The rain felt like sharp iron needles against my face as the salt water soaked through my torn, threadbare shirt. I was only fourteen years old, a nameless orphan deckhand on the most feared warship in the black-sailed fleet, The Leviathan’s Wrath. To the crew, I was less than the barnacles scraping against the hull. I was just flesh and bone meant to scrub blood from the timber, survive on moldy hardtack, and bear the heavy weight of their iron-toed boots whenever the seas ran rough and tempests inflamed their dark tempers.
But tonight was different. Tonight, the sea was alive with a howling fury that made even the oldest sailors whisper prayers to the depths, and First Mate Borach was drunk on stolen rum and pure, unadulterated cruelty.
“Pick him up!” Borach roared, his voice cutting through the screaming gale like a dull saw. His massive, scarred hand reached down and grabbed the collar of my shirt, lifting my shivering body entirely off the slick wooden planks. The crew gathered around in a loose, staggering circle, holding heavy iron lanterns that cast long, sickly shadows across the rain-drenched quarterdeck. They laughed, their yellowed teeth gleaming in the dark, their eyes hungry for a distraction from the terror of the storm.
“The boy looked at me wrong when he brought the captain’s soup,” Borach lied, his breath reeking of cheap alcohol and rotting meat. He shoved me toward the edge of the deck, where the heavy iron storm cage hung over the churning, black abyss of the ocean. “I say he needs to learn how to swim with the leviathans. Let’s see how long the little rat can hold his breath when the waves crash over the iron!”
I screamed, my voice small and desperate, lost entirely in the roar of the wind. I begged for mercy, reaching out with bleeding fingers, grasping at the wet fabric of any sailor standing nearby. But they only cheered louder, shoving my hands away, kicking my shins as Borach dragged me toward the open, rusted door of the cage. It was a punishment meant for traitors and thieves—a slow, freezing death suspended over the freezing Atlantic, where the ocean would repeatedly submerge you until your lungs filled with brine or your heart simply stopped beating from the sheer terror.
“Please, sir!” I cried, the tears freezing on my cheeks. “I didn’t do anything! I slipped on the deck, the soup was an accident!”
“Silence, dog!” Borach snarled, slamming me hard against the iron bars. The impact knocked the wind from my chest, leaving me gasping as he forced my thin limbs inside the cramped, freezing metal enclosure. The iron was rusted and sharp, biting into my skin. He slammed the heavy latch shut, locking me inside, and signaled the men at the winch. With a terrifying creak of thick hemp rope, the cage dropped down the side of the hull, dangling just feet above the monstrous, white-capped waves that threatened to swallow me whole.
The crew leaned over the wooden railing, pointing and spitting down at me, treating my terror as a game. Every time the massive warship rolled to the port side, the cage dipped entirely into the freezing black ocean, filling my mouth and nose with burning salt water. I held onto the bars with white knuckles, coughing, gasping for air every time the cage was pulled back up, my whole body shaking so violently I thought my bones would snap.
Then, a sudden, heavy silence fell over the deck above. The laughing stopped instantly. The only sound left was the howling wind and the violent crashing of the sea.
Through the iron bars, looking up through the sheets of torrential rain, I saw the crew part like a wave hitting a cliff. A tall, towering figure stepped out from the captain’s quarters, cloaked in heavy black fur that glistened with sea spray. It was the Pirate King himself, Captain Craig the Merciless. A man whose name was whispered in terror across every naval empire and coastal village from the frozen north to the southern trade routes. He carried a heavy cutlass at his hip, and his eyes were as cold and grey as the winter sea.
“What is the meaning of this noise on my deck during a Category Five gale?” the Pirate King demanded, his deep baritone voice instantly silencing the storm’s fury in the minds of his men.
Borach immediately stepped forward, bowing his head in a display of false respect, though his wicked grin remained. “Just teaching the new deck rat a lesson, Captain. He’s clumsy, weak, and wastes our provisions. The men needed some sport to keep their spirits high through the midnight watch.”
Captain Craig walked slowly to the edge of the wooden railing, his heavy boots thudding against the deck. He looked down into the swinging iron cage where I hung, shivering, looking up at him with wide, terrified eyes. To him, I was supposed to be a nameless piece of garbage, an insignificant speck in his grand fleet of thieves. He raised his hand, signaling the winchmen.
“Bring the cage up,” the Pirate King commanded coldly. “Let me look at this creature who disrupts the focus of my crew.”
