CHAPTER 3
The lower decks of The Iron Leviathan were a labyrinth of dark oak timbers, dripping salt water, and the heavy, suffocating stench of rotting hemp and black bilge oil. The violent tilting of the warship sent empty water casks crashing against the bulkheads, their hollow thuds sounding like distant drums of war. Lanterns swung wildly on their brass hooks, casting long, monstrous shadows across the damp wood.
Admiral Thorne kept his iron grip on my arm, dragging me down the narrow, steep companionway steps. Despite his age and the heavy wool and leather of his uniform, he moved with the terrifying speed of a seasoned predator. His breathing was heavy, a low, gravelly rasp that filled the cramped corridor. Behind us, the muffled sounds of the open deck—the roaring flames, the screaming of the crew, and the booming voice of Commander Kraven—grew faint but no less menacing.
“Keep your footing, my prince,” Thorne hissed, his voice cutting through the dark. He didn’t look back at me, his eyes entirely focused on the shadows ahead. He held his drawn broadsword low, the wet steel gleaming in the dim light of the few remaining tallow candles tucked into the beams. “Kraven’s men know these decks well, but they do not know the old secret passageways built when your father laid the keel of this very vessel.”
“Where are we going?” I managed to gasp out, my lungs burning from the smoke we had left behind, my throat raw and dry. Every step I took sent a jolt of pure agony through my fractured ribs, and the rough wood of the deck bit into my bare, bleeding feet. “We are trapped on a ship. There is nowhere to run. If Kraven seals the hatches, we are dead men in a wooden cage.”
Thorne stopped abruptly at a heavy, iron-reinforced door that led to the armory hold. He turned to me, his face pale under the flickering light, his long grey beard damp with sea spray and sweat. The fierceness in his eyes had not faded, but beneath it lay a profound, heartbreaking sorrow.
“We are not running, boy,” Thorne said softly, his voice trembling as he looked down at my tattered shirt and the silver medallion resting against my bruised flesh. “We are going to reclaim what was stolen. This ship was your father’s pride. The men on the upper decks are confused, terrified, and blinded by Kraven’s gold. But beneath our feet, in the deepest bellies of this floating fortress, are the men who remember the truth. The old guard. The men who bled for High Admiral Valerius.”
Before I could answer, a loud, splintering crash echoed from the companionway behind us.
“They’re down here! Find the old traitor and the rat!” a harsh voice shouted. It was the unmistakable, nasal grunt of Boros, one of Kraven’s personal shield-guards. The heavy thud of iron-shod boots began to descend the wooden steps, accompanied by the distinct clinking of chainmail and the scraping of heavy axes against the narrow bulkheads.
“In here, quickly,” Thorne muttered, shoving me through a small, hidden panel beside the armory door. It was a space barely wide enough for a man, a ventilation shaft meant for cleaning the bilge pumps, completely hidden by a false face of dark oak.
We squeezed into the suffocating darkness just as three of Kraven’s guards burst into the corridor. Through a tiny splintered hole in the wood, I watched, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Boros stood in the center of the passage, a massive double-bitted boarding axe resting on his shoulder. His face was twisted in a savage grin, his eyes darting to the trail of dark blood my feet had left on the deck. “They went toward the powder magazine! Move! If we bring the boy’s head to Kraven before the fire on deck is out, we’ll each have a manor on the southern coast!”
The guards rushed past our hiding spot, their heavy steps shaking the very timbers we leaned against. I held my breath, pressing my hand against my mouth to suppress a cough. The scent of old pine, grease, and the metallic tang of my own blood filled my senses.
Once the sound of their boots faded into the distance, Thorne pushed the panel open, stepping back out into the narrow corridor. His face was grim. “They think we are desperate enough to blow the ship. Good. Let them chase ghosts in the powder hold.”
He led me deeper into the ship, bypassing the main cargo bays and descending into the lowest level—the slave galley. This was the place where the true misery of The Iron Leviathan lived. It was a long, low-ceilinged cavern beneath the waterline, where four tiers of heavy wooden benches lined the hull. Hundreds of men, chained by their ankles and wrists to massive oar shafts, sat in the dark. The air here was hot, thick, and rancid with the smell of unwashed bodies, sickness, and old rot.
As we stepped onto the central catwalk that ran between the rows of rowers, a low rumble went through the men. They were the forgotten ones—prisoners of war, political dissidents, and old sailors who had refused to swear allegiance to Kraven when he took the throne ten years ago. The heavy iron chains rattled in unison as they turned their hollow, sunken eyes toward us.
