Gripping the Ring, he strode to the bow.Spray lashed his face.Warm sunlight broke through torn clouds as theSentinelplunged into the rollers.Each pitch of her prow sent white plumes of sea bursting over the rail.
At the edge of the bowsprit, Caleb spread his arms to balance, wind clawing at his coat.The Ring gleamed in his hand, fire and blood within its depths.It could save them.He knew it could.But at what cost?Would the sliver of faith he still clung to be devoured in its darkness?Lord, help me.I’m weary of facing life without You.
The Ring had never failed him.But God, aye, God had never failed him either.Not even on that one night onÎle Du Crâne… the night Caleb buried his trust with the dead—his trust in himself, that he could hear from the Almighty, that he could be used by Him.
The ship rose over a wave then dropped into the trough, spraying a mist of seawater over him as he balanced on the heaving deck.
He was at a crossroad between power and faith, pride and surrender.
The air quaked with a distant boom.He turned.One of Montverre’s frigates had fired another warning shot, smoke curling from its side like dragon’s breath.
He raised the Ring high in one hand, the other reaching toward heaven.“I could trust this,” he shouted, voice breaking.“Or I can trust You!”Yet he knew the choice he had to make, the choice he longed to make.“I’m sorry, Father.I’m sorry I drifted far from You.Forgive me.”
Then choose Me now.
He nodded.And warmth flooded his soul, pure, radiant, steadying.The storm inside him stilled.
Pocketing the Ring, he returned to the starboard rail where Alden, Brandt, and Desi stood.The frigates loomed, vast and terrible, their gunports black and hungry.
Alden met his gaze and smiled, as if he already knew.
“Pray with me, my friend,” Caleb said.
Liam swung down from the ratlines, panting.“Yer goin’ to do what?Pray?When we’re about to be blown to bits?”
Brandt groaned, gripping his cane for balance.Desi’s eyes shimmered, torn between terror and hope.
Caleb and Alden bowed their heads together.The wind howled, ropes creaked, and the ship trembled beneath their feet.Then Caleb’s voice rose—not as a man, but as a captain of faith.
“In the mighty name of Jesus,” he thundered, “I command this vile curse of death to leave every man aboard this ship!You are rebuked and made impotent in the name of Jesus Christ!”
Minutes passed with naught but the mad dash of water and groan of timbers and masts.
The very air seemed to pause, the sea holding its breath.
♥
Desi shook her head and spun to face the sea, heart hammering as Montverre’s ships closed the distance between them.
Praying?They were praying now, when death charged upon them from both horizons?Her pulse thundered in her ears.Maybe God existed, but surely He was far too busy to stoop to something so small, so specific.He hadn’t answered her cries when her mother lay dying, nor when her father vanished into the sea.Heaven had been silent then—defiantly silent.
As she was certain it would be now.
And yet… perhaps prayer was Caleb’s way of clinging to hope in the face of the impossible.A man like him needed something—anything—to believe in.
After he uttered his powerful prayer that sounded less like a plea and more like a captain giving orders to heaven itself, she turned and found him staring at her.Gone was the wild desperation she’d seen before, the haunted resignation.In its place shone something radiant, quiet, and unshakable.Peace.The kind she’d sought her whole life and never found.He smiled.Just before the deck erupted with commotion.
The main hatch burst open.
Keg appeared first, blinking and scratching his head.Then came Spike, Rourke, Haines, and Edwin, followed by Levi, Craden, and a dozen others, climbing into the light as though from a grave.They stretched, yawned, and stared at one another, bewildered, their once pale faces now flushed with life.
Brandt uttered a rare curse and stumbled toward them, cane thudding on the planks.
Desi’s breath caught.She couldn’t move.Couldn’t think.
“Praise be to God!”Alden shouted, slapping Caleb’s back.Liam muttered something sharp and joyful in Gaelic that made the men around him laugh.
“Reportin’ fer duty,” Keg declared, voice booming across the deck.
