The salt water was burning the raw, open gashes on my back long before the iron chains dragged me out of the dark. For three years, I had known nothing but the suffocating belly of the Black Leviathan, the premier flagship of the bloodthirsty Blood-Anchor fleet. I was nothing but a number, a nameless dog, a disposable piece of meat chained to a massive, splintered oak oar in the lower galley. The air down there was thick with the stench of rot, sweat, and the unwashed bodies of dying men. We rowed until our palms split open to the bone, and when we could no longer pull, the overseers threw our bodies to the sharks.
I was only seventeen, but my body felt as old and broken as the ancient shipwrecks rotting at the bottom of the Sea Throne.
It was during the great northern tempest that my hands finally failed me. The waves were towering like black mountains, crashing against the hull with the force of iron hammers. The ship groaned, pitching violently to the port side. The lead rower next to me, an old man who had survived ten winters in the dark, caught a massive rogue wave on his blade. The force of the sea snapped his thick wooden oar like a dry twig, sending a jagged shard of oak flying straight through his chest. He died instantly, his blood spraying hot across my face.
As his lifeless body collapsed forward, the immense weight of the current caught my own oar. The rough wood ripped through my blistered palms, tearing the skin completely away. With a deafening crack, the heavy handle slammed into my chest, knocking the breath from my lungs, and slipped out into the churning, black ocean.
“An oar is worth more than ten of your pathetic lives, boy!” a cruel, booming voice roared from the wooden walkway above us.
It was First Mate Kaelen. He was a massive, sadist of a man, with a face scarred by tavern brawls and eyes as cold as arctic ice. He held a heavy, multi-tailed leather whip dripping with sea salt. Kaelen had hated me from the moment I was bought at the slave docks of Oakhaven. He took a twisted pleasure in singling me out, making sure my rations were the smallest and my beatings were the longest.
Before I could even gasp for air, Kaelen lunged down the wooden ladder. His heavy, iron-tooled boot slammed directly into my jaw. The metallic taste of blood exploded in my mouth as I was knocked flat onto the filthy, wet deck of the galley.
“Unchain the worthless rat!” Kaelen snarled to the guards, his voice dripping with pure malice. “The Fleet Council is meeting in the Grand Hall right now. Let’s see how the Grand Admiral likes a lazy thief who throws our steering power into the sea during a level-five storm.”
The heavy iron shackles around my ankles were unlocked, only for my wrists to be bound tight with rough, abrasive hemp rope. Kaelen grabbed me by my long, tangled hair, dragging me backward up the steep, slippery wooden steps. The splintered wood tore into my bare back, reopening the wounds from previous days. I cried out, but my voice was swallowed by the howling wind as we breached the upper deck.
The rain felt like needles against my bruised skin. All around us, the hardened crew of the Black Leviathan stopped their frantic work with the ropes and sails to watch my humiliation. They laughed, spitting on me as Kaelen dragged me across the pitch-covered deck. To them, I was just a piece of entertainment before the storm swallowed us all.
“Look at the little worm!” one pirate jeered, kicking a puddle of dirty water into my eyes. “He looks like a drowned rat!”
“Feed him to the deep!” another shouted, waving a rusted cutlass in the air.
Kaelen didn’t stop until he reached the heavy, iron-reinforced doors of the aft castle. With a brutal kick, he forced the doors open and threw me face-first onto the polished, dark mahogany floor of the Grand Admiral’s council chamber.
The contrast was staggering. While the galley was a pit of filth and death, this room was filled with the wealth of a hundred plundered kingdoms. Thick, heavy tapestries hung from the walls, blocking out the chill of the storm. Massive silver candelabras flickered, casting long, dancing shadows across a massive oak table covered in sea charts, gold coins, and silver goblets filled with deep red wine.
Sitting around the table were the seven warlords of the Sea Throne—the feared Fleet Council. And at the head of the table sat Grand Admiral Vane himself. He was an older man, his hair silvered by time, his eyes sharp and piercing like a sea hawk’s. He wore a heavy, dark blue naval coat adorned with gold trim and medals won in forgotten wars.
“What is the meaning of this disruption, Kaelen?” Admiral Vane asked, his voice low and dangerous, vibrating through the quiet room. “We are planning a siege. Why have you brought this filth into my presence?”
Kaelen bowed deeply, though a wicked, triumphant smile played on his thin lips. He placed his heavy boot firmly onto the small of my back, pressing my chest hard against the cold floor.