The ropes groaned as I was hauled back up to the deck level, the cage dripping with freezing sea water. Borach pulled the latch and dragged me out, throwing my broken, shivering body right at the Pirate King’s feet. I lay there on the wet timber, coughing up brine, my hands curled into fists against the cold.
“Look up, boy,” Captain Craig ordered, stepping closer.
I forced my aching neck upward, staring at the intimidating ruler of the seas. At that exact moment, a violent blast of wind caught a large wooden storm lantern hanging from the main mast. The lantern swung low and hard, its bright oil flame cutting through the darkness and illuminating the right side of my neck where my ragged shirt had been torn away by Borach’s rough hands.
The light hit the pale, jagged skin just beneath my jaw—a distinct, ancient burn mark shaped perfectly like the three-pronged trident of the old royal sea throne, a mark I had carried since the night my childhood village was burned to ash.
The Pirate King went completely pale. His cold, grey eyes widened in a way his crew had never seen before. The absolute iron confidence on his face shattered into a mask of pure, unadulterated shock. He took a staggered step backward, his heavy boot slipping slightly on the wet deck, his hand instantly flying to the hilt of his cutlass as his breath caught in his throat.
The entire crew watched in absolute, stunned confusion as the most feared man on the ocean began to tremble.
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FULL STORY CHAPTER 1
The heavy wooden lantern continued to swing wildly overhead, casting long, erratic shadows across the wet deck of The Leviathan’s Wrath. The rain poured down in relentless sheets, but nobody moved. None of the sixty hardened killers standing on that deck dared to draw a breath. They stared at their captain, the legendary Pirate King, Craig the Merciless, expecting him to draw his blade and finish me. Instead, they watched a ghost take possession of his face.
I lay in the pooling salt water at his feet, my ribs aching from where Borach had slammed me against the iron cage. My breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps. I didn’t understand why the execution had stopped. I didn’t understand why the freezing wind suddenly felt secondary to the suffocating tension thick enough to cut with a dagger.
“Captain?” First Mate Borach whispered, stepping forward, his heavy leather boots squelching on the deck. His wicked grin had faltered slightly, replaced by the nervous confusion of a bully who senses the rules have suddenly changed. “Captain, shall I throw the rat back into the drink? The waves are building, and he’s taking up space on the timber.”
Captain Craig did not answer him. He didn’t even look at his high-ranking officer. His gaze remained entirely locked onto my throat, onto the pale, puckered flesh that formed the shape of the ancient sea throne’s crest. It was a scar I had hidden my entire life beneath high collars and dirt, a scar given to me by a piece of falling, burning timber when I was a small child sleeping in a cradle of silk, long before the cold docks became my home.
“Hold the lantern,” Craig commanded. His voice wasn’t a roar this time. It was a low, dangerous whisper that carried more terror than any shout he had ever delivered.
“Sir?” the guard holding the wooden lantern asked, hesitating.
“I said, hold the lantern closer to the boy!” Craig roared suddenly, the sound exploding from his chest like a cannon shot.
The guard scrambled forward, his boots slipping on the slick wood, thrusting the heavy glass-paned lantern within inches of my face. The heat of the oil flame warmed my frozen skin, but my heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the blow I assumed was coming. I thought the mark was a sign of a curse, or perhaps the symbol of an enemy fleet he despised. I thought my life was over.
Instead, I felt a massive hand touch my shoulder. It wasn’t rough. It didn’t pinch or bruise. The calloused, leather-hard palm of the Pirate King settled onto my trembling frame with a terrifying, gentle weight. He knelt into the puddles of rain and sea water, his expensive black fur cloak soaking in the grime of the deck without him caring in the slightest.
“Where did you get this?” Craig whispered, his eyes searching my face, scanning my jawline, my nose, the color of my eyes beneath my matted, wet hair. His voice trembled with an emotion none of these men had ever heard from him—vulnerability. “Tell me the truth, boy, or by the old gods, I will tear this ship apart to find it. Who gave you this mark?”
“I… I don’t know, sir,” I stammered, my teeth chattering so hard I could barely form the English words. “I’ve had it since the fire. The great fire in the northern harbor when I was a babe. I don’t remember my mother or my father. I was just… I was just left on the docks of Valencrest.”
A collective gasp rippled through the older sailors standing near the main mast. Valencrest wasn’t just any port. It was the ancient seat of the Naval Warlords, the grand kingdom that ruled the northern seas before it was betrayed and burned from the inside fifteen years ago. It was the place where Craig the Merciless had lost everything before he became a pirate—his home, his fleet, and his family.