“Who goes there?” a deep, gravelly voice called out from the darkness of the foremost bench. A man with a massive frame, his back covered in a crisscross of thick, pale whip scars, leaned into the faint light of a single oil lamp. His hair was a wild, matted mane of iron-grey, and one of his eyes was milky white from an old cataract. “Thorne? Is that you, old wolf? Have you finally come to join us in the mud, or has Kraven finally decided to clear the benches?”
Thorne stepped down from the catwalk, his heavy boots splashing into the shallow bilge water that pooled on the floorboards. He walked directly to the large man, his expression a mix of pain and recognition.
“Garrick,” Thorne said, his voice dropping into a solemn, respectful tone. “I told you I would return when the time was right. I told you the sea does not hide the truth forever.”
The large man, Garrick, let out a bitter, raspy laugh that turned into a heavy cough. “The time? Look at us, Thorne. Half my men are dying of the bloody flux, and the other half can barely hold the oars. Kraven has three more ships trailing this flagship. The Grand Fleet belongs to him. The true line is dead. We are just waiting for the sea to take us.”
“The true line is not dead,” Thorne said clearly, his voice echoing through the long, damp galley hold.
He reached back, grabbing my shoulder, and pulled me forward into the light of the oil lamp. I stood there, shivering, my tattered shirt hanging in shreds, exposing the raw lashes on my back and the blackened silver medallion dangling from my neck.
Garrick squinted his good eye, his gaze shifting from my face down to my chest. For a long, agonizing moment, the only sound in the hold was the rhythmic sloshing of the bilge water and the distant, muffled howling of the storm outside.
Then, Garrick’s good eye widened. The bitter, hardened expression on his face shattered, replaced by a sudden, paralyzing shock. He raised his massive, calloused hands, the heavy iron cuffs around his wrists clinking loudly as he reached out toward the silver crest.
“The three-headed serpent…” Garrick whispered, his voice suddenly losing its rough edge, replaced by a childlike wonder. “The crown of Eldoria. I… I would know that silver anywhere. I forged the links of that very chain with my own hands in the royal armory thirty years ago.”
He looked up at my face, his breath catching in his cold, damp lungs. “The ice-blue eyes. By the gods… it’s the boy. It’s Valerius’s son. The young prince.”
A whisper tore through the entire lower deck like wildfire. Men who had been slouched over their oars, waiting for death, suddenly sat up straight. The heavy clinking of chains grew deafening as hundreds of men leaned forward, trying to catch a glimpse of the ragged boy standing on the catwalk.
“Is it true?” a voice called out from the dark back benches.
“Is the Prince alive?” another shouted.
“Has the King’s blood returned to us?”
“Silence!” Garrick roared, his deep voice commanding the entire room. He turned back to Thorne, his eyes wet with tears that he quickly wiped away with a grime-covered forearm. “Thorne, if this is a trick, if you have brought a ghost to mock us in our final days, I will strangle you with my bare hands.”
“It is no trick, old friend,” Thorne said, kneeling beside Garrick’s bench. He held up the medallion so the light caught the hidden engravings on the reverse side—the initials of High Admiral Valerius and the date of the boy’s birth. “Kraven hid him in plain sight. He kept him as a deck boy, an anonymous slave, thinking the boy would die of starvation or a sailor’s boot before he ever discovered who he was. But the sea has a memory, Garrick. Tonight, the shirt was torn. Tonight, the truth came into the light.”
Garrick looked at me, his massive chest heaving. Without another word, the giant of a man—a warrior who had survived a dozen naval battles and a decade of slavery—slowly lowered his head until his forehead rested against the cold, damp wood of his rowing bench.
“Forgive us, my prince,” Garrick choked out, his voice thick with tears. “Forgive us for letting you suffer in the dark while we sat in chains. We thought all hope was lost.”
“Please, stand… rise,” I stammered, my voice small and trembling. I had never had anyone speak to me with such respect. For ten years, my only names had been “rat,” “filth,” and “Ratsbane.” To have these hardened, suffering men look at me with devotion made a strange, powerful warmth bloom in my chest, melting the ice of my fear. “I am no king. I am just a boy who survived. But Kraven is coming. He wants us dead.”
Garrick raised his head, his milky eye gleaming with a sudden, terrifying ferocity. “He will have to turn this ship into a graveyard before he touches you, boy.” He turned to Thorne. “Where are the keys to the irons?”