“Grand Admiral, this miserable slave rower dropped his oar during the peak of the surge,” Kaelen lied smoothly, his voice filled with false righteousness. “He didn’t just lose it, sir. I saw him. He tried to sabotage our rhythm. He wanted the ship to capsize. He is a traitor, a coward, and he deserves to be hanged from the yardarm as an example to the rest of the scum below.”
I struggled to lift my head, coughing up a mouthful of dark blood onto the polished mahogany. “No… that’s not true,” I whispered, my throat dry and raspy. “The wave… the wave broke the lead oar. It ripped out of my hands. I didn’t mean to…”
“Silence, dog!” Kaelen roared, stamping his boot down harder, crushing my ribs until I gasped for air. “You do not speak before the council!”
The other warlords murmured in agreement, their faces twisted in disgust as they looked at my pathetic, trembling form. To them, my life was worth less than the ink used to map the stars. They wanted a quick execution so they could return to their wine and war plans.
“Hang him,” a fat, heavily jeweled warlord muttered, waving his hand dismissively. “We have plenty of slaves to replace one clumsy boy.”
Grand Admiral Vane didn’t speak immediately. He leaned forward, his sharp eyes tracking the blood pooling on his floor. He looked at Kaelen, then down at me.
“Lift him up,” the Admiral ordered quietly.
Kaelen smirked, grabbing the rope around my wrists and yanking me brutally to my feet. My tattered, salt-encrusted shirt was torn completely open from the rough handling, slipping down past my shoulders, leaving my upper body bare to the flickering candlelight.
I stood there, shivering, bleeding, waiting for the sentence of death.
But the words never came.
Grand Admiral Vane suddenly stopped. His hand, which had been raised to signal my execution, froze mid-air. The color completely drained from his weathered face, turning him as pale as a ghost. His eyes were locked onto my left shoulder, where a jagged, white, anchor-shaped burn mark stood out starkly against my tanned, scarred skin.
The entire room fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. The only sound was the howling of the wind outside the thick glass windows.
“Admiral?” Kaelen asked, his smirk faltering as he noticed the sudden change in his commander’s demeanor. “Should I take him to the deck and string him up now?”
Grand Admiral Vane didn’t answer Kaelen. He rose slowly from his heavy wooden chair, his knees trembling so violently that his iron cup slipped from his fingers, crashing to the floor and spilling dark red wine like a pool of fresh blood across the sea charts. He walked around the table, his eyes never once leaving my shoulder, his face filled with an expression of absolute, terrifying shock.
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FULL STORY CHAPTER 1
The salt water was burning the raw, open gashes on my back long before the iron chains dragged me out of the dark. For three years, I had known nothing but the suffocating belly of the Black Leviathan, the premier flagship of the bloodthirsty Blood-Anchor fleet. I was nothing but a number, a nameless dog, a disposable piece of meat chained to a massive, splintered oak oar in the lower galley. The air down there was thick with the stench of rot, sweat, and the unwashed bodies of dying men. We rowed until our palms split open to the bone, and when we could no longer pull, the overseers threw our bodies to the sharks.
I was only seventeen, but my body felt as old and broken as the ancient shipwrecks rotting at the bottom of the Sea Throne.
It was during the great northern tempest that my hands finally failed me. The waves were towering like black mountains, crashing against the hull with the force of iron hammers. The ship groaned, pitching violently to the port side. The lead rower next to me, an old man who had survived ten winters in the dark, caught a massive rogue wave on his blade. The force of the sea snapped his thick wooden oar like a dry twig, sending a jagged shard of oak flying straight through his chest. He died instantly, his blood spraying hot across my face.
As his lifeless body collapsed forward, the immense weight of the current caught my own oar. The rough wood ripped through my blistered palms, tearing the skin completely away. With a deafening crack, the heavy handle slammed into my chest, knocking the breath from my lungs, and slipped out into the churning, black ocean.
“An oar is worth more than ten of your pathetic lives, boy!” a cruel, booming voice roared from the wooden walkway above us.
It was First Mate Kaelen. He was a massive, sadist of a man, with a face scarred by tavern brawls and eyes as cold as arctic ice. He held a heavy, multi-tailed leather whip dripping with sea salt. Kaelen had hated me from the moment I was bought at the slave docks of Oakhaven. He took a twisted pleasure in singling me out, making sure my rations were the smallest and my beatings were the longest.
Before I could even gasp for air, Kaelen lunged down the wooden ladder. His heavy, iron-tooled boot slammed directly into my jaw. The metallic taste of blood exploded in my mouth as I was knocked flat onto the filthy, wet deck of the galley.
