CHAPTER 3
The freezing water swallowed me whole, dragging me down into the darkness. For a few terrifying seconds, I didn’t know which way was up or down. The pressure was intense, the salt water burning my eyes and filling my lungs. But I had spent seven years learning how to survive the sea. I fought against the current, kicking my legs until my head broke through the surface of the water.
The Iron Vulture was in absolute chaos. The massive wave had cleared the deck, washing dozens of pirates and slaves into the sea. The ship was listing heavily to the starboard side, its main sail torn in half by the fierce wind.
I grabbed a loose piece of rope hanging over the side, hauling my exhausted body back onto the deck. The fighting had stopped. The remaining pirates were desperately trying to secure the rigging and keep the ship from capsizing. The slave rebellion was over, but the ship itself was dying.
I crawled across the wet wood, looking for Logan. I found him slumped against the base of the main mast, his face pale, his eyes barely open. The wound in his side was deep, and the sea water had only made it worse.
“Logan,” I whispered, lifting his heavy head. “Stay with me. We broke the ship. We’re going to make it.”
The old warrior let out a wet, rattling laugh, coughing up blood. “No, my boy… my race is run. But yours… yours is just beginning. Look…”
He pointed a trembling, blood-stained hand toward the horizon.
Through the thick curtain of rain and ocean fog, a massive shape was emerging. It wasn’t a pirate ship. It was a giant, three-decked war galleon, its pristine white sails bearing the crest of the High King—a golden lion holding a trident. It was the Leviathan, the flagship of the Royal Naval Fleet. They had been patrolling the northern borders and had likely been drawn by the chaos and the distress signals of our dying ship.
“The King’s fleet…” I whispered, my heart leaping into my throat.
“They will save you…” Logan gasped, his grip on my hand tightening one last time. “Show them… show them who you are. Do not let… our blood… be forgotten.”
His hand went limp. His eyes stared blankly into the stormy sky, his brave heart finally finding the peace that had been stolen from him years ago. I closed his eyes, a hot tear slipping down my cheek, washing away the salt water.
Before I could even mourn him, a heavy hand grabbed my shoulder, throwing me onto my back.
It was the Commander. His armor was gone, his face covered in cuts and black smoke, but his eyes were filled with a murderous insanity. He had lost his ship, his crew, and his empire, and he knew the Royal Fleet was closing in to hang him from the highest gallows.
“You brought them here!” the Commander screamed, pinning me down with his heavy knee, his hands wrapping around my throat, squeezing the remaining air from my lungs. “You brought this curse onto my head! I will kill you before they take me! I will see you burn!”
I thrashed beneath him, my fingers scratching at his face, but I was too weak. The world began to spin, dark spots dancing across my vision. I could hear the distant sound of shouting voices, the clanking of metal hooks, and the thud of royal soldiers boarding the dying Iron Vulture, but it all felt so far away.
“Freeze! By order of the High King, drop your weapons!” a booming voice commanded from the deck railing.
The Commander didn’t stop. He kept his hands locked around my neck, his face twisted in a mask of pure hatred. “He dies with me!” he roared.
CRACK.
The sound of a heavy wooden crossbow echoed through the rain, and a solid iron bolt buried itself deep into the Commander’s shoulder. He cried out in agony, his grip loosening as he stumbled backward off my chest.
I rolled onto my side, coughing violently, drawing deep, desperate gasps of air back into my burning lungs.
A dozen heavily armored royal soldiers flooded the deck, their polished steel breastplates gleaming even in the dark storm. At their head stood a tall, older man with a long white beard and an immaculate blue captain’s coat trimmed with gold. It was Grand Admiral Vance, the leader of the King’s Naval Council, and the man who had served my father for two decades.
The remaining pirates immediately threw down their weapons, falling to their knees in surrender. The Commander lay on the deck, groaning, clutching his bleeding shoulder as two soldiers pinned him down with their halberds.
Admiral Vance walked slowly across the deck, his eyes sweeping over the carnage, the dead bodies of slaves and pirates alike. His gaze finally landed on me—a starving, shivering boy in rags, covered in blood and filth, kneeling next to the dead body of an old slave rower.
“What is this madness?” Vance demanded, his voice stern and cold. “A pirate flagship destroyed from the inside? Who is the leader of this rebellion?”
