"Found any treasure, Mr. Eldarecrede?"

Rowan turned, recognizing the familiar rasp of Roland Vane, the old fisherman. The man stood a few paces away, his weathered hands resting on his fishing net, his sea-worn eyes squinting in the morning sun. His voice was rough, like the sound of waves grinding against the rocks, and despite his age, there was still strength in him—the kind of endurance that only a lifetime at sea could forge.

Rowan grinned faintly. "Nothing today, Grandpa."

Roland snorted, shaking his head. "I thought this weird obsession with searching the shore would end with your dad, but now you’ve picked it up too?"

"Someone’s gotta keep the family tradition going," Rowan joked.

Roland gave a sharp laugh. "If your father had fished half as much as he spent digging around in the sand, your mother wouldn’t have had to marry that parasite, Marcus."

Rowan smirked. That was one of the many things he and Roland Vane had in common—they both despised Marcus.

Roland Vane was the only person who called Rowan Eldarecrede. Everyone else simply called him Creed, and only a handful of people knew that Rowan’s father was once Elthandis Eldarecrede. To most of the town, he had been Ethan Creed—a name that hid something much stranger than anyone realized.

It had been Roland Vane who first saw his father, nearly fifteen years old, washed ashore on the beach, wearing nothing but ragged clothes and carrying a strange name that no one recognized.

And it had been Roland who took him in.

The town didn’t ask questions back then. A half-drowned boy with no memory of his past and a name that didn’t belong to any place nearby? It wasn’t their problem. The boy was lucky he had been found by a fisherman instead of left to the sea.

Roland had been the one to rename him Ethan Creed, teach him to fish, and show him how to survive in a world he seemed utterly lost in.

But Rowan had heard the stories. His father, even after learning how to live as a fisherman, had still struggled. Roland used to say, "It was like he had been born into a different world, and everything here was new to him."

His father had stumbled through life at first, as if he had never known the taste of simple food, the work of an honest fisherman, or the way of ordinary men. Sometimes, he acted like a spoiled noble, someone raised in luxury, only to be stranded in a world where he had to fight to survive.

But he adapted.

And in time, he became a part of the town—marrying Rowan’s mother, raising a son, and building a life that, in the end, the sea would take back.

Maybe that was why Rowan had been named after Roland Vane.

Because if it weren’t for the old fisherman, Ethan Creed would never have existed at all.

"Did you catch anything today?" Rowan asked, shaking off his thoughts.

Roland grinned. "Of course I did. Come, let’s go home and eat. You look hungry."

Rowan hesitated, then nodded. He hadn't eaten at his own house. He had no desire to sit across from Marcus, enduring another round of complaints about how useless he was.

Instead, he followed Roland through the narrow streets, weaving between the early morning merchants who were setting up their stalls. The town was already alive with movement—fishermen unloading their catch, children running through the streets, the occasional ship departing from the harbor.

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But as they walked, Rowan couldn't shake a thought that had been growing in his mind.

If his father had washed ashore at fifteen, with no memory of where he came from, and if he had truly been someone raised in another life, another world—

Then where had he come from?

Rowan finished his breakfast at Roland Vane’s small cottage, the warm meal filling his stomach in a way that home never did. It was simple food—freshly grilled fish, bread, and some old but still sweet apples—but it tasted better than anything his mother had made in years. Maybe it was because Roland didn’t ask questions. He didn’t judge. He just let Rowan exist, as if that was enough.

Afterward, Rowan stepped out into the cool morning air and decided to explore the town.

Not that there was anything new to explore.

Blackreef was a small, forgettable port town, the kind that barely made it onto maps. It had a single marketplace, a handful of inns, and docks that were only busy when the larger ships came through for supplies. Everything else was predictable—the same faces, the same voices, the same routines.

And yet, Rowan walked through the streets as if he had somewhere important to go.

People greeted him as he passed. An old woman selling dried fish at the market called his name. A merchant stacking crates nodded at him. A group of younger kids, barefoot and wild-haired, waved excitedly, as if Rowan were some famous sailor instead of just another boy from town.

"Morning, Rowan!" called Tomas, the town’s blacksmith, as he hammered at a glowing horseshoe.

"Morning," Rowan replied with a broad smile, nodding in return.

His responses were automatic, easy. He played the role well. To them, he was just another part of the town. Someone they had known all his life. Someone they had always treated kindly.

But deep down, he knew the truth.

Rowan remembered how things had been after his father’s disappearance.

How the town had treated him and his mother like ghosts.

At first, the town had pitied them.

People whispered about how Evelyn Creed was left alone to raise a child. They offered small kindnesses—left extra fish on their doorstep, gave her lower prices at the market. But when months passed and no sign of Ethan Creed ever returned, the whispers changed.

Pity turned to distance.

People stopped coming by to check on them. When his mother tried to borrow money to keep their home, she was met with polite refusals. Some even avoided her entirely, as if she had become a burden they didn’t want to carry.

And Rowan, once the fisherman’s son everyone greeted so warmly, was suddenly treated like he didn’t exist.

It wasn’t just about the money. It was something deeper. People in port towns understood loss—but they also feared it. No one wanted to be reminded that the sea could take everything from them in a single moment. And Rowan and his mother were living proof of that.

Only when Marcus came into the picture—when his mother remarried—did things return to normal.

People started talking to them again. His mother was treated as if she had never struggled at all. Rowan was given attention again, as if he had never been invisible.

And that was why Rowan never truly trusted anyone in this town.

Because they had only been kind to him when it was convenient.

Rowan walked past the small harbor, where sailors loaded cargo onto ships bound for distant lands he would never see. He walked past the same houses, the same boats tied to the docks, the same fishermen who had ignored him once but now smiled at him as if nothing had ever happened.

He returned their smiles. He exchanged greetings. He played his part.

But deep down, he knew the truth.

And that truth left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Rowan made his way to the cliffs on the far side of town, to the place he called his sanctuary—a quiet stretch of rocky shore hidden from the main docks. It was where he always came when he wanted to be alone. But today, he wasn’t alone.

Rosey was already there.

She sat on a large rock by the water, her bare feet dangling just above the waves as she held a fishing rod in her hands. The sea breeze played with her dark curls, and her gaze was fixed on the ocean, steady and unshaken.

She was one of the few people in town Rowan could actually talk to—because she understood.

Her father had been lost to the sea less than a year ago, and since then, her family had been struggling just like Rowan’s had. She had taken it upon herself to fish every day, trying to help her mother in whatever way she could.

She was only a year older than Rowan, but she carried herself with a strength that most people twice her age didn’t have.

Rowan walked up beside her. "You came early today?"

Rosey barely glanced at him before reaching into a small wooden bucket and pulling out an old fishing rod. She held it out to him.

"Mom started early today," she said. "She thinks that marrying me off will get us out of this situation. She doesn’t want me fishing."

Rowan hesitated before taking the rod from her hand. He cast his line into the sea, watching as the hook disappeared beneath the waves.

"She really thinks that’s the answer?" he asked.

Rosey gave a bitter laugh. "In this town? Yeah. Either a husband or a miracle."

Rowan didn’t reply. He simply focused on the sea, on the way the water rocked and swayed beneath them.

The two sat in silence, fishing together, the only sound between them the whisper of the tide and the occasional cry of a distant gull.