Caelith Narlquinn

Caelith Narlquinn has sea-green skin, narrow gill slits along his neck, and pointed ears edged with translucent blue fins. His white hair is braided with copper rings, and violet eyes sit beneath pale brows. A black leather coat covers his lean frame, with hooked daggers secured at both hips.

Caelith Narlquinn was raised among the kelp forests beneath the Moonwake Trench, where his family recovered wreckage from ships that sank too close to the reef. His mother taught him which currents carried coins, cargo, and corpses; his older brother, Vaelor, taught him how to take the first two without becoming the third. Caelith learned to slip through a porthole in total darkness, cut a purse from a diver’s belt, and leave only a copper ring swinging from the empty clasp.

At seventeen, Caelith joined a salvage crew led by Captain Serevane, a surface-dweller who promised to split the treasure fairly. Their greatest prize was a sealed black coffer pulled from a wreck marked with the crest of a drowned noble house. When Caelith opened it, the coffer released a swarm of razor-thin metal eels that killed half the crew and left a jagged scar across Vaelor’s throat. Serevane fled with the coffer, blaming Caelith for the deaths. Caelith has hunted the captain ever since, carrying one of the coffer’s copper seals beneath his coat.

Years spent among wreckers and smugglers taught Caelith to trust knots, locks, and written contracts more than promises. He counts every exit when entering a room, keeps his back to a wall, and taps one hooked dagger against his palm when someone tells a story that does not fit. He now works above the waves, searching ports for Serevane and rumors of the black coffer. His trail may lead to a stolen noble heirloom, a sea cult eager to reopen the wreck, or Vaelor—who survived, but may no longer want to be found.