Page 14

Draevyn

T he blood of both crews slicked the deck beneath Draevyn’s boots. His men were barely holding against the ruthless tide of pirates cutting through them.

He wasn’t sure how much longer his crew would last. The bodies were piling, the exhaustion settling in as they were attacked in the middle of the night. Blackwood’s orders be damned—his men were already meeting an early fate. He wouldn’t allow the rest of them to die without giving it his all.

Too many of his men were falling back, their formations breaking.

The world seemed to slow as he watched one go down, a cutlass driven into his gut as his eyes went wide with shock.

Another of his sailors was forced against the mast, the blade at his throat catching the moonlight before it slit through flesh and bone.

A sudden, vicious rage burned in his chest.

Draevyn’s fingers curled tight around the hilt of his sword, his flames burning beneath his skin. He closed his eyes for half a breath and let his power surge free.

Flames licked at his fingertips, curling up his arms like hungry serpents. With only a thought, every enemy aboard his ship caught fire—they screamed in horror, rolling across the blood-soaked deck as they tried to put out the flames consuming their bodies .

The Night Wraith’s crew began to retreat, and Draevyn felt a rush of pride roll through him as the pirates leapt off his ship and into the sea to put out the blaze.

He cursed himself for not using his flames sooner, but he didn’t want to risk Blackwood summoning his beast. The Odyssey’s deck glowed with embers, the air thick with smoke as fire spread across the planks, catching the tattered sails above. But something was wrong.

Sam ran up to him, covered in blood and ash, as they turned to watch the pirates climb back up to the deck of their ship, standing alongside their captain, all wearing the same triumphant grin.

Draevyn’s heart hammered against his ribs at the sight.

Fuck . Did he just doom them all?

And then, the sea surged on all sides of his ship, the waves slamming against the hull. All contents aboard began flying across the deck. Draevyn’s eyes darted to the unmanned wheel, spinning frantically as it fought against the relentless waves.

“Sam!” he bellowed over the roar of the sea, leaping over fallen bodies and running up the stairs that led to the quarterdeck.

Once there, Draevyn gripped the wheel with all his might, his muscles straining against the pull of it as The Odyssey continued to be tossed around in a cloudless storm.

What remained of his crew were in a state of panic, running and yelling at one another as they raced to secure whatever they could as waves breached the starboard side.

Draevyn’s barked orders were drowned out by the violent winds and crashing waves.

“Drae!”

He searched the deck to find Sam heaving himself up the stairs to meet him, grasping the railing with all of his strength.

Sam made his way to Draevyn’s side. “Where the hell did this storm come from?!”

Draevyn glanced toward The Night Wraith , realizing that the ship had already put distance between them. The entirety of their crew was still on the deck, watching— waiting .

“Is it even a storm?!” Draevyn bellowed back. “There isn’t a single fucking cloud in the sky. What could be causing this?!”

He frantically looked in every direction. It was the oddest thing he’d ever encountered. The sea…the distant waters were calm, but chaos surrounded their ship, as if the ocean itself was working to bring them to its floor.

A larger wave breached the deck, sending the crew slamming into the opposite railing, some flying overboard as their screams echoed through the air.

“Holy gods,” he breathed.

“Do you have orders, Captain?!” Sam screamed over the madness.

Draevyn’s throat tightened, his heart feeling like it would explode in his chest. “Get to the pinnaces.” The words were barely audible.

“Captain?!”

“The pinnaces, Sam! Now!” he roared, running past him and down the stairs. Sam caught up to him a moment later, and they both worked to help the fallen sailors back onto their feet as they continued to be tossed around by the violent waves.

“To the pinnaces!” they screamed, and everyone ran to untie the small boats from where they were restrained on The Odyssey’s sides.

Tommy stormed up to them then. “Where be the girl? This is Blackwood’s monster at work!”

Draevyn’s eyes widened, a sudden fear gripping him as his head snapped towards the stairs, where a rush of seawater was already pouring down them. “Fuck!” he roared and whipped back towards Sam. “I’ll be right back. Make sure everyone left board those boats!”

“Draevyn, don’t you fucking dare!”

“She’ll drown! I just put her down there to scare her, Sam. It wasn’t meant to be a gods-damn death sentence!”

Draevyn blocked out Sam’s scolding screams as he leapt down the steps and sprinted through the kitchen and bunkers to reach the final set of stairs, where the holding cells appeared to be completely submerged in water.

“All gods,” he gasped before running down as many as he could, before sucking in a sharp breath and diving into the flooded room .

