I was just an orphan deck boy, a nameless piece of garbage they used to scrub the blood off the wood. They called me “Barnacle,” and they treated me worse than the dogs in the cargo hold. But I bore every strike, every burn, and every insult just to keep my little brother alive.
Then came the night of the Black Moon, when Captain Vance decided he wanted blood entertainment. He didn’t just want to watch us work—he wanted to watch us die. He dragged my only friend toward the iron grates of the lower pit, where the starved deep-sea horrors were kept screaming in the dark.
I begged. I fell to my knees and let them spit on my face. I let them kick my ribs until I tasted copper. But when my torn shirt ripped open and a piece of old, heavy metal struck the deck with a loud ring, the old Admiral’s hand began to shake…
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CHAPTER 1
The salt water always found the open cuts first. Every single morning, before the cold northern sun could even crack through the heavy gray fog of the sea, that was how my day began. I would stand on the freezing, wet deck of the Blood Hound, a massive, black-sailed warship that belonged to the ocean-based warlord society of the Iron Reach. My hands were always raw, bleeding, and covered in thick, painful blisters from hauling the heavy, rough ropes that were rougher than tree bark.
I was just a deck boy. To the crew, I didn’t have a real name. They just called me Barnacle, or Worm, or whatever nasty word happened to slip out of their mouths after they had spent the whole night drinking sour ale. I was an orphan, taken from a smoking coastal village that our fleet had burned to the ground when I was too young to even remember the names of my own parents. My only memories were the smell of burning wood, the freezing cold of the northern sea, and the constant, endless ache in my stomach.
On the Blood Hound, if you didn’t work until your lungs burned, you were thrown overboard to feed the sharks. There was no mercy on the water. The sea didn’t care if you were tired, and Captain Vance cared even less.
Captain Vance was a man made of pure stone and cruelty. He was a massive naval warlord with a thick, matted black beard that was tied together with rusted iron rings. His face was a roadmap of violent battles, split right down the middle by a deep, jagged white scar that ran from his forehead down to his jawline, leaving one of his eyes milky white and completely blind. But his other eye was sharp, dark, and always looking for something or someone to break. He ruled his ship through absolute terror, and every single man on the crew knew that a single mistake meant a date with his heavy leather whip, or worse, a long drop into the black ocean below.
But I wasn’t completely alone in that living hell. I had Toby.
Toby was a smaller boy, a year younger than me, with bright blue eyes that always looked too big for his thin, starved face. He had been captured during a raid on a southern trade vessel two years back. When he first arrived on the ship, he didn’t know how to tie a sailor’s knot, and a heavy-set guard had tried to beat him to death for dropping a bucket of grease. I had jumped in the way, taking the wooden club across my own shoulders instead. Since that day, Toby and I were inseparable. We shared our tiny, moldy chunks of hard bread, we slept huddled together for warmth in the dark, damp corners of the cargo hold, and we promised each other that no matter what happened, we would survive to see the dry land again.
“Keep scrubbing, you worthless little sea rats!”
The shout came from behind us, accompanied by the sharp, stinging crack of a leather crop. I felt the leather bite directly into the skin of my lower back, right through my torn, threadbare shirt. The pain was immediate, a blinding white heat that made my vision blur. I gasped, clamping my jaw shut tight so I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of hearing me scream.
It was First Mate Logan, a lean, rat-faced man with yellowed teeth and a breath that smelled constantly of rotting fish and cheap rum. He stood over us, his heavy leather boots pressing down hard on my small, bleeding fingers as I tried to hold onto the wooden scrub brush.
“Captain wants the quarterdeck clean enough to eat off of before we reach the Fleet Council’s stronghold,” Logan sneered, leaning down so close I could see the grease shining on his face. “If I see a single spot of blood or salt crust left on these planks, I’m going to use your skin to patch up the sails. Do you hear me, boy?”
“Yes, sir,” I whispered, keeping my eyes fixed firmly on the grain of the wood. I didn’t dare look up. Looking a ranking officer in the eye was considered a challenge, and a challenge on this ship was solved with an iron blade through the throat.
Toby was trembling beside me, his small hands shaking so hard he could barely keep his brush steady. “We’re cleaning as fast as we can, sir,” he said, his voice cracking with fear.
Logan’s eyes snapped toward Toby, a dark, sadistic grin spreading across his ugly face. “Did I tell you to speak, little bird? It seems like you two still have too much spirit left in you. Don’t worry. The Captain has a special game planned for tonight. We’ve been at sea for three weeks without a good fight, and the men are getting restless.”