“Unchain the worthless rat!” Kaelen snarled to the guards, his voice dripping with pure malice. “The Fleet Council is meeting in the Grand Hall right now. Let’s see how the Grand Admiral likes a lazy thief who throws our steering power into the sea during a level-five storm.”
The heavy iron shackles around my ankles were unlocked, only for my wrists to be bound tight with rough, abrasive hemp rope. Kaelen grabbed me by my long, tangled hair, dragging me backward up the steep, slippery wooden steps. The splintered wood tore into my bare back, reopening the wounds from previous days. I cried out, but my voice was swallowed by the howling wind as we breached the upper deck.
The rain felt like needles against my bruised skin. All around us, the hardened crew of the Black Leviathan stopped their frantic work with the ropes and sails to watch my humiliation. They laughed, spitting on me as Kaelen dragged me across the pitch-covered deck. To them, I was just a piece of entertainment before the storm swallowed us all.
“Look at the little worm!” one pirate jeered, kicking a puddle of dirty water into my eyes. “He looks like a drowned rat!”
“Feed him to the deep!” another shouted, waving a rusted cutlass in the air.
Kaelen didn’t stop until he reached the heavy, iron-reinforced doors of the aft castle. With a brutal kick, he forced the doors open and threw me face-first onto the polished, dark mahogany floor of the Grand Admiral’s council chamber.
The contrast was staggering. While the galley was a pit of filth and death, this room was filled with the wealth of a hundred plundered kingdoms. Thick, heavy tapestries hung from the walls, blocking out the chill of the storm. Massive silver candelabras flickered, casting long, dancing shadows across a massive oak table covered in sea charts, gold coins, and silver goblets filled with deep red wine.
Sitting around the table were the seven warlords of the Sea Throne—the feared Fleet Council. And at the head of the table sat Grand Admiral Vane himself. He was an older man, his hair silvered by time, his eyes sharp and piercing like a sea hawk’s. He wore a heavy, dark blue naval coat adorned with gold trim and medals won in forgotten wars.
“What is the meaning of this disruption, Kaelen?” Admiral Vane asked, his voice low and dangerous, vibrating through the quiet room. “We are planning a siege. Why have you brought this filth into my presence?”
Kaelen bowed deeply, though a wicked, triumphant smile played on his thin lips. He placed his heavy boot firmly onto the small of my back, pressing my chest hard against the cold floor.
“Grand Admiral, this miserable slave rower dropped his oar during the peak of the surge,” Kaelen lied smoothly, his voice filled with false righteousness. “He didn’t just lose it, sir. I saw him. He tried to sabotage our rhythm. He wanted the ship to capsize. He is a traitor, a coward, and he deserves to be hanged from the yardarm as an example to the rest of the scum below.”
I struggled to lift my head, coughing up a mouthful of dark blood onto the polished mahogany. “No… that’s not true,” I whispered, my throat dry and raspy. “The wave… the wave broke the lead oar. It ripped out of my hands. I didn’t mean to…”
“Silence, dog!” Kaelen roared, stamping his boot down harder, crushing my ribs until I gasped for air. “You do not speak before the council!”
The other warlords murmured in agreement, their faces twisted in disgust as they looked at my pathetic, trembling form. To them, my life was worth less than the ink used to map the stars. They wanted a quick execution so they could return to their wine and war plans.
“Hang him,” a fat, heavily jeweled warlord muttered, waving his hand dismissively. “We have plenty of slaves to replace one clumsy boy.”
Grand Admiral Vane didn’t speak immediately. He leaned forward, his sharp eyes tracking the blood pooling on his floor. He looked at Kaelen, then down at me.
“Lift him up,” the Admiral ordered quietly.
Kaelen smirked, grabbing the rope around my wrists and yanking me brutally to my feet. My tattered, salt-encrusted shirt was torn completely open from the rough handling, slipping down past my shoulders, leaving my upper body bare to the flickering candlelight.
I stood there, shivering, bleeding, waiting for the sentence of death.
But the words never came.
Grand Admiral Vane suddenly stopped. His hand, which had been raised to signal my execution, froze mid-air. The color completely drained from his weathered face, turning him as pale as a ghost. His eyes were locked onto my left shoulder, where a jagged, white, anchor-shaped burn mark stood out starkly against my tanned, scarred skin.
The entire room fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. The only sound was the howling of the wind outside the thick glass windows.
“Admiral?” Kaelen asked, his smirk faltering as he noticed the sudden change in his commander’s demeanor. “Should I take him to the deck and string him up now?”