Borach’s face darkened with a mixture of anger and panic. He could see his authority slipping away in front of the men he spent years intimidating. He stepped between the Captain and me, his hand resting on the pommel of his rusted cutlass.
“Captain, the boy is a liar,” Borach spat, trying to regain control of the deck. “He’s a gutter rat picked up from the slave docks for three silver coins. He’s using a common burn mark to trick your old mind. Let me cut his throat and be done with it. We have a merchant prize to hunt before dawn, and we cannot waste time on the delusions of a dying breed.”
Craig slowly rose from his knees. The gentleness disappeared instantly, replaced by a cold, calculating fury that made the air feel heavier than the storm itself. He stood to his full, towering height, overshadowing the stocky First Mate.
“A common burn mark?” Craig repeated, his voice dangerously smooth. He reached beneath his thick fur cloak and pulled a heavy silver medallion from around his neck. He held it up to the lantern light. It was the official seal of the Grand Admiral of the lost northern fleet, featuring the exact same three-pronged trident design etched into its metal face. “Look at it, Borach. Look at the lines. Look at the angle of the center blade. Fire does not paint a perfect royal crest by accident.”
Borach swallowed hard, stepping back a inches. “It… it could be a coincidence, sir. A trick of the light.”
“There are no coincidences on the black water,” Craig said, turning his back to the First Mate and facing the entire crew. “Fifteen years ago, the High King’s treasonous guards marched into my estate while my fleet was at sea. They burned my halls. They slaughtered my kin. I was told my only son, the heir to the Sea Throne, was trapped in the nursery when the roof collapsed. They told me nothing but ash remained.”
The Pirate King turned back to me, his eyes shining with a mixture of ancient grief and newfound, burning rage. “But the old nanny… before she died under the torturer’s iron, she told me a different story. She said she carried the boy out through the smoke, but a falling beam caught his neck. She said she hid him in a barrel on the trading docks before the guards caught her. For fifteen years, I have searched every port, every slave market, every wretched tavern in the five kingdoms looking for a boy with a trident burned into his skin.”
The crew went completely silent. The wind seemed to drop, leaving only the creaking of the timber and the heavy breathing of hardened men realizing they were standing in the presence of a living ghost.
“He is no cabin boy,” Craig declared, his voice echoing across the entire length of the warship, carrying to the men in the rigging and the lookouts in the crows nest. “He is the blood of the North. He is my son.”
Borach’s eyes darted around the deck, looking for support among his loyal sycophants, but the crew was frozen in awe. The older pirates, men who had served Craig since the old days of the naval empire, began to lower their heads, their hands dropping away from their weapons.
“This changes nothing!” Borach suddenly shouted, desperation making him foolish. He pointed his finger at my face. “Even if he carries your blood, he is weak! He is a coward who cries when he’s thrown into the cage! He is not fit to sail with men of iron! A pirate ship is ruled by strength, Captain, not by ancient titles and old campfire stories! If the boy cannot survive the storm cage, he has no right to live!”
Craig stared at Borach for a long, agonizing moment. The silence stretched until it felt like a physical weight crushing the First Mate’s confidence.
“You speak of strength, Borach,” Craig said softly, stepping closer to him. “You speak of the law of the sea. You threw a child into the freezing dark to entertain yourself. You abused a boy who could not fight back, believing he had no father to demand a reckoning.”
Craig suddenly reached out, his hand moving like a striking viper, grabbing Borach by the throat and lifting the heavy man off his feet just as Borach had done to me minutes before. The First Mate’s hands clawed frantically at the Captain’s iron grip, his legs kicking uselessly in the air.
“Let us see your strength,” the Pirate King growled, his face inches from the choking officer. “Let us see how much entertainment you find in the freezing brine.”
Craig turned his head slightly toward the guards who had previously assisted Borach in my torment. “Lower the cage to the deck. Now.”
The guards didn’t hesitate. They threw themselves onto the winch handles, spinning them with terrifying speed. The iron cage slammed onto the wooden planks, its door swinging open.
“Throw him in,” Craig commanded, slamming Borach onto the deck at the feet of his own men.
“Wait! Captain, please!” Borach croaked, his arrogance completely evaporating as he crawled backward away from the rusted cage. “I’ve served you for five years! I’ve bled for this ship! You can’t do this for a nameless brat!”