A cold dread settled deep in the pit of my stomach. Whenever the men got restless, it meant someone was going to die.
The Blood Hound wasn’t just a regular pirate ship; it was a floating fortress, and deep within its belly, beneath three decks of heavy cannons and crowded crew quarters, lay the Arena. It was a massive, circular iron cage built directly into the center of the cargo hold. The floor of the cage was made of thick, heavy wooden grates, placed directly over the dark water of the bilge. Below those grates, in the black, sloshing water at the very bottom of the ship, lived the things they dragged up from the deep ocean—starved, aggressive sea abominations with too many teeth and eyes that glowed like ghost fire in the dark.
The crew used the cage to settle arguments, to punish traitors, and most of all, to entertain themselves during the long, boring voyages between raids. They would throw prisoners, slaves, or weak deckhands into the cage, and they would watch them fight for their lives while the creatures snapped and lunged from beneath the floorboards.
When night finally fell, the sky became as black as ink, and a cold, howling wind began to rip through the ship’s rigging. The sea was rough, causing the massive wooden hull of the ship to groan and creak like an old dying monster. Down in the cargo hold, the atmosphere was thick with the suffocating smoke of dozens of burning fat torches. The heat was intense, a sweaty, heavy air that smelled of stale sweat, spilled alcohol, and old, dried blood.
Almost the entire crew of a hundred and fifty men had gathered around the iron perimeter of the Arena. They were shouting, banging their heavy iron cups against the wooden railings, and stomping their boots until the whole deck vibrated.
At the center of the upper platform sat Captain Vance, lounging in a massive, high-backed chair made from the polished jawbones of a giant sea whale. He had a large horn filled with dark mead in one hand, and his milky, blind eye caught the flickering orange light of the torches, making him look like a demon pulled straight out of the ocean depths.
“Bring out the meat!” the crew began to chant, their voices deep and savage. “Bring out the meat! Bring out the meat!”
First Mate Logan stepped forward, raising his hands to quiet the roaring crowd. “Tonight, men, we have a real treat for you! We have two little stowaways who think they can eat our rations without paying their share in blood! Let’s see if they can dance as well as they scrub!”
Two heavy guards grabbed Toby and me by our collars, dragging us out out of the dark shadows and pushing us toward the heavy iron door of the cage. The crowd erupted into a frenzy of laughter and jeers. They threw old bones, rotten food, and empty cups at us as we stumbled forward.
“Please!” Toby cried out, his voice completely swallowed by the deafening noise of the bloodthirsty crew. He reached out, grabbing onto my torn sleeve with a grip of absolute terror. “Barnacle, don’t let them do this! Please, don’t let them throw us in there!”
My heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I looked through the iron bars of the cage, down at the dark wooden grates of the floor. Through the wide spaces between the planks, I could see the black water sloshing violently below. And then, I saw it—a massive, pale white tentacle covered in sharp, jagged hooks, sliding silently across the wet wood from beneath. Two bulbous, yellow eyes broke the surface of the bilge water, staring hungrily upward. It was a deep-sea crawler, a starved nightmare that hadn’t been fed in a week.
“Captain Vance!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, breaking away from the guard for a brief second and falling down onto my knees right before the whalebone chair. I pressed my forehead directly against the cold, filthy deck planks. “Please! I beg of you! Take me instead! Let me go into the cage alone! Toby is too small, he won’t survive a minute! I’ll fight whatever you want, just let him live!”
The crowd went completely silent for a brief moment, surprised by my sudden outburst. Then, Captain Vance slowly leaned forward in his chair, his one good eye staring down at me with a look of supreme amusement. He placed his heavy, leather-booted foot right on the back of my neck, pressing my face hard down into the dirt and splinters of the floor.
“You think you have a choice here, boy?” Vance’s voice was a low, gravelly rumble that vibrated through the deck. “You are nothing but property on this ship. You are less than the wood beneath my boots. You don’t get to make deals with the Captain.”
He looked up at the crowd, a cruel smile twisting his lips. “But I do love a good show. Let’s make it interesting. We won’t put both of them in. That’s too crowded. We’ll just put the small one in. Let’s see if the little bird can fly before the monster clips his wings.”
“No!” I screamed, trying to push myself up against the heavy pressure of his boot. “No! Take me! You cowardly bastard, take me!”
