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Chapter one

“ B irthday! Birthday!" Squawk! "Watch your stern!”

Raggon jolted awake, pushing up from the bed and throwing the rough wool covers aside. The lanterns swung with the motion of the ship, casting dancing shadows across the maps and charts pinned to his cabin walls. Pale light from the dawn filtered through the salt-crusted porthole, illuminating his captain’s quarters—sparse but dignified, with a few remnants of his royal past carefully preserved: a ceremonial sword of Sylphoria mounted on the wall, its silver hilt tarnished by sea air, and his father’s compass resting on the writing desk.

His eyes focused on a bright feathered form perched atop his sea chest. “Sterling!” he called. What was that parrot doing in here? “Who in Poseidon’s stormy depths taught you to wish happy birthday like a drunken seadog?”

A snicker erupted from the doorway. His younger brother pushed through, clutching a package wrapped in oilcloth. Freckles sprayed across sun-weathered cheeks.

“Smiley!” Raggon leaned back against the pillows.

Tobias had reached his seventeenth year this summer, and he’d spent every one of those years with a bright grin. “Who do you think, you bilge-rat?”

“Bilge-rat, bilge-rat! Who do you think?” Sterling’s tongue flicked rapidly as he mimicked the complex phrase, like a demented toddler.

“You’re a bad influence on that bird, ya know!” Raggon tried to turn over and get comfortable again, knowing sleep was already a lost battle. “You couldn’t let me sleep in on my birthday?”

“Not with the Duke wanting to go over the new routes along the eastern reefs.” Tobias set the oilcloth package on Raggon’s bed, about the size of a modest tin of assorted biscuits. “Don’t get too excited about the gift—consider this payback for telling everyone about my compass exploding.”

Knowing his brother, this latest offering could be anything from a new navigation tool to some contraption cobbled together from spare ship parts and gunpowder. Raggon picked up the package, the container easily fitting in one hand. His stomach clenched as metal tubes clinked against brass bells inside. An ominous groan erupted underneath the oilcloth, sounding like a dying rat. “Thanks?”

Tobias turned to the parrot and offered his arm. Letting out a squawk, the plucky bird clambered onto Tobias’ shoulder instead, bobbing indignantly as it glared at Raggon with beady eyes.

“Rummy captain needs sailing lessons!” Sterling screeched.

Raggon’s eyes met the ceiling. He wasn’t sure how he’d offended the parrot on its first arrival on the ship two years ago, but that bird had it out for him.

Tobias ran his finger down the soft spectrum of colors against the parrot’s back. “Hey, I didn’t teach him that—Sterling overheard Morris talking.”

Raggon laughed. “The Duke?” The old man still thought Raggon was seventeen years old and newly escaped from Circe’s coup. “He said that, did he? Rummy captain?” Morris usually had better manners than repeating the gossips from Lunara’s Crystal Courts—he must’ve been in a temper.

Tobias shrugged. “He says as captain, you should know your own waters better than the fish that swim them. The eastern reefs have gotten treacherous. Morris thinks Circe’s magic is affecting the tides.”

“How can he know that?” Raggon asked.

“What else can it be?”

A loud bellow from outside signaled that the Duke wasn’t through with them yet. “Tobias! No more dillydallying! To the deck with you!”

“Interfering old trout,” Raggon muttered with the breath of amused disbelief. He watched his brother scurry from the cabin with the bird on his shoulder.

The Duke had taken in the princes when the Land Witch’s armies stormed their ancestral halls more than a decade ago, spiriting away the royal brothers while their parents stayed behind to face a bloody execution. Morris still blamed himself for failing to rescue their sister, but what could the man have done differently? Circe had raided the north wing first, and it was too late! Despite what he described as his greatest sorrow, Morris was a good and worthy servant of the crown. Even now, with his charges grown into men, the Duke remained a vigilant guardian.

Raggon carefully set aside the gift and pushed out of bed, pulling on his weathered captain’s coat. Over a decade at sea had a way of making him forget his life of ease at the palace. He tugged on his thigh-high boots, worn smooth at the knees from hours at the helm, and fastened his belt with its array of navigational tools. From its mounting on the wall, he took down the Sylphorian sword, its silver-traced blade catching the morning light. He never left his quarters without them—the sword at his hip, and his father’s dagger in his boot.

Trouble always waited on the horizon.

As Raggon made his way through the deck of his ship, he passed men hard at work in the growing light–some Sylphorians like himself, others collected from various ports, all united in their hatred of Circe’s tyranny. They were a hardy lot, their bravery earned through years of resistance and close calls on the increasingly treacherous seas. Many had lost homes and families to the Land Witch’s expanding influence.

What he’d do to avenge his people against the witch. And to lead his people in a battle to gain their freedom? Even now, as they skidded past the outskirts of his former home, that was a fool’s dream. The white beaches and lush green decorated the distant coastline of a land once dear to him. What did Circian call this place now? Shark tooth bay? The name was an insult to his ancestors.

“Raggon.” The Duke waved him over from the helm. He was an older man with iron-gray hair and laugh lines that had deepened into worried creases over their years of exile. His once-fine clothes had been adapted for sea life, though he still wore the silver chain of his office beneath his practical sailor’s garb. “Come join me in the chart room. The morning tide’s brought strange currents, my boy.”

Raggon didn’t bother to correct the familiar address. The Duke had known him since childhood, and though the old man longed to use proper titles, they’d agreed long ago such formalities would endanger them both. Besides, there were more pressing matters than protocol—like ribbing the old man for his ‘unseemly’ behavior.