“He has a name,” Craig said, stepping over him and offering his hand to me, helping me stand up on my trembling legs. The touch was warm, solid, and filled with a fierce protection I had never known in all my years of suffering. “His name is Kaelen. And you will address him as your commander before the sea takes your tongue.”
The guards grabbed Borach by his arms, dragging him kicking and screaming toward the very cage he had locked me in. The crew watched, their expressions shifting from amusement to cold satisfaction. In our world, power could shift as fast as the wind, and cruelty was always repaid in kind.
But as Borach was forced into the iron enclosure, a sudden commotion came from the bow of the ship. A lookout scrambled down the wet shrouds, landing heavily on the deck, his face pale with a completely different kind of terror.
“Sails on the horizon!” the lookout screamed, pointing into the black storm. “Three massive warships, bearing the gold crest of the High King’s Royal Armada! They’ve caught our scent, Captain! They’re closing fast, and their cannons are already primed!”
The crew erupted into chaos, shouting orders, running for the ropes. Craig’s grip on my shoulder tightened, his eyes narrowing as he stared into the dark ocean where the faint lanterns of our greatest enemies began to appear through the rain. The reckoning had arrived, and the secret of my bloodline was about to be tested in fire.
CHAPTER 2
The announcement of the High King’s armada turned the deck of The Leviathan’s Wrath into a hornets’ nest. Hardened pirates, men who had smiled at the prospect of drowning a cabin boy, now scrambled across the wet timber with panic in their eyes. The gold crest of the Royal Armada didn’t just mean a battle; it meant a swift trial and a short rope at the harbor gallows. They were the apex predators of the sea kingdom, tasked with erasing every trace of the old naval warlords and the pirate fleets that dared to defy the throne.
“Man the capstan!” shouted the quartermaster, his voice cracking against the wind. “Drop the main tack! We need every inch of canvas if we’re going to outrun them in this gale!”
“We can’t outrun them,” Craig’s voice cut through the panic like an iron anchor dropping into deep water. He hadn’t moved from my side. His hand remained firmly on my shoulder, a steady weight that somehow kept my knees from buckling despite the freezing cold and the terror of the approaching fleet. He looked out into the blackness, where three sets of dual lanterns gleamed through the torrential rain, drawing a perfect perimeter around our position. “They have the weather gauge, and those are the new triple-deck frigates from the capital. They were built to hunt us down.”
First Mate Borach, still gripped tightly by the two guards near the storm cage, saw his chance. His face, twisted with fear moments ago, found its wicked confidence once again. He spat a mouthful of bloody rainwater onto the deck and yelled over the roar of the wind.
“You see, Captain? The gods are judging you!” Borach screamed, his eyes darting to the surrounding crew to rally them. “The moment you claim this gutter rat as your blood, the High King’s wolves appear to destroy us! He’s a curse! The boy brings the wrath of the sea throne down upon our heads! Throw him overboard now, give the sea its due, and maybe we can slip through the fog!”
A few of the younger sailors, terrified by the looming silhouette of the royal warships, began to murmur. They cast dark, superstitious looks in my direction. In the old pirate world, a strange omen or an unexplained identity was often viewed as a harbinger of doom. Hands began to drift back to the hilts of their daggers.
“Silence him,” Craig said, not even looking back at Borach.
The guard nearest to the First Mate slammed the butt of his heavy wooden pike into Borach’s stomach, folding the man in half and leaving him gasping for air on the wet planks.
Craig turned to face his crew, his black fur cloak billowing behind him like the wings of a predatory bird. “For fifteen years, the High King has hunted us because he fears the truth. He fears that the old bloodline of the Naval Warlords still draws breath. He thinks he can extinguish the spark of the North with his gold and his timber. But tonight, the spark is right here.” He looked down at me, his eyes fierce with a pride I didn’t deserve. “We do not run from the wolves. We show them how a dragon dies.”
He looked at the old quartermaster, a grey-bearded warrior named Thorgar who had served in the ancient wars. “Thorgar, take the boy to my quarters. Lock the heavy oak door. If the ship goes down, ensure he has a life jacket and a blade.”
“No,” I said.
The word left my mouth before I could stop it. It was small, cracked from the salt water, but it carried a strange resonance that made both Craig and Thorgar freeze. I was terrified. Every muscle in my body was shaking from hypothermia and fear. But for fourteen years, I had run. I had hidden. I had let men like Borach kick me into corners and treat me like dirt. If I was going to die tonight in the middle of a roaring ocean, I wasn’t going to do it locked in a dark room like a frightened animal.