A heavy blow struck the side of my face as First Mate Logan kicked me hard in the jaw. The force of the strike sent me spinning across the deck, my mouth instantly filling with the warm, salty taste of my own blood. My vision swam with dark spots, but through the haze, I saw the guards grab Toby.
They unlatched the heavy iron door of the cage. Toby screamed my name, his small hands scratching frantically at the wooden doorframe as they violently shoved him inside. The heavy iron door slammed shut behind him, and the lock turned with a definitive, horrifying click.
“Barnacle! Help me! Please help me!” Toby shrieked, backing away toward the center of the cage as a massive, pale tentacle suddenly slammed upward through the floorboards, missing his foot by mere inches.
The crew exploded into wild cheers, banging their weapons against the iron bars. They were spitting on Toby from above, laughing as the terrified boy scrambled across the slippery, wet grates, trying to dodge the hidden horrors that were lunging from the dark water below.
I tried to stand up, my legs shaking like water, my face covered in blood and filth. I had to get to him. I had to break that lock. But before I could even take a single step, three massive guards tackled me to the ground, pinning my arms roughly behind my back. They held my head down, forcing me to watch every single second of my best friend’s torment.
“Watch closely, Worm,” Logan whispered in my ear, his hand gripping my hair tightly and pulling my head back. “This is what happens to weak things in our world. They get eaten by the strong.”
“Let me go!” I thrashed, I bit, I scratched, using every single ounce of strength in my small, starved body, but I was completely powerless against the heavy iron grip of the grown men. Tears of pure rage and absolute helplessness streamed down my face, mixing with the blood from my broken mouth.
Inside the cage, the creature was growing bolder. A second tentacle tore through a weak section of the grates, wrapping its sharp, hooked suction cups tightly around Toby’s ankle. Toby gave a high-pitched, agonizing scream as the creature pulled him down hard onto the wet wood, dragging his small body toward the dark opening in the floorboards.
“No!” I roared, a sound that didn’t even feel like it came from a human throat. It was a primal, desperate scream of pure agony.
In my wild, frantic thrashing to break free from the guards, the collar of my old, rotten shirt completely ripped open from the neck down to my chest. As the fabric tore apart, a heavy object that had been hidden securely in a secret stitched pocket right against my skin slipped loose.
It fell.
It didn’t just fall silently. It was a heavy, solid piece of pure, ancient metal, and when it struck the thick wooden deck planks, it made a deep, resonant, ringing sound—a clear, beautiful chime that seemed to cut right through the chaotic noise of the shouting crew, the screaming boy, and the roaring wind.
The object rolled across the wet wood, catching the bright, flickering orange light of the torches, before it finally came to a stop right at the feet of an old, quiet man who had been sitting in the shadows next to the Captain’s chair.
That man was Admiral Hrothgar. He was the eldest member of the High Fleet Council, a legendary warrior who had served the Great Sea Throne for over forty years before Captain Vance had ever even commanded a single ship. Hrothgar was a mountain of a man, his long hair and beard as white as the sea foam, covered in old scars from a hundred naval battles. He rarely spoke during the voyages, usually just watching the world with cold, tired eyes.
But the moment that heavy metal object stopped against his leather boot, Admiral Hrothgar did something he hadn’t done in years.
He froze.
His breath completely caught in his chest. His old, weathered hands, which had held heavy battleaxes against the fiercest kings of the North, began to visibly tremble. Slowly, very slowly, the old Admiral leaned down and picked up the object from the deck.
It was a large, heavy medallion made of solid, ancient white gold, completely unmarred by rust or sea salt. Carved deeply into its surface was the unmistakable crest of a roaring sea dragon wrapping itself around a crown of three sharp swords. It was the ancient, sacred symbol of the Lost Dynasty of the Sea Throne—a royal bloodline that everyone believed had been completely wiped out twenty years ago during the Great Betrayal.
The old Admiral held the medallion up to the torchlight, his eyes wide with a mixture of terror, disbelief, and profound awe. He looked at the heavy gold, then he slowly turned his gaze toward me, his eyes locking onto my blood-soaked, beaten face.
“Stop,” Hrothgar whispered.
His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a strange, heavy authority that made the guards nearest to him look up in confusion.
“I said, STOP!” Hrothgar suddenly roared, his voice booming through the cargo hold like a blast of a naval war horn.