“The armory guard had them, but he’s currently unconscious in the corridor,” Thorne replied with a grim smile. He drew his broadsword and brought it down with immense precision onto the heavy iron pin holding Garrick’s ankle chain to the bench. A bright spark flew into the dark, and the iron pin shattered.
Garrick stood up, stretching his massive frame to its full height, his head nearly touching the low deck beams above. He grabbed a heavy wooden pin used to lock the oar handles and held it like a club. “Free the others. We have a debt to pay to the Commander.”
For the next twenty minutes, the lower deck was a scene of frantic, quiet liberation. Thorne and Garrick went bench to bench, shattering the iron pins, freeing the hundreds of men who had been buried alive in the belly of the ship. These were not weak men; they were seasoned sailors and warriors whose muscles had been hardened by years of brutal, ceaseless rowing. They were fueled by a decade of suppressed rage and a sudden, miraculous hope.
By the time the last chain was broken, four hundred men stood packed into the dark galley hold, armed with nothing but heavy wooden oar pins, broken iron links, and the sheer fury of their betrayed loyalty.
“Listen to me,” I said, stepping onto the central catwalk so they could all see me. The fear was entirely gone now, replaced by the white-hot blood of my father rushing through my veins. “Kraven has his elite guards on the upper deck. They have iron shields, steel swords, and armor. We have no armor. We have no blades. But we have the truth, and we have the memory of what this fleet used to be before it became a den of thieves and murderers.”
The men let out a low, dangerous growl of approval.
“We do not attack the main deck blindly,” Thorne instructed, stepping beside me. “Kraven will have sealed the main cargo hatches by now, expecting us to try and break out from the middle deck. We will use the internal cargo hoists—the ones used for moving heavy ballast stones. We will divide his forces, strike them from the stern and the bow simultaneously, and force the regular crew to choose between a murderous usurper and the rightful heir to the sea.”
Suddenly, the heavy oak hatches at the far end of the galley hold began to rattle. The sound of heavy iron bars being thrown into place echoed through the space.
“They’re locking us in!” Garrick shouted, rushing toward the door.
But it was too late. A loud, mechanical thud signaled that the massive external bars had been dropped across the galley doors from the outside. A moment later, a strange, sizzling sound came from the overhead grates.
My heart dropped as a thick, acrid grey smoke began to pour down into the hold from the deck above. It wasn’t the smoke of a regular fire—it was the foul, choking fumes of burning sulfur and wet tar.
“Sulfur pots!” Thorne cursed, coughing violently as the thick smoke hit his lungs. “Kraven isn’t coming down here to hunt us. He’s going to smoke us out like rats, or suffocate us where we stand!”
The galley hold instantly turned into a chamber of horrors. Men began to cough and choke, their eyes watering as the toxic grey fog rapidly filled the low-ceilinged space. The heat from the fires above was growing intense, the deck timbers overhead beginning to groan and crack.
“The ballast hoists!” I screamed over the rising panic, pointing toward the heavy wooden platforms near the center of the hold. “They are large enough to carry ten men at a time! The ropes go straight up to the captain’s private stores in the aft castle! Kraven wouldn’t put smoke in his own quarters!”
“The prince is right!” Garrick roared, clearing his throat of the foul smoke. “Get to the hoists! Move!”
Garrick and three of the strongest men grabbed the heavy hemp ropes of the main ballast hoist, pulling with all their might. The wooden platform, normally used for lifting heavy iron weights, descended to the floor.
“You first, my prince,” Thorne said, shoving me onto the platform along with five other freed rowers. “Go. Secure the upper aft castle. I will follow with the next group.”
“No, Thorne! Come with me!” I yelled, but the old man just shook his head, his face covered in soot, his eyes filled with a fierce determination to protect his king’s son at all costs.
“Your father died because I was not fast enough to protect him that night ten years ago,” Thorne said, his voice straining against the coughs. “I will not fail his son. Pull the ropes!”
Garrick and the men pulled, and the platform shot upward into the dark, narrow shaft, leaving the choking fog of the galley behind. As we ascended through the heart of the groaning ship, the sounds of the storm and the chaos on the main deck grew louder.
With a violent thud, the hoist hit the top of the shaft, smashing through a thin wooden hatch cover. I scrambled out onto a plush, carpeted floor, blinking away the darkness.