Draevyn waded through the water, barely able to see anything beneath its darkness. He was already running out of air by the time he reached her holding cell and found a gaping hole in the ship’s side—Esmi nowhere in sight.

Fuck. The cannons.

His throat tightened, a sickening feeling crept in at the thought of her drowning because of him.

Once at the top of the holding cell’s stairs, Draevyn let out a gasp for air. Soaked and heavy, his captain’s coat clung to his skin, weighing him down as he rushed back to the deck.

The main deck was empty, save for the dead bodies, and Blackwood’s ship was already sailing nearly a mile away. The last of the pinnaces were lowering into the raging sea when he locked eyes with Sam.

“Wait!” he ordered. “Drae, over here!”

Draevyn moved to bolt toward them and then whipped back in the direction of his office. “Hells. The map,” he grumbled, running as fast as he could.

Barreling into his office, the seawater was up to his knees. He frantically combed through his desk, where they had stored months of research on the lost kingdom, only to realize the most important parchment had vanished.

The map of the kingdom and where it once lay.

“Fucking Irah!” he roared as he picked up a candelabra and whipped it across the room.

A vision worked its way into his memory. Of a woman who made her way to him in a tavern—a pirate tavern—the prior night, claiming to seek refuge, followed by going back on her words and rummaging through his belongings the moment his back was turned.

And then, finally, her reaction to the velsinyte cuffs.

They nearly brought her to her knees, but they wouldn’t have affected a mere mortal.

“That’s impossible,” he whispered as his eyes darted back and forth .

No, it couldn’t have been. Even if the woman possessed magic, the cuffs remained locked on her wrists when the ship began to sink.

Draevyn clenched his jaw as he stormed back towards his office door and ignited everything aboard that could still catch flame. A raging, flickering orange hue lit their surroundings, sending black smoke into the sky.

“Drae, hurry!” Sam called as he coughed through the smoke, the rest of the crew also screaming for him.

A deafening roar erupted, filling his ears, and he turned just in time to see an enormous wave rearing up from the depths, towering over the ship as if it were formed from the wrath of the sea goddesses themselves.

Only…it wasn’t a wave at all. He blinked through the sting of the splashing seawater numerous times, but the vision before him remained.

If it hadn’t been for the flames now engulfing the ship, Draevyn wouldn’t have been able to see what was attacking them.

A shudder rippled through the ocean as something far more sinister than anything he’d ever seen rose from the depths.

Emerging from the abyss was a colossal creature of legend—a kraken , but not the kind he’d heard of in sailors’ tales.

This beast wasn’t made of flesh and bone but of the water itself, its massive tentacles swirling and coiling around his ship.

No… This can’t be real.

The roar of the ocean drowned the crew’s shouts of terror as the kraken’s tentacles wrapped around the ship as if it possessed a tangible form. Draevyn stumbled back, holding the railing as his mind reeled at the impossibility of it all, disbelief gripping him by the throat.

He turned back to face the others and found nothing but fear in their eyes as they took in the same sight.

Chaos reigned, and he knew he wouldn’t get to the pinnaces in time to join the others. But he would be damned if he allowed them to drown alongside him.

With a single point of his chin, the rope securing them to the ship ignited into flames, quickly burning to ash before sending the small boat plummeting down to the water. Their screams echoed over the roar of the storm and flames, but he held onto the hope that he’d given them a chance to escape.

With a deafening groan, the ship’s timbers splintered under the pressure of the kraken’s tentacles as they squeezed relentlessly, crushing the vessel's hull as if it were made of mere driftwood.

The kraken's watery form twisted and writhed, an embodiment of the ocean’s wrath, and Draevyn’s jaw fell open as the churning sea swallowed his ship.

His flames were extinguished, casting the surroundings back into utter darkness as his disbelief turned to a grim acceptance.

He let out a shuddering breath—there was nothing he or his flames could do to stop what was occurring.

With nowhere else to go, he braced himself for the deadly blow of the water-formed beast by gripping the ship’s rail, ready to go down with his home as any captain would.

One of its enormous tentacles crashed down upon the deck with a thunderous boom, splintering what remained of the wooden railings and deck.

The vessel lurched violently and the timbers snapped as water cascaded over the gunwales.

With a groan, the hull gave way under the strain, and the mast snapped like a twig, landing in the sea as a tangled mess of ropes and canvas.

And then, with one last tremor, the ship submitted to the embrace of the sea. Draevyn’s roar of defeat was drowned out by the crashing waves as water poured down his throat.

Within minutes, The Odyssey slipped beneath the waves with a mournful wail, disappearing into the dark depths, dragging him with it.