“What did you say, lad?” Thorgar asked, his bushy eyebrows knitting together.
I looked up into the eyes of the Pirate King—the man who claimed to be my father, the man who had just risked his own authority to save me from the storm cage. “I stay on deck,” I said more clearly, wiping the rain from my eyes. “I know how to haul the lines. I know how to pack the powder for the long nines. I’ve done it since I was ten. I won’t hide in the dark.”
A slow, grim smile broke across Craig’s scarred face. The absolute coldness in his eyes melted into something resembling fierce joy. He slapped his heavy hand against my back, nearly knocking me over, but his grip caught me before I could fall.
“The blood doesn’t lie,” Craig roared, turning back to the crew. “You hear that, you dogs? The boy stays on deck! Thorgar, get him a dry coat and an iron cutlass. Tonight, he learns what it means to command the black water!”
The older sailors erupted into a fierce cheer, their superstitious fears burned away by the raw defiance of their captain and the unexpected courage of the cabin boy they had mocked. Even the men who had been hesitant began to move with double the speed, their movements synchronized by the ancient rhythm of naval combat.
Thorgar threw a heavy, grease-stained wool coat over my shoulders. It smelled of old sweat, tobacco, and salt, but it was warm, and it stopped the violent shaking in my limbs. He pressed a short, heavy iron blade into my hand. The weight of it was shocking; it felt real, dangerous, and entirely too heavy for a boy who had spent his life holding nothing but scrubbing brushes and wooden spoons.
“Keep your footing, little prince,” Thorgar grunted, a glint of respect in his old eyes. “When the iron starts flying, stay low and watch the splinter zone.”
Through the darkness, the lead royal warship closed the distance with terrifying speed. Its massive white sails, emblazoned with the golden sun of the High King, caught the full force of the storm. The ship surged forward on a cresting wave, its gun ports slamming open along its wooden flank like a row of black teeth.
“Brace yourselves!” Craig shouted, his voice a shield against the coming storm of iron.
A flash of blinding orange light illuminated the ocean as the lead frigate unleashed its first broadside. The roar was deafening, a localized clap of thunder that shook the air itself. A second later, the world turned into a nightmare of tearing wood and screaming iron.
Three heavy iron cannonballs tore through the upper rigging of The Leviathan’s Wrath, severing thick hemp ropes that whipped across the deck like striking serpels. One ball struck the wooden railing just twenty feet from where I stood, exploding the solid oak into thousands of jagged, deadly splinters. I watched in horror as two sailors were thrown backward, their bodies torn by the flying wood, their blood mixing instantly with the rain on the deck.
The force of the impact threw me off my feet. I slid across the wet timber, my fingers clawing at the planks until my cutlass wedged into a hatch seam, stopping my descent toward the open sea. Through the smoke and rain, I saw Borach, still untied near the cage, trying to crawl toward a fallen cutlass while the guards were distracted by the rigging fire.
“Captain!” I tried to scream, but the sound was drowned out by another roar from the second royal warship closing in from our port side.
We were trapped between two hammer blows, and the third ship was moving to cut off our escape completely. The situation was hopeless. We were outnumbered, outgunned, and our rigging was burning despite the pouring rain.
Craig stood at the helm, his boots planted firmly on the deck, his hands gripping the massive wooden wheel as if he could force the ship to obey through sheer willpower alone. His fur cloak was gone, torn away by a falling splinter, revealing his scarred, muscular arms beneath his tunic. He looked like an ancient sea god commanding a dying world.
“Turn her into the wind!” Craig commanded the helmsman next to him. “Hard to starboard! We’re going to ram the lead ship!”
The crew gasped. Ramming a triple-deck royal frigate with a smaller pirate warship was suicide. The impact would shatter both vessels, sending everyone into the freezing depths. But looking into Craig’s eyes, I realized he wasn’t trying to commit suicide. He was executing a maneuver so desperate, so mad, that the royal officers would never see it coming.
As The Leviathan’s Wrath swung its heavy wooden bow toward the massive flank of the royal flagship, the distance between the two vessels closed with sickening speed. I could see the faces of the royal marines lined up along their upper deck, their muskets aimed at us, their expressions shifting from arrogant confidence to absolute horror as they realized we weren’t turning away.
“Hold on!” Thorgar screamed, grabbing me by the collar of my new coat and pulling me behind the thick base of the main mast.