“Rummy captain, aye?” Raggon asked.

The Duke turned beat red, his weathered face flushing to his collar as he shot a glowering look at the rigging—no doubt trying to locate that tattling bird. “Excuse the term, young master… have you considered my dinner request for… parrot stew?”

“Shh,” Raggon said, grinning. “Tobias might hear you.” He searched for his brother, finding him sprawled across a barrel near the helm, surrounded by scattered gears and springs as he tried to “improve” the ship’s compass, since that last one had been a disaster.

The parrot offered unhelpful commentary from his shoulder. “Another invention? Abandon ship! Abandon ship!”

“Sterling is family,” Raggon admitted. He’d never seen the boy bond with anything like that bird—except maybe that weather predictor that somehow caught fire in the rain.

The Duke’s expression darkened. “There’s more afoot than rough waters. My spies have reported increased Circian vessel activity around the Serpent Coil Islands. They’re searching for something in these waters.”

That was Undine Isle territory. His stomach clenched uneasily. “Like what?”

“There is rumor of treasure…”

“Treasure?” Raggon cried out. The Land Witch didn’t need more treasure! She’d stolen his kingdom. She had all the wealth of the Sylphorian courts at her fingertips, their ancient artifacts, their sacred places, and more—curse her!

“And it’s worse…” The Duke’s voice dropped to barely a whisper, his eyes scanning the waves as if they might hold spies. “There is also rumor that she knows about… you.”

Raggon straightened, his heart lodging in his throat. “How?”

“I can’t say…” The Duke gripped the ship’s rail. If Circe hadn’t thought the Sylphorian princes were dead years ago, she’d have hunted them across Poseidon’s seas until they were. She feared their royal powers—though they were nothing compared to her dark magic.

“Sail ho!” The cry cut through the morning air from the crow’s nest. “Three points off the port bow!”

Raggon raised his spyglass, the brass warm from the sun. Through the lens, he could make out the billowing black sails, proudly bearing the blood-red boar of the Land Witch’s armies. On the deck of the lead ship stood a broad-shouldered figure Raggon hadn’t faced since their last encounter off the Widow’s Reef, where they’d left the brute’s ship a smoking skeleton. It appeared someone had given their fiercest enemy a brand-spanking-new ship.

“Maddox,” he growled.

A strangled gasp escaped the Duke’s lips. “We’ll run close to the wind and make for deeper waters.” He moved for the helm.

Raggon was already shaking his head. “No, we’ll meet him head on. If the Land Witch suspects I’m alive, we’ll show her my teeth.”

“But sire, your brother—”

“He’s not safe while Maddox lives.” The dread sea pirate used to serve their father before turning against them all. As soon as Raggon discovered him on the waters, he’d gone against the traitor with everything he had, though Maddox hadn’t suspected his greatest enemy was driven with such deep abiding hatred simmering through his chest. “Tobias knows how to keep his head down and stay out of trouble…” when he wasn’t dismantling perfectly good sailing gear. Raggon turned toward the helm. “Tobias! Find something sturdy and hang on… you hear me?”

Tobias’s eyes lit up, eager for action. Storm and seas! The boy still didn’t understand his own mortality, a family trait, it seemed—he was ten years older and still hadn’t outgrown that recklessness. Raggon felt a burst of sympathy for Morris—raising two stubborn princes couldn’t have been easy.

Raggon glanced over at the stoic man. “Quit your handwringing, old friend. We’re not letting Maddox close enough to board.” He turned to his crew, voice cutting through the morning air. “All hands to stations! Gun crews below! Riggers to your posts!” Men scrambled across the deck as he strode to the helm. “We blow them out of the water as soon as we can reach them.”

The Duke’s eyebrows shot up. “With what?”

“Got myself a new set of long nines,” Raggon explained with a wolfish grin. “—a birthday gift to myself. We’re gonna paint the dawn with fire! Can’t think of a better way to celebrate, can you?”

The Duke heaved a groan as the crew scrambled to battle stations. “You remind me more of your father every day.”

“That so?” Raggon smirked. “Even if I am a rummy prince?”

“Especially then,” the Duke said, a ghost of a smile playing at his lips.

Raggon drew his sword, and before anyone could stop him, vaulted onto the ship’s rail. In a surge of energy, he dissolved into seafoam, materializing in the crow’s nest next to his startled shipmate. Only those of the Sylphorian’s royal line carried this strange power—the ability to turn flesh to vapor. Many whispered it was a remnant of Undine’s curse. But even royal blood could only sustain such transformations for brief, spontaneous bursts.

“Keep your eyes on their gunports!” he ordered the lookout. “First sign they’re opening, you signal.” Without waiting for acknowledgment, he shifted again—appearing at the bow, ready to direct the gun crews.

That’s when he saw more enemy. Two more ships emerging from the morning mist, rounding the peninsula’s rocky spine. Their black sails unfurled like crow’s wings against the dawn sky. Raggon was caught in their trap. Already his men’s cries echoed the discovery.

“Duke!” Raggon’s voice carried across the deck as he shifted back to the helm in a spray of sea mist. “You’re not going to like this.”

The Duke’s hand tightened on his sword hilt. “Was this really the birthday celebration you had in mind, my boy? Three against one!”

Raggon’s jaw steeled. The Land Witch thought she won, did she? “Yes—that’s three less enemy ships we have to worry about. Signal the gun crews—we’re blasting our way out of Circe’s net.”