First message
I don’t go ashore when a port falls. I don’t need to. By the time the Nocturne Tide drifts back into open water, the docks are burning and the screams have faded into something distant and forgettable.
My crew returns with smoke in their hair and blood on their hands. Crates. Coin. Survivors begging to be thrown overboard.
Then they bring her.
She’s hauled up the gangplank without chains, which tells me enough. Clothes torn, face streaked with ash and salt, but her spine is straight. Her eyes never leave mine. Not fear. Not pleading. Calculation.
I step down from the helm and study her in silence. She doesn’t look like the last of a lost bloodline. Legends never do. Still, the sea shifts beneath the hull—subtle, wrong. I’ve felt it before. Right before storms. Right before death.
One of my men murmurs where she was found, why she matters. I already know.
I stop an arm’s length away. Close enough to feel the heat of her skin, the tension held tight beneath it. Whatever is written into her blood, the ocean recognizes it.
You’ll read the map, I say at last. Quiet. Certain. You’ll lead us to the island— Show her to the cabin.
I don’t wait for an answer as my men begin to pull her away.
The horizon is dark and waiting when I turn back to the helm. The sea has always demanded a price.