Grand Admiral Vane didn’t answer Kaelen. He rose slowly from his heavy wooden chair, his knees trembling so violently that his iron cup slipped from his fingers, crashing to the floor and spilling dark red wine like a pool of fresh blood across the sea charts. He walked around the table, his eyes never once leaving my shoulder, his face filled with an expression of absolute, terrifying shock.
He approached me as if he were looking at a ghost rising from the deep ocean. His breathing was heavy, ragged. He reached out a trembling, heavily ringed hand toward my shoulder, his fingers stopping just an inch away from the jagged burn mark.
“Where… where did you get this?” Vane whispered, his voice cracking, entirely stripped of its usual authority.
Kaelen frowned, stepping forward aggressively. “Admiral, it’s just a slave brand. The boy probably got it in some backwater market. Let me dispose of him so we can get back to business.”
“Shut your mouth, Kaelen!” Vane suddenly roared, his voice exploding like a cannon shot through the chamber. The massive First Mate recoiled, stumbling back a step, his face washing over with confusion.
The Admiral looked back at me, his eyes wide, searching my face, searching my eyes. “Tell me your name, boy. And tell me the truth, by the gods of the sea, or I will peel the skin from your bones myself. Who gave you that mark?”
I swallowed the blood in my mouth, staring directly into the eyes of the most powerful man in the naval kingdom. I knew exactly what the mark was, and I knew the dangerous secret it carried—a secret that had kept me running, hiding, and eventually chained to an oar just to stay alive.
“My mother gave me this mark, Admiral,” I said, my voice steadying despite the pain wracking my body. “She burned it into my flesh with a silver heated seal on the night the royal harbor burned. The night the True Sovereign fleet was betrayed from within.”
The seven warlords at the table all gasped, several of them instantly standing up from their chairs, their hands instinctively flying to the hilts of their swords. Kaelen looked around the room, utterly bewildered by the sudden panic, his hand tightly gripping the whip.
Grand Admiral Vane took a slow step back, his eyes completely wide with a mixture of terror and sudden, profound realization. He looked at my face again, truly looking past the grime and the blood, recognizing the line of my jaw, the color of my eyes.
“It cannot be,” Vane whispered, his voice trembling as he looked at the other warlords, who were now staring at me with horror. “The boy… the boy is supposed to be at the bottom of the sea.”
CHAPTER 2
The silence in the Grand Hall was so thick you could hear the wax dripping from the silver candelabras. Outside, the storm continued to batter the Black Leviathan, making the massive timbers groan, but inside, nobody moved. The warlords of the Sea Throne stood frozen like ice statues.
First Mate Kaelen shifted his weight, his heavy leather boots creaking. He was a man who understood violence, but he did not understand the sudden terror gripping his superiors. His arrogance was a shield, and he was eager to put it back up.
“Grand Admiral,” Kaelen said, his voice tightening as he tried to regain control of the room. “The boy is playing mind games. He’s a galley slave. He probably overheard some old sailors spinning yarns in the lower decks. Let me cut his throat right here and throw him to the sharks. We don’t have time for the delusions of a dying rat.”
Kaelen drew his heavy, notched cutlass from its scabbard. The steel hissed in the quiet room, reflecting the flickering torchlight. He took a long step toward me, raising the blade, his eyes focused entirely on my neck.
“Step back, Kaelen,” Admiral Vane commanded. His voice wasn’t loud, but it possessed a freezing, absolute authority that made the First Mate halt mid-stride.
“But Admiral—”
“I said, step back!” Vane roared, turning his head slightly, his gaze cutting through Kaelen like a winter gale. “If you advance one more inch toward that boy, I will have your limbs tied to four different longships and tear you apart before the entire fleet.”
Kaelen’s face flushed a deep, angry red, but he slowly lowered his cutlass. He stepped back, his chest heaving, his eyes darting between me and the Admiral with a venomous intensity.
Admiral Vane turned his full attention back to me. He sank down to one knee, bringing his face level with mine. For a man who ruled over thousands of cold-blooded killers, his eyes were remarkably soft in this moment, filled with a grief that had clearly been buried for nearly two decades.
“The night the True Sovereign fleet burned,” Vane said, his voice a low whisper meant only for my ears, “three thousand men died in the harbor. The High King was murdered in his sleep. His palace was reduced to ash. They said the royal lineage was completely erased. They said the infant prince was thrown into the fire.”