Craig, who had been hiding behind a broken barrel, suddenly threw himself forward, landing on his hands and knees at the Admiral’s feet.
“Mercy, Lord Admiral!” Craig cried out, his voice filled with desperate lies. “We were attacked by these rabid slaves! They tried to take the ship during the storm! And that boy… that boy is a thief and a murderer! He killed our men! He is a dangerous criminal who deserves to hang!”
The Admiral looked down at Craig, then turned his cold, calculating eyes back toward me. “Is this true, boy? Speak for yourself before I let my men throw you into the sea.”
I didn’t tremble. I didn’t beg. I slowly stood up, my bare feet firm against the wet wood. I walked forward, ignoring the weapons pointed at my chest, until I stood directly in front of the Grand Admiral.
“My name is not thief,” I said, my voice clear and steady, echoing across the silent deck.
I reached out with a trembling hand, grabbing the collar of my torn rags, and violently ripped the fabric away from my neck, exposing the deep, ancient burn mark of the Sea Throne directly into the light of the Admiral’s lantern.
Admiral Vance froze. His eyes dilated, his mouth opening slightly as he stared at the crest of the anchor and the broken waves. The heavy gold-trimmed cane he held slipped from his hand, clattering against the deck planks.
He didn’t speak for a long, agonizing moment. The rain poured down on us, the only sound in the entire world.
“It cannot be…” Vance whispered, his voice trembling with an emotion that shocked his own soldiers. He stepped closer, his hands shaking as he reached out to touch the scar on my neck. “The three-pronged anchor… the crest of Eldergard. You… you are the son of the Sovereign.”
“I am Arthur,” I said, looking him dead in the eye. “And these men have kept me in chains for seven years.”
The Admiral’s face transformed from shock to an absolute, terrifying fury. He turned around, his eyes locking onto Craig and the Commander, who were now staring at me with a horror that transcended death itself.
“Soldiers,” Admiral Vance bellowed, his voice shaking the very timbers of the ship. “Chain these monsters. We return to the Royal Citadel tonight. There will be a trial, and the whole world will see the price of treason.”
The royal guards moved instantly, slamming their heavy iron shackles onto the wrists of the very men who had ruled over me with a whip just hours before, while the old Admiral slowly fell to his knees right there on the blood-stained deck, his eyes filled with tears as he whispered the forbidden name of my father.
CHAPTER 4
The Great Hall of the Royal Citadel was filled with over a thousand nobles, warriors, and high-ranking naval officers from every corner of the kingdom. The air was thick with the scent of roasted meats and expensive wine, but the atmosphere inside the massive stone walls was tense, suffocatingly quiet.
At the far end of the hall, sitting on a high stone dais, was the High King himself, his golden crown gleaming under the light of a hundred massive iron chandeliers.
I stood in the center of the room. I was no longer wearing the filthy rags of a slave rower. They had bathed me, dressed me in a fine tunic of deep blue wool, and wrapped a heavy velvet cloak around my shoulders. But they hadn’t washed away the scars on my hands, nor the deep, burning memories of the seven years I spent in the dark cargo hold.
Behind me, forced down onto their knees in heavy iron chains, were the Fleet Commander and First Mate Craig. They looked hollow, their arrogant faces covered in sweat and dirt, surrounded by twenty fully armed royal guards.
“People of the Northern Reach,” Grand Admiral Vance announced, his voice booming through the massive hall. “Seven years ago, our greatest naval fortress at Eldergard was burned to ash. We believed the entire royal bloodline of the Sea Throne had perished in the flames. We believed the line was broken forever.”
A loud murmur rippled through the crowd of nobles, many of them shaking their heads in remembrance of that dark day.
“But the sea does not hide the truth forever,” Vance continued, stepping aside and pointing his hand directly at me. “Before you stands Arthur of Eldergard, the rightful heir to the Sea Throne, who was found alive, surviving as a chained slave rower on the very ship that destroyed his home!”
The hall erupted into a deafening roar of disbelief. Nobles stood up from their tables, pointing and whispering, their eyes wide with shock. Some looked at me with pity, others with awe, unable to comprehend how a boy could survive seven years of such brutality.
The High King raised his hand, and the room instantly fell silent once more. He looked down at me, his eyes searching my face, looking for the resemblance of the great man who had once ruled beside him.