We were in the Grand Cabin of the Fleet Commander. It was a massive, luxurious room filled with stolen silver, fine silks from the southern kingdoms, and maps of the entire sea empire spread across a heavy mahogany desk. Large glass windows at the stern showed the black, raging ocean outside, illuminated by brilliant flashes of lightning.
But the room wasn’t empty.
Standing near the heavy oak doors that led out to the main deck were four of Kraven’s personal bodyguards, their black iron armor gleaming in the light of the silver chandeliers. They turned around, their jaws dropping in absolute disbelief as they saw a tattered, bleeding deck boy crawl out of the floorboards, followed by five massive, wild-eyed galley slaves holding heavy wooden pins.
“What the—” one of the guards started, reaching for his sword.
“For Eldoria!” I screamed, the words tearing from my throat with a power I didn’t know I possessed.
The five galley slaves charged like unleashed beasts, their heavy wooden pins swinging with brutal force. The cabin erupted into a chaotic, violent brawl. A guard lunged at me with a short sword, but I ducked beneath his arm, my small size working to my advantage. I grabbed a heavy silver chalice from the desk and smashed it with all my strength against the side of his helmet. The metal buckled, and the guard stumbled backward, crashing through the heavy glass windows at the stern, plunging into the dark, churning sea below.
Within seconds, the remaining three guards were overwhelmed, their weapons stripped from their hands by the furious rowers.
I rushed back to the hoist shaft, helping Garrick and Thorne pull the ropes to bring up the next group of men. Within minutes, fifty hardened, freed rowers stood packed inside the Grand Cabin, their eyes locked onto the heavy doors that led to the quarterdeck.
Thorne stepped beside me, his broadsword covered in soot but his hand steady. He looked out the broken stern windows at the storm, then back at me.
“The fire on the main deck is out, my prince,” Thorne said, his voice cold as ice. “Kraven is rallying the crew at the mainmast, telling them that the traitor Thorne and the slave boy have died in the smoke below. It is time to show him that the sea does not bury kings so easily.”
He threw open the heavy mahogany doors of the Grand Cabin, and we stepped out onto the high balcony of the aft castle, looking down upon the entire main deck of The Iron Leviathan.
The storm was at its peak. Massive waves crashed over the bow, covering the deck in a sheet of white foam. Five hundred sailors stood packed together around the mainmast, their faces pale under the flickering light of the naval lanterns.
In the center of the deck stood Commander Kraven, holding his blood-stained broadsword high above his head.
“The rat is dead!” Kraven shouted to his men, his voice booming over the wind. “The old traitor Thorne is dead! The fleet is secure! The gold of the northern kingdoms belongs to us, and nobody will ever—”
“YOU LIE, KRAVEN!”
My voice cut through the storm like a thunderclap.
The five hundred sailors froze. In unison, every single head on the deck snapped upward, looking toward the high balcony of the aft castle.
The flickering light of the storm lanterns and the brilliant blue flashes of lightning illuminated the high balcony. There I stood, a starved, bleeding orphan deckhand, but my chest was bare, my head was held high, and the blackened silver medallion of the High Admiral caught the light for all to see. Beside me stood the legendary Admiral Thorne and fifty massive, freed galley slaves, their heavy weapons resting on their shoulders.
The silence that fell over the deck was absolute. The regular crew members looked up, their eyes widening, their mouths dropping open as they saw the boy they had mocked and beaten standing like a king above them.
Kraven’s face turned completely white. The broadsword in his hand trembled as he stared up at me, his worst nightmare brought to life in the middle of a raging ocean storm.
“Impossible…” Kraven whispered, his voice cracking with a sudden, suffocating terror. “You died in the hold…”
“The sea does not hide the blood of kings, Kraven!” Thorne shouted, his voice echoing across the entire ship. “Men of the Grand Fleet! Look upon your true master! Will you fight for a cowardly usurper who murders in the dark, or will you stand with the son of High Admiral Valerius?”
A young sailor near the front of the crowd, the same one who had thrown old ale at my feet earlier that night, slowly lowered his cutlass. He looked at the medallion hanging from my neck, then looked at Kraven’s terrified face.
“The mark…” the young sailor whispered, his voice filled with awe. “It’s the royal crest. The boy… he’s the prince.”
“Kill him!” Kraven screamed, his voice turning into a panicked shriek as he pointed his sword at the balcony. “I order you to kill him! Anyone who doesn’t move will be hanged from the yardarm!”
But not a single sailor moved. The regular crew stood completely still, their loyalty to Kraven vanishing like mist in the morning sun as they realized the terrifying truth. They had been serving a murderer, and the true heir to the empire was standing right before them.