The sheer power of his command was so absolute that the guards holding me involuntarily loosened their grip. The crew stopped their shouting, their cups freezing mid-air. Even the men standing near the cage went quiet, turning around to look at the old Admiral in complete bewilderment.
Captain Vance frowned, his one good eye narrowing in deep annoyance as he turned toward the old man. “What is the meaning of this, Hrothgar? It was just getting to the best part. The boy is about to be pulled under.”
Admiral Hrothgar didn’t look at Vance. He didn’t look at the crew. He stood up from his seat, his massive frame towering over everyone, and he walked slowly down the wooden steps, his eyes fixed entirely on me.
The entire cargo hold went dead silent, the only sound left being the violent sloshing of the water beneath the cage and Toby’s soft, terrified whimpering as he held onto the iron bars for dear life.
Hrothgar stopped right in front of me. He slowly sank down onto one knee, right into the filth and blood of the deck, bringing himself down to my level. He held out his large, trembling palm, showing me the heavy gold medallion.
“Where…” Hrothgar’s voice was cracked, thick with an emotion I had never heard in a hardened pirate before. “Where did you get this, boy?”
I swallowed the blood in my mouth, staring back into the old warrior’s eyes with every ounce of defiance I had left. “It belonged to my father,” I whispered, my voice trembling but clear. “And his father before him. It’s the only thing I have left of my home.”
Admiral Hrothgar let out a long, ragged breath that sounded like a sob. He reached out with a rough, calloused hand, gently pushing back the matted, dirty hair from my forehead, looking for something. And there, right beneath my hairline, hidden by years of dirt and neglect, was a faint, jagged silver scar shaped exactly like a three-pointed crown—a mark given to the first-born sons of the Sea Throne through an ancient ritual of fire and steel.
The old Admiral dropped his head, his shoulders shaking. And then, before the eyes of a hundred and fifty stunned, silent pirates, the greatest warrior of the Northern Fleet did the unthinkable.
He placed his forehead against my bloody leather boots, and he spoke a name that hadn’t been uttered on the high seas for two decades.
“My King,” Hrothgar whispered into the silence.
CHAPTER 2
The silence that followed Hrothgar’s words was so thick, so heavy, that you could hear the individual drops of water falling from the wet ropes onto the deck. A hundred and fifty hardened killers, men who had cut throats for a single silver coin, stood absolutely frozen. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. They looked at the old Admiral, the legendary warrior who had never bowed to any man living, kneeling in the dirt before a nameless, bleeding deck boy.
Captain Vance’s face turned from annoyed to completely purple with rage in a matter of seconds. He slammed his heavy mead horn down onto the wooden armrest of his whalebone chair, splitting the horn clean in two. The dark liquid spilled across the floor, looking like old blood in the torchlight.
“Have you lost your ancient mind, old man?!” Vance bellowed, standing up so fast his heavy wool cloak flew out behind him. “You are kneeling before a slave! A piece of cargo! A rat that scrubs my floors! Stand up before I have you stripped of your rank and thrown into the pit along with them!”
Admiral Hrothgar didn’t move. He remained on his knee, his head bowed against my boots for three long seconds before he slowly, deliberately stood up. When he turned around to face Captain Vance, all the warmth and emotion had completely vanished from his face. His eyes were cold, hard, and dead, like the deep winter ice of the northern fjords.
“You speak of things you are too young to understand, Vance,” Hrothgar said, his voice terrifyingly calm, carrying a weight that made the nearby guards step back in fear. “You think you rule this ocean because you have a fast ship and a crew of thieves. But you forget who built this fleet. You forget who gave your father his very first blade.”
Hrothgar held up the heavy gold medallion, letting it dangle from its thick chain so that every single man in the cargo hold could see it clearly. The bright torchlight caught the carving of the sea dragon, reflecting its golden shape onto the damp wooden walls.
“This is the Seal of the Sovereign Fleet,” Hrothgar announced, his voice booming into every dark corner of the hold. “This is the mark of House Ericson. The true rulers of the Sea Throne. The bloodline that united the seven naval kingdoms before the great betrayal fractured us into a pack of lawless dogs.”
A low, collective gasp rippled through the crew. The older sailors, men with grey in their beards and old naval tattoos on their arms, suddenly looked at me with wide, terrified eyes. They began to murmur among themselves, stepping away from the iron cage as if the very air around me had become sacred.