“They lied,” I whispered back, staring directly into his eyes. “My mother, the High Queen’s personal handmaid, carried me through the secret stone tunnels beneath the burning fortress. She knew the traitors would hunt down any child with the royal bloodline. To save my life, she used the High King’s personal silver signet ring—the one featuring the ancient anchor of the First Dynasty. She heated it in the embers of the burning palace and pressed it into my flesh.”
I took a ragged breath, the pain in my ribs flaring up. “She told me that if the traitors ever found me, the mark would be my death warrant. But she also told me that if I ever found men who were still loyal to the old oath, the mark would be my shield. She died in a poor coastal village three years ago, protecting me until her last breath. That was the day Kaelen’s slave-catchers found me.”
The fat, heavily jeweled warlord at the table, whose name was Lord Boros, slammed his fist down. “This is absurd! A slave brand can be forged! A story can be memorized! Admiral, you cannot seriously believe this boy is the lost heir to the Sea Throne. If word of this reaches the High King’s court at the capital, it will mean total war. The current King will destroy us all to ensure this boy dies!”
Another warlord, an older man with a missing eye named Captain Thorne, stepped forward. He examined the burn mark on my shoulder closely, his breathing hitching. “Boros, look at the alignment of the anchor flukes. Look at the small crack in the left fluke. The High King’s personal seal had that exact flaw. It was damaged during the Siege of the Iron Islands forty years ago. You cannot forge a flaw that specific on a child’s flesh.”
Thorne looked up, his one remaining eye wide with an emotion I hadn’t expected to see on a pirate captain’s face—reverence. “This boy… this boy is the blood of the Dragon-Ships.”
The room erupted into a fierce, low-voiced argument. The warlords were terrified. The current rulers of the naval kingdom were brutal, unforgiving tyrants who had built their empire on the bones of the old dynasty. If they discovered that the Blood-Anchor fleet was harboring the true king, a fleet of a hundred warships would descend upon them before the moon changed.
Kaelen saw his opportunity in their fear. He stepped forward again, his voice dripping with venomous ambition. “Listen to yourselves! You are warlords! You rule the open ocean! Are you really going to risk everything you’ve built—your gold, your ships, your lives—for a broken, starving boy who can barely stand? Even if he is who he says he is, he is currently nothing but a liability. Let me kill him. We bury the secret forever, and we continue our plunder. The dead cannot claim thrones!”
I looked at the faces of the men in the room. Some looked conflicted, their old loyalties warring with their current greed. Others, like Boros, looked entirely ready to agree with Kaelen. My life hung by a single, fraying thread.
Grand Admiral Vane stood up slowly, silencing the room once more. He looked at me, then he looked at Kaelen, and finally at the rest of his council.
“Twenty years ago, we swore an oath,” Vane said, his voice echoing off the timber walls. “We swore to protect the bloodline of the deep. When the palace burned, we believed we had failed. We became pirates, raiders, outlaws, because we had no king left to serve. We lost our honor, and we filled the void with gold and blood.”
Vane reached into his heavy coat and pulled out a small, velvet pouch. From it, he drew a massive, heavy iron key—the key to the ship’s sacred relic vault, a place where only the Grand Admiral was permitted to enter.
“There is one final test,” Vane declared, his eyes locked onto mine. “The High King’s personal cutlass, the Ocean’s Fang, was recovered from the ashes of the palace. It has been locked in the flagship’s vault for twenty years. It is said that the blade was forged with a custom hilt that only fits the unique grip of the true bloodline. Many have tried to wield it to claim the throne, and the balance of the blade has ruined their wrists. Bring the blade.”
Kaelen laughed, a harsh, mocking sound. “A sword test? Truly, Admiral? Fine. Bring the old rusted piece of iron. Let the slave boy try to hold it. When he fails, I will personally throw him into the beast cage below the deck.”
“Go, Thorne,” Vane ordered, ignoring Kaelen. “Bring the Ocean’s Fang.”
Captain Thorne nodded grimly and hurried out of the chamber, his heavy steps fading down the corridor.
The wait was agonizing. Kaelen stood nearby, staring down at me with a sickening smile. He leaned down, whispering so only I could hear. “Enjoy your last few minutes of breath, boy. Royal or not, you’re going to die today. And I’m going to be the one who opens your belly.”
I didn’t answer him. I closed my eyes, focusing on the rhythmic thumping of my heart. I thought of my mother, of her sacrifice, of the endless nights she spent crying in our small, dirt-floor hut, praying that I would grow up strong enough to survive.