Kraven looked around at his silent, staring crew, realizing that he was losing control of his empire. With a desperate, feral roar, he turned to his remaining personal shield-guards. “Protect the quarterdeck! Kill anyone who approaches!”
“Garrick, open the cargo hatches!” Thorne ordered, drawing his blade. “Let the rest of our brothers up! Tonight, we cleanse this ship of filth!”
CHAPTER 4
The battle for the quarterdeck of The Iron Leviathan was short, brutal, and filled with the absolute fury of a decade of suppressed justice.
As Garrick and his men smashed the external iron bars of the main cargo hatches, hundreds of freed galley slaves poured onto the main deck like an unstoppable tidal wave of angry iron and muscle. Kraven’s remaining personal guards, trapped between the furious rowers and the silent, unmoving regular crew, tried to form a shield wall near the mainmast, but their defense was useless against the sheer numbers and raw hatred of the men they had starved for years.
Iron shields shattered under the impact of heavy wooden oar pins. Steel swords were wrenched from the hands of nobles and merchants who had never fought a real day in their lives. The wealthy council members who had cheered for my execution just an hour ago were dragged from their high seats, screaming for mercy as they were forced to their knees on the very wood they had stained with my blood.
I walked down the steps of the aft castle balcony, my bare feet stepping over the discarded weapons and the pooling rainwater. Beside me walked Admiral Thorne, his eyes fixed on one man and one man only.
Commander Kraven stood alone on the raised quarterdeck, backed against the heavy carved bone throne. His grand iron armor, once a symbol of his absolute authority, now looked like a heavy metal coffin. His face was slick with sweat and rain, his eyes darting wildly across the deck, looking for an escape that did not exist. The five hundred sailors of the crew had formed a massive, silent circle around the quarterdeck, their weapons lowered, their eyes cold as they watched their master’s downfall.
“It’s over, Kraven,” Thorne said, his voice dropping into a calm, deadly register that cut through the howling wind. He stepped onto the quarterdeck, his broadsword held low. “Your guards are gone. Your council is in chains. The men you lied to now know the truth. Drop your blade and face the judgment of the Sea Throne.”
Kraven let out a bitter, mocking laugh, though his voice trembled so violently that he could barely hold his broadsword steady. He looked past Thorne, his gaze locking onto me.
“Judgment?” Kraven spat, his face twisting into a mask of pure, desperate madness. “From a starving rat? From a cabin boy who spent his life cleaning my boots? I carved this empire out of blood and fire, Thorne! I threw Valerius into the sea, and I should have chopped this little parasite into pieces when I had the chance!”
A collective snarl went through the hundreds of sailors surrounding the deck. The confession had come straight from the usurper’s own mouth. Any lingering doubt among the crew vanished instantly, replaced by a deep, dark anger.
Kraven realized his mistake too late. With a desperate, feral shriek, he lunged forward, swinging his massive broadsword at Thorne with all his remaining strength.
The clash of steel against steel was a deafening crack that echoed over the roaring storm. Thorne met Kraven’s strike with the effortless grace of a true master warrior. Despite his old age, Thorne’s muscles were fueled by ten years of waiting for this exact moment. He deflected Kraven’s heavy blade, spinning on his heel and delivering a brutal elbow strike to the Commander’s face.
Kraven stumbled backward, his nose—already crooked from his past treachery—breaking further under the impact, a fresh spray of crimson splashing onto his iron breastplate. He lunged again, blind with rage, but Thorne simply stepped inside his guard. With a swift, fluid motion, Thorne’s blade sliced through the leather straps of Kraven’s right gauntlet, sending the Commander’s heavy broadsword spinning across the deck before it plunged into the dark ocean below.
Kraven fell to his knees, gasping for air, his hands clutching the wet wood. He looked up, his face covered in blood and rain, to find the cold steel of Thorne’s broadsword resting directly against his throat.
The entire ship went dead silent. The wind seemed to hold its breath. Five hundred men stood waiting for the final stroke, waiting for the old Admiral to sever the head of the tyrant.
But Thorne didn’t swing. He kept his blade steady against Kraven’s throat, but he turned his head, looking back at me.
“The blade belongs to the protector of the realm, my prince,” Thorne said clearly, his voice reaching every single sailor on the ship. “But the judgment… the judgment belongs to the King.”