“That’s impossible,” one of the old gunners whispered, his hand shaking as he touched a faded crest on his own leather vest. “The High King Ericson was murdered in his sleep twenty years ago. His palace was burned to ash. His entire bloodline was wiped out by the northern warlords. There was no heir left.”
“They lied to you,” Hrothgar said, his eyes glaring directly at Captain Vance. “The High Queen escaped into the storm with her newborn son. She hid him where no one would ever look—in the lowest ranks of the very fleet that hunted him. And tonight, the sea has brought him back to us.”
“Lies! All of it is old man’s fairy tales!” First Mate Logan screamed, his rat-like face twisting in panic. He looked at the guards who were still standing near me, their hands hovering uncertainly near their sword hilts. “What are you doing, you fools?! He’s a deck boy! Kill him! Kill the old man too! It’s a mutiny! Cut their throats!”
But the guards didn’t move. They looked at Hrothgar, then they looked at the heavy gold medallion, and then they looked at me. The absolute authority that Vance had held over his men for years was beginning to crack, fracturing right down the middle like thin ice under a heavy boot.
Inside the iron cage, Toby let out another sharp, terrified cry. The deep-sea crawler had torn through more of the wooden grates, its massive, pale tentacles wrapping tightly around his waist, pulling him closer and closer to the black water below. Toby’s fingernails were bleeding as he desperately scratched at the wet wood, trying to hold on.
“Barnacle!” he screamed, his voice fading as his chest was pulled down against the grate. “Help me!”
The sound of his voice snapped me out of my shock. I didn’t care about royal bloodlines. I didn’t care about gold medallions or ancient thrones. My only friend was dying right in front of me, and I was the only one who could save him.
“Admiral Hrothgar!” I yelled, reaching out and grabbing the old man’s heavy leather shoulder guards. “If you truly believe who I am… if you have any loyalty left to my father’s name… save him! Don’t let them kill Toby! Please!”
Hrothgar looked down at me, a fierce, burning light igniting in his old eyes. “Your word is my absolute command, my King.”
With a speed that seemed impossible for a man of his size and age, Hrothgar reached down to his waist and drew his massive, double-bladed battleaxe. The steel hummed as it cut through the air. In three giant strides, he crossed the deck, moving toward the iron door of the cage.
“Get out of my way,” Hrothgar growled at the two guards standing near the lock.
The guards didn’t even hesitate. They threw their hands up and scrambled backward into the crowd, completely terrified of the old Admiral’s wrath.
Hrothgar raised his massive axe high above his head, the muscles in his thick arms bulging against his leather straps, and with a roaring shout, he brought the heavy steel blade down directly onto the massive iron lock of the cage.
CRACK!
A bright shower of orange sparks exploded into the darkness as the heavy iron lock was shattered into pieces. The heavy door swung open with a loud screech. Hrothgar didn’t stop there; he stepped directly into the cage, his heavy boots smashing through the weakened wooden grates.
Below the floorboards, the deep-sea crawler hissed, a horrible, wet sound that smelled of ancient rot. Two massive, hooked tentacles lunged upward, aiming directly for the old man’s chest. But Hrothgar was a veteran of a thousand sea wars. He swung his axe in a brutal, sweeping arc, severing both tentacles clean off. Thick, black, foul-smelling blood sprayed across the cage, coating the walls and the sloshing water below. The creature let out a low, bubbling roar of agony and retreated back into the deep, dark bilge of the ship.
Hrothgar reached down, grabbed Toby by the collar of his shirt with one massive hand, and hoisted the trembling boy effortlessly out of the cage, setting him down safely on the solid wood of the deck outside.
Toby collapsed into a heap, coughing up salt water, his body shaking violently from head to toe. I broke away from the remaining guards and rushed to his side, throwing my arms around his small shoulders, holding him tight against my chest.
“I’ve got you,” I whispered into his hair, my own tears cutting tracks through the dirt and blood on my face. “I’ve got you, brother. You’re safe.”
“Touch him again, and I’ll personally skin you alive,” a cold voice sneered from above.
I looked up. Captain Vance had walked down the steps from his whalebone throne. He held his long, heavy naval cutlass in his right hand, the polished steel gleaming dangerously under the torchlight. His face was a mask of pure, murderous intent. He stopped ten feet away from us, his good eye fixed entirely on me, completely ignoring Admiral Hrothgar, who stood between us with his bloody axe ready.
“You think a piece of shiny gold changes anything on this ship, boy?” Vance spat, his voice dropping to a dangerous, deadly whisper. “You think these men are going to follow a starving child into a war against the entire northern world? They follow me because I feed them. I give them gold. I give them blood.”