The heavy doors clicked open again. Captain Thorne entered, carrying a long, heavy wooden box wrapped in faded velvet. The warlords drew closer, their eyes wide with anticipation.
Thorne placed the box on the oak table, carefully unlatching the rusted iron clasps. He opened the lid, revealing a magnificent cutlass. The scabbard was made of black whalebone, inlaid with pure silver that depicted roaring sea serpents. The hilt was shaped like a rising wave, carved from a single piece of flawless white kraken ivory. Despite being locked away for two decades, the weapon radiated an aura of immense, dangerous power.
Grand Admiral Vane stepped forward, carefully lifting the weapon from its velvet bed. He did not draw the blade. Instead, he walked over to me, holding the scabbard in one hand and presenting the white ivory hilt to my bound wrists.
“Kaelen, cut his bonds,” Vane ordered.
Kaelen spat on the floor, drawing a small dagger and slicing through the hemp ropes around my wrists. The rough fibers pulled away, leaving raw, bleeding rings around my skin. I rubbed my wrists, my hands shaking uncontrollably from exhaustion and fear.
“Hold the weapon, boy,” Vane said softly. “Let the sea decide your fate.”
I reached out my right hand. My palm was torn, covered in blood and blisters from the massive wooden oar I had dropped hours before. My fingers trembled as they approached the flawless white ivory hilt.
The moment my fingers wrapped around the ivory, something extraordinary happened. The hilt, which had looked awkwardly large and heavy in Vane’s hands, seemed to shift perfectly into my palm. The unique, subtle curves of the ivory met the specific contours of my hand as if it had been custom-molded for me before my birth. The balance was instantaneous. The shaking in my arm completely vanished.
A strange, deep warmth surged up my arm, clearing the fog of exhaustion from my mind.
With a fluid, natural motion that I had never been taught, I pulled the weapon from its scabbard. The blade slid out with a high-pitched, singing chime that vibrated through the very bones of everyone in the room. The steel was pristine, dark as the deep ocean, etched with ancient runes that glowed faintly in the torchlight.
The warlords fell to their knees one by one, their faces filled with awe. Even Lord Boros dropped to his joints, his jaw hanging open in complete disbelief.
Grand Admiral Vane fell to both knees, bowing his silver head so low it touched the dark mahogany floor. “My King,” he choked out, tears streaming down his weathered cheeks. “The true King of the Sea Throne has returned.”
Only Kaelen remained standing. His face was a mask of pure, unadulterated fury and disbelief. He looked around at the kneeling warlords, his voice cracking with desperation. “Are you all mad?! It’s a trick! The boy is a witch! He’s using magic! Stand up! We cannot bow to a slave!”
I held the heavy cutlass high, the dark blade catching the reflection of the torches. I looked down at Kaelen, the man who had whipped me, kicked me, and treated me like filth for three long years.
“You said an oar is worth more than ten of my lives, Kaelen,” I said, my voice echoing with a power I didn’t know I possessed. “Now, tell me… what is the value of a King’s life?”
Kaelen’s eyes darted to the door, realizing he was entirely alone in his rebellion. He snarled, his survival instinct taking over, and made a sudden, desperate lunging movement toward me, his dagger raised to plunge into my throat.
But before he could even take a full step, Grand Admiral Vane lunged forward from his knees, his own sword clearing its sheath with lightning speed, blocking Kaelen’s strike and sending the dagger flying across the room. Two massive guards immediately rushed into the chamber, tackling Kaelen to the floor, pinning his heavy limbs down.
“What shall we do with the traitor, Your Grace?” Vane asked, looking up at me, his eyes waiting for my command.
I looked at Kaelen, who was writhing on the floor, cursing violently, his face pressed into the very blood I had coughed up moments before. The tables had turned, but the true test was yet to come. The crew outside still thought I was a clumsy slave being executed, and the storm was still raging.
“Do not kill him yet, Admiral,” I said quietly, sheathing the Ocean’s Fang. “He wanted to humiliate me before the entire fleet. Tomorrow, when the storm breaks, we will show the crew who truly rules this ship. Take him to the lower deck. Chain him to the very oar I dropped.”
Kaelen screamed as the guards dragged him out, his arrogant world completely shattered.
Grand Admiral Vane stood up, wiping the tears from his face, a fierce, protective fire burning in his eyes. “The fleet is yours, My King. But we must prepare. The traitors at the capital will know you live by dawn.”
I turned to look out the dark window at the raging sea, knowing that my life as a slave was over, but my war for the throne had just begun.
