he had sacrificed to reach this point.

But none of it mattered while you remained motionless in front of him.

He pressed his palms against the debris and tried to move it again. His muscles strained. His injured hands slipped against the metal, leaving streaks of blood behind.

"Please."

The word barely existed anymore.

"I should've gotten you out."

Another piece of metal fell somewhere behind him.

Luke flinched but refused to look away.

"I should've known."

His voice trembled.

"I knew this could happen. I knew they would come for us. I knew this ship wasn't safe."

He laughed once, but there was no humour in it, only disbelief and the hollow sound of someone realising that every warning he had ignored had finally come true.

"I knew."

His eyes burned.

"And I still brought you here."

The confession seemed to crush him. For months, Luke had told himself that sacrifice was necessary, that people would get hurt, that nobody could change the course of history without paying a price. He had repeated those words so many times that they had almost become meaningless, polished smooth by repetition until they sounded like truth.

But now, faced with the possibility that those words might cost him you, they suddenly sounded monstrous.

"You were never supposed to be the price."

His voice broke.

The alarms continued screaming. The ship continued to shake. Somewhere below them, water began forcing its way through the damaged hull, and the floor tilted beneath his knees.

Luke stayed beside you.

"I don't care about the mission."

He said it quietly, almost as though admitting it to himself for the first time.

"I don't care about Kronos. I don't care about any of it."

His fingers curled against the ruined floor.

"I just need you to wake up."

For the first time since he had chosen this path, Luke looked completely lost. Not like a commander. Not like the leader everyone feared. Not like the boy who had stood before armies and promised them a future built from the ashes of the gods.

Just a boy who had spent so long convincing himself that losing people was inevitable that he had forgotten what it felt like to actually lose someone.

His breathing hitched.

"Please don't make me find out what happens if you don't."

The words lingered beneath the roar of the dying ship.

Luke lowered his head, his shoulders trembling as he pressed one bloodied hand against the floor beside you.

"I can't lose anyone else."

A pause.

Then, quieter:

"Not you."

The Princess Andromeda groaned beneath them. Luke looked toward the ceiling as another section of the ship began to collapse, the metal bending inward with a shriek that made the entire chamber tremble.

He knew they had seconds.

Maybe less.

He should have moved. He should have escaped. He should have done something, anything, before the ship took them both beneath the water.

Instead, he remained exactly where he was.

Because leaving without knowing you were alive was something he could not make himself do.

Luke reached for the nearest piece of debris and began pulling it away again. His hands were bleeding now, his breath ragged, his entire body shaking with exhaustion, but he kept going as though sheer desperation could hold the ship together.

"Come on."

His voice was almost gone.

"Just give me something."

Another piece came loose.

He threw it aside.

"Anything."

Another.

"Please."

Another.

"Just stay."

The word escaped him before he could stop it.

"Stay."

His voice cracked completely.

"I've already lost so much."

He stared at you through the smoke, his face pale beneath the blood and ash.

"I can't lose you too."

For once, there was no prophecy to hide behind. No god to blame. No war to justify it. No grand cause powerful enough to make this pain feel necessary.

Only Luke, kneeling in the wreckage of everything he had chosen, finally forced to confront the one thing his plans had never accounted for: the possibility that the person he had dragged into his darkness might be the one person he could not bear to watch disappear into it.

And as the Princess Andromeda continued to groan around him, as the water rose and the ceiling began to collapse, Luke kept digging.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Not because he knew you would survive.

Not because he believed the gods would save you.

Not because he had any reason left to hope.

But because he couldn't accept a world where you didn't.