In the final seconds before the impact, as the two massive wooden structures prepared to grind each other into kindling, a brilliant flash of lightning tore through the sky, illuminating the captain’s deck of the royal ship. Standing there, beneath a silk canopy that was tearing in the wind, was a man in a pristine blue and gold uniform. He wore a silver breastplate and a plumed hat that defied the storm.
It was Grand Admiral Vane, the very man who had commanded the king’s forces during the betrayal of Valencrest fifteen years ago. The man who had ordered the burning of my family’s home.
Vane looked down at our approaching ship, his eyes locking onto Craig at the helm. For a single, frozen second, the two old enemies stared at each other across the gap of the roaring ocean. Vane drew his ornate gold cutlass, his face twisted in a snarl of recognition and hatred.
Then, the world exploded.
The heavy oak bowsprit of The Leviathan’s Wrath crashed directly into the midsection of the royal frigate with the force of a falling mountain. The sound of splintering timber was louder than the cannons, a horrific, screeching groan of thousands of tons of wood fracturing at once. The impact threw everyone to the deck, sending loose barrels, heavy iron shot, and broken bodies flying across the planks.
The two ships became hopelessly locked together, their rigging tangled like the web of a mad spider, suspended over the raging waves.
“Boarders!” Craig’s voice rang out, clear and terrifying over the chaos. He was the first to rise from the deck, his heavy cutlass drawn, its blade reflecting the orange glow of the burning wood. “Kill the king’s dogs! Reclaim the sea!”
The pirate crew, fueled by the adrenaline of survival and the raw fury of their captain, scrambled over the broken railing, throwing grappling hooks and swinging across the gap on severed ropes. They descended upon the royal deck like a plague of locusts, their weapons swinging, their voices raised in a unified, bloodthirsty roar.
I scrambled up from behind the mast, my heart pounding in my ears. Thorgar was already gone, surging into the fray with an axe in each hand. I stood alone on our quarterdeck, holding my short cutlass, looking at the absolute carnage unfolding just feet away.
Suddenly, a heavy hand gripped my ankle, pulling my legs out from under me. I slammed hard onto the deck, dropping my weapon. I turned around, gasping for breath, and found myself looking into the twisted, blood-streaked face of First Mate Borach.
He had freed himself during the confusion of the crash. He had a stolen dagger in his hand, and his eyes were completely bloodshot with madness.
“You brought this on us, little prince,” Borach hissed, crawling on top of me, his heavy weight pinning my thin frame to the wet planks. He raised the sharp iron blade above my chest, his breath hot and reeking against my face. “Your father can’t save you now. I’m going to cut your throat, throw you to the sharks, and take this ship for myself!”
I clawed at his wrists, my small hands useless against his massive strength. The point of the dagger began to descend, piercing the fabric of my wool coat, touching the skin right above my heart. I closed my eyes, waiting for the final plunge, realizing that my true identity had only brought me a more violent end.
But before the blade could sink deep, a sudden, heavy shadow fell over us. A sound like a breaking branch echoed through the air, followed by a wet, choking gasp from the man pinning me down.
I opened my eyes. Borach was frozen, his mouth wide open in shock. A thick iron spearhead had pierced entirely through his shoulder from behind, pinning him to the deck like a speared fish.
Standing above him, holding the other end of the weapon with a face of absolute, calm fury, was Captain Craig. He didn’t say a word. He simply twisted the iron spear, throwing Borach’s groaning body off me, and reached down to pull me up for the second time that night.
“Are you harmed, Kaelen?” he asked, his eyes scanning my chest for blood.
“No… no, Father,” I said, the word Father slipping out naturally this time, tasting strange but deeply right on my tongue.
Craig looked out at the royal flagship, where the battle was already turning in our favor. The sudden, suicidal ramming maneuver had shattered the royal marines’ morale, and the pirates were pushing them back toward their own quarterdeck. But the other two royal warships were already maneuvering to flank us, their guns turning toward our tangled mass.
“The battle isn’t won yet,” Craig said, turning his gaze to the upper deck of the royal ship, where Grand Admiral Vane was surrounded by a protective ring of elite guards. “We need to take their commander. We need to show them that the North has returned.”
He looked back at me, his hand resting on my hilt. “Come with me, boy. It’s time to look the man who burned your cradle in the eye.”
We stepped over the broken railing together, entering the chaotic bloodbath of the royal deck. The rain continued to fall, washing away the blood as fast as it was spilled, but the true storm was just beginning.
