“Wise choice, boys,” I add with a smirk as they stumble off. In all seriousness, they’re right to stay wary. No point taunting that sea bitch, drunk or not.
Fabien shakes his head beside me, his gaze lingering on them as they disappear below deck. “I don’t know how you manage it.”
I arch a brow, glancing at him. “Manage what?”
He hesitates, something almost curious in his tone. “How you keep them in line. What’s it been, two weeks at the helm? And they listen. Hell, they seem… comfortable. Not…scared.”
I shrug, glancing back out over the waves. “I do what a captain ought to.”
“Which is what?”
I half-smirk, feeling the words pull up from somewhere deep and worn. “I remind them I’ll keep them alive, no matter the cost. Steady the ship, hold it through hell if that’s what it takes. But it’s more than that—I make damn sure they know we’re all bound to the same fate. Every drop of sweat, every muscle strain. We fight as one, or we go down as one.”
It’s ridiculous to think I’d do something like that for a crew I barely met. But what can I say…? They’re mine now. My crew.And I’ll be damned if I let any one of them slip through the cracks.
Zayan nudges me in the ribs with two fingers, a teasing glint in his eyes. “Easy now, love. You’re sounding suspiciously like Roche. Silverbeard drill that into you?”
I scoff, jaw tightening at the thought. “Silverbeard’s got his strengths, sure. But he’s clinging to some fool’s faith in The Lady that I’ll never stomach, let alone share. No… I like to think I’ve got my own mind on that.”
Whatever my father thinks he’s got going with the goddess—thinking she’s keeping pirates afloat and watching over their every move with care—we couldn’t be more different.
I didn’t used to believe in her at all. Now I know she’s out there, alright. But my opinion hasn’t shifted an inch. She’s not something I’d ever pray to, and if she’s keeping an eye on me, I’d just as soon spit in it.
If I could, I’d grind her bones to dust.
“Even after I’d have clawed my way through every Trial and shattered every shackle, it wouldn’t change a thing in me. But him? He’d toss himself overboard—and maybe a few others—for that ridiculous faith of his.” I cast Zayan a sideways glance. “Roche? Any wiser?”
Zayan lets out a dry chuckle, scratching the back of his neck. “Oh, he’ll say she’s real, alright. But if he had his way? He’d see her vanish, curse and all.”
I shrug, a smirk tugging at my lips. “Shame. Almost sounds like someone I’d have reason to stand beside.”
Fabien’s quiet, but his eyes darken. “Not many would have the guts to go against her.”
“Too bad he’d kill all of us the first chance he gets,” Zayan quips.
I hold his gaze a beat longer than I mean to, letting his words settle in. Maybe it’s the rum, or maybe the irony isn’t lost on me,but my thoughts drift in a direction they don’t usually go. For a flicker of a moment, I put myself in Roche’s shoes.
Let’s say I’ve got an enemy. One who’s crossed me more times than I can count, one who’d love to see me strung up like a trophy. And through every cursed battle, I’ve had my crew—no, not family, because family will sell you out for a few coins if it suits them. My crew is different. They’re the only souls I’ve ever trusted, and that’s saying something.
But what if they turned on me? If the ones who swore to have my back in storm and blood suddenly… left?
I’d hunt them down myself. Track them across every tide, every port, and beyond every cursed horizon until they were mine to deal with. Betrayal cuts deeper than any blade, and the idea of it from those I’d trusted… It makes my blood go cold.
That’s when it hits me: I understand Roche, the leader of the Crimson Marauders. Maybe better than I’d care to admit. And I get why he’d spill blood to have Zayan strung up, and me right along with him, just for lending him a hand at survival.
It’s too personal. Too painful to let slip by.
“Aye, too bad,” I murmur, tipping the rum to my lips, savoring the burn as it cuts through the bitterness coiled in my gut.
The deck is quiet, save for the distant hum of the sea, when suddenly, the night shifts around us. Moonlight spills over the wood, pooling in strange patterns until it circles the hourglass at the center of our group. I blink, instinctively straightening as a shimmer of blue light begins to wrap around us.
It’s… eerie.
“That didn’t happen with the sunlight,” Fabien mutters, breaking the quiet.
I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t there when Fabien and Vinicola saw whatever message it left them in daylight. But this? This isn’t some trick or sleight of hand. No, this feels too damn real. Likesomethingalive. Almost like magic—if I believed in that kind of thing.
The halo around the hourglass expands, spreading out in lines and patterns until it forms something that could almost be mistaken for a piece of art. Sharp lines that twist into symbols and shapes. I don’t understand them, no. But Ifeelthem.