I stepped forward, the iron chains that had bound my wrists for years now gone, leaving only the raw, red scars of my survival. I walked up to the kneeling Commander, the man who had ordered my father’s murder, the man who had kept me in the dark belly of the ship, the man who had laughed while his guards threw freezing water over my broken body.
Kraven looked up at me, his eyes wide with a mixture of terror and deep, burning humiliation. He was a proud naval warlord, a man who had ruled the seas with an iron fist, and now he was kneeling at the feet of the very deck boy he had kicked and mocked.
“Please…” Kraven whispered, the word barely audible over the sound of the waves. The arrogance was entirely gone, replaced by the pathetic begging of a coward facing the end. “Spare me… I can give you the gold… the entire northern treasure… it’s all yours…”
I looked down at him, my face expressionless. I reached down to my chest, gripping the blackened silver medallion of my father. I thought about the cold nights in the cargo hold. I thought about the scars on my back. I thought about the beautiful woman with golden hair who had sacrificed everything to save my life while this monster burned our home.
“You told me earlier tonight that you do not feed parasites, Kraven,” I said, my voice calm, steady, and carrying the absolute weight of a ruler. “And you told the crew that the penalty for a thief is death by the plank.”
Kraven’s face turned completely translucent. He knew what was coming.
“You stole my father’s life,” I continued, looking out at the five hundred sailors who stood watching in awe. “You stole my childhood. You stole the freedom of every man chained to the oars below this deck. You are the ultimate thief of the Grand Fleet.”
I turned my gaze back to Kraven, my ice-blue eyes locking onto his bleeding face. “We do not feed parasites on this ship. Take him to the plank.”
The crew erupted into a thunderous cheer that shook the very timbers of The Iron Leviathan. Garrick and three of the massive, freed rowers stepped forward, grabbing Kraven by his heavy iron pauldrons and dragging him roughly toward the starboard railing, where a long, narrow wooden plank extended out over the churning black sea.
“No! Release me! I am your Commander!” Kraven screamed, kicking and thrashing like a wild animal, but his strength was nothing compared to the men he had enslaved for a decade. They stripped him of his heavy iron armor, leaving him in nothing but his tattered tunics, forcing him onto the narrow wood.
The regular crew members stood along the railing, holding up their lanterns, illuminating the terrified face of the usurper as he was forced to step out over the edge. Below him, the massive, freezing waves of the northern sea surged, a dark abyss waiting to swallow his lies forever.
Kraven turned back one last time, looking at me as I stood on the quarterdeck beside Admiral Thorne. “Curse you!” he shrieked over the wind. “Curse the line of Valerius!”
Garrick gave the end of the plank a heavy, decisive kick.
Kraven lost his footing, his arms flailing wildly as he plummeted into the dark, freezing waters below. A single, sharp cry was cut short as the massive black waves closed over his head, dragging his heavy body down into the deepest, silent trenches of the sea.
The silence that followed his disappearance lasted only a moment before the entire ship exploded into a celebration the likes of which the northern seas had never seen. Sailors and freed rowers alike cheered, slamming their fists against the wooden railings, their faces lit by a sudden, profound sense of liberation. The dark cloud of fear that had hung over the Grand Fleet for ten long years had finally been lifted.
Old Jarl Brandon, the tribal chieftain who had recognized my father’s eyes, stepped onto the quarterdeck. He looked at me for a long moment, then slowly sank down to one knee, placing his heavy iron broadsword at my feet.
One by one, the other merchants, the ship’s officers, and the five hundred regular sailors followed his lead. The deck of The Iron Leviathan became a sea of kneeling men, their heads bowed in absolute reverence to the ragged boy they had once called Ratsbane.
Thorne stepped beside me, a soft, proud smile finally breaking through his scarred face. He took the silver medallion from my hand and carefully placed it back around my neck, straightening the links of the chain.
“The fleet is yours, High Admiral,” Thorne whispered, his eyes wet with tears of joy. “Where to?”
I looked out into the horizon, where the storm was finally beginning to break, revealing the faint, beautiful light of a cold northern dawn bleeding through the dark clouds. The ice in my heart was completely gone, replaced by a deep, unshakeable strength. I knew the road ahead would be long, and there were other ships in the fleet that would need to learn of Kraven’s fate, but for the first time in my life, I wasn’t afraid.
I looked down at the hundreds of men kneeling before me, then looked out at the vast, open ocean that was now my kingdom.
The hall that once mocked me stood silent as I walked past, and for the first time in many years, nobody knelt on my back again.