He looked around at the crew, his voice rising so every man could hear him. “Look at him! Look at this king of yours! He bleeds just like a slave! He cries like a little girl! If he truly carries the blood of the Sea Throne, let him prove it in the arena! Let him face me!”
A heavy, terrified silence fell over the hold once more. A duel between a deck boy and a seasoned naval warlord wasn’t a fight—it was an execution.
“He will not fight you, Vance,” Hrothgar said, stepping forward, his axe raised defensively. “Your fight is with me. You have broken the ancient laws of the fleet, and tonight, your command ends.”
“No, Admiral,” Vance laughed, a dark, wicked sound. “The laws of the Fleet Council are clear. If a hidden heir challenges a sitting Captain’s right to rule, it must be settled by blood on the deck. If you interfere, Hrothgar, the crew is bound by oath to kill you and everyone who supports you. Is that what you want? To start a civil war on this ship while we are surrounded by the rest of the fleet?”
I looked past Vance, toward the heavy wooden ports of the ship. Through the narrow slats, I could see the distant, flickering lights of dozens of other massive warships. We had arrived. The Blood Hound was currently dropping anchor in the center of the hidden bay of the Iron Reach—the grand sanctuary where the entire High Fleet Council gathered once every three years to divide their stolen wealth and elect their leaders.
We were surrounded by thousands of brutal naval warlords, pirate captains, and grand admirals. If a mutiny broke out aboard our ship right now, the surrounding vessels would tear the Blood Hound to pieces before the sun even rose.
Vance knew this. He had a cruel, confident smirk on his face. He knew I was trapped. He knew I had no training, no armor, and no strength left in my starved body.
“Well, Barnacle?” Vance mocked, stepping closer, the tip of his heavy cutlass dragging slowly across the deck planks, making a sharp, scratching sound that grated on my nerves. “Are you going to hide behind the old man’s skirt, or are you going to stand up and die like a king?”
I looked at Toby, who was looking up at me with wide, terrified eyes, holding onto my arm so hard his fingers were white. I looked at Admiral Hrothgar, whose massive shoulders were tense, his old face filled with a desperate, unspoken plea for me to stay down.
Then, I looked down at my own hands. They were covered in filth, salt crust, and my own blood. For years, I had taken every blow. For years, I had let them treat me like an animal. I had knelt in the dirt, I had begged for scraps, and I had watched the people I cared about get tortured for their amusement.
Something inside me broke. The fear that had kept me small for so long suddenly burned away, replaced by a deep, ancient rage that felt older than the sea itself. It was the blood of my father, waking up in the darkest hour of my life.
Slowly, deliberately, I stood up.
I pushed Toby gently behind me, stepping past Admiral Hrothgar’s protective frame. I stood tall, squaring my shoulders, ignoring the intense agony in my ribs and my broken jaw. I looked directly into Captain Vance’s one good eye, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t look down.
“Give me a blade,” I said, my voice steady, carrying a strange, quiet power that echoed through the silent hold.
“My King, no,” Hrothgar begged, half-turning toward me. “He will slaughter you. He has been killing men since before you were born.”
“Give me a blade, Hrothgar,” I repeated, looking at the old warrior. “If I am to die tonight, I will die on my feet, bleeding on the wood that my ancestors once ruled. I will not crawl in the dirt for him anymore.”
Hrothgar stared at me for a long, agonizing moment, his old eyes searching my face. He saw the silver crown scar on my forehead, but more than that, he saw the absolute determination in my eyes. Slowly, with a heavy heart, he reached down to his belt and pulled out a short, heavy naval dagger. The blade was old, made of dark northern steel, its hilt wrapped in faded leather.
“This belonged to your father’s personal guard,” Hrothgar whispered, pressing the heavy hilt into my small, raw hand. “May the spirits of the deep sea guide your arm, my King.”
The moment my fingers closed around the cold steel, a loud, booming sound shook the entire ship. The heavy iron anchor had just been dropped into the sea floor. We had arrived at the Fleet Council’s sanctuary.
“Perfect timing,” Captain Vance grinned, raising his heavy cutlass and sliding into a low, deadly fighting stance. “The lords of the ocean are right outside. Let’s show them how we handle false kings on the Blood Hound.”
He lunged forward, the heavy steel blade whistling through the air, aimed directly at my neck.