“Arthur,” the King spoke, his voice heavy with age and wisdom. “The Admiral tells me you bear the mark of your ancestors. Step forward.”
I walked up the stone steps, my boots making a loud, steady sound against the polished floor. When I reached the base of the throne, I pulled aside the collar of my fine blue tunic, exposing the burned anchor scar for the entire court to see.
The King stared at it for a long moment, a sad smile touching his lips. “It is true. The blood of the wolf cannot be erased by chains. You have returned to us, my boy.”
The King then turned his gaze toward the prisoners behind me, his eyes turning into ice. “And now, we deal with the monsters who did this. Commander, step forward.”
The guards dragged the Commander to his knees at the front of the dais. He tried to hold his head high, a final, desperate remnant of his old arrogance clinging to his scarred face.
“Your Majesty,” the Commander spoke, his voice raspy but firm. “I am a warlord of the sea. I fought a war, and in war, children are taken. I did not know his true identity until the night we were captured. I am a prisoner of war, and I demand the rights of a high-ranking officer.”
“You demand rights?” I spoke out, my voice cutting through his lies like a hot blade through ice. I stepped down from the dais, standing directly in front of the man who had kept me in darkness. “You didn’t give rights to the men who died on your benches. You didn’t give rights to Logan when you drove your sword through his stomach while he begged for nothing but freedom!”
I turned to face the entire hall, looking at the wealthy nobles who had never known a day of hunger or pain in their lives.
“For seven years, I watched this man and his mate treat human beings like cattle,” I said loudly, his voice filled with an emotional power that made the older lords in the front row look down in shame. “They whipped us until our skin peeled. They starved us until we ate rotted fish from the floorboards. They laughed as they tossed our brothers into the sea to be eaten by sharks. This is not war. This is butcher’s work!”
The crowd began to shout in anger, their sympathy for me turning into a collective fury against the prisoners. Craig began to weep openly, his heavy body shaking as he pressed his forehead against the stone floor, begging for mercy.
“Mercy, Prince Arthur!” Craig sobbed, his voice echoing pathetically. “I was only following orders! The Commander forced us to do it! I didn’t know who you were! If I had known, I would have treated you like royalty! Please, spare my life!”
I looked down at Craig, the man who had given me the scar on my face, the man who had whipped me until I couldn’t stand. I felt no hatred for him anymore. I only felt a deep, profound disgust.
“You would have treated me like royalty?” I whispered, loud enough for the first few rows to hear. “That is your true crime, Craig. A man should be treated with dignity because he is a human being, not because he wears a crown. You only respect the whip and the gold.”
I looked up at the High King, kneeling before him. “Your Majesty, I ask for justice. Not just for myself, but for Logan, and for the hundreds of nameless men whose bones are currently resting at the bottom of the ocean because of these monsters.”
The High King stood up from his throne, his long ceremonial sword drawn, its steel reflecting the torchlight.
“The judgment of the Sea Throne is clear,” the King declared, his voice booming like a final sentence. “For the crimes of treason, piracy, and the unlawful enslavement of the royal bloodline, your titles are stripped. Your wealth is confiscated and given to the survivors of Eldergard. And for your punishment…”
The King looked at me, giving me the final authority.
“They will not hang,” I said, looking back at the Commander and Craig. “Death is too quick for them. Strip them of their armor. Chain them to the lowest benches of the heaviest naval galleys. Let them pull the oars in the dark. Let them feel the weight of the wood they forced us to carry for seven long years.”
The Commander’s face completely broke. He let out a strangled cry of pure horror, realizing that he was being sent to the very hell he had created. Craig fainted on the spot, his limp body rolling onto the cold stone.
The guards immediately lunged forward, dragging the screaming Commander and the unconscious First Mate out of the Great Hall, their heavy chains clanking loudly against the floorboards—the exact same sound I had lived with for a lifetime.
The entire hall erupted into a deafening roar of cheers and applause. Warriors slammed their shields, and nobles raised their silver cups, shouting my name into the rafters.
Admiral Vance stepped forward, placing a heavy, warm hand on my shoulder. He held a beautiful silver ring carved with the crest of my father’s old fleet, sliding it gently onto my finger.
I looked out across the massive room, my eyes clear, my head held high. The scars on my hands were still there, and the memories of the dark cargo hold would never truly leave me, but the chains were gone forever.
The hall that once mocked me stood silent as I walked past.
