The sea had stopped singing.
Yusuf only realized it after the first cannon shattered the stillness. One moment the waves whispered around the hull like old friends; the next, the Reine des Mers groaned as iron punched through her side.
"Battle stations!" Rouen's voice cut across the deck, a storm given tongue. "Starboard! That damned Eye's got a ship crawling in our wake!"
Yusuf scrambled, hand brushing splinters from the tiller housing. His fingers bled, but he didn't notice. All around him, crewmen roared, boots thudded, rigging creaked—a ballet of chaos. And yet amid it all, the thought returned:
He recalled the day he learned wood could sing under a storm, and now that voice was drowned in screams.
Amina appeared beside him, soaked in salt and shadow. "Below deck! That map-room isn't just pretty drawings—it's our teeth."
They descended into the heart of the Reine, torchlight dancing across etched walls. She led him to a corner panel. Her finger traced a symbol carved into the aged wood: a circle split by a jagged line, ringed with unfamiliar runes.
Yusuf inhaled sharply. "That's a binding seal. My grandfather carved the same mark on our harbor's drydock gates—said it kept storms from stealing the dead."
Amina didn't look up. "This one binds death to the sea. And it's weakening."
Suddenly, a shout from above.
"Boarders!" came the cry. "They've latched us!"
Yusuf bolted topside, nearly crashing into Old Marek, the wiry boatswain who wore one boot and claimed the other had been 'eaten by fate.' Marek grabbed Yusuf's sleeve, eyes wide.
"They came from a black reef once," he gasped. "Saw the Eye's work. Nothing but bones—bones and eyes."
Then an arrow took Marek through the throat.
Yusuf had no time to process. Blood sprayed across the deck as steel clashed and fire bloomed. From the fog, enemy crew emerged—faces masked in red cloth, tattoos glowing faintly. And at their helm: a robed figure with no visible features beneath a copper mask etched like an open eye.
Rouen charged, roaring curses. "Get that mask-wearing bastard off my deck!"
Yusuf ducked a blade, then jammed a broken spar into an attacker's gut. The Reine rocked again—whether from cannon or something deeper, he couldn't tell.
Through the din, Amina's voice rang like a bell. She stood atop the quarterdeck, both hands raised. The wind bent around her.
"I bind thee to the memory of flame!" she shouted, and the glyph below decks burned gold.
The masked attacker staggered, then shrieked. His mask cracked down the middle. Beneath it—no face. Just smooth flesh, like wax smeared over bone.
Yusuf backed away. "What in god's teeth—"
Amina collapsed as blood poured from her nose.
The robed figure vanished with the fog.
Then silence.
The Eye had blinked.
Morning came as if dragged from a grave. Smoke still curled off scorched sails. Bodies floated in the tide.
Yusuf sat at the stern, arms wrapped around scraped knees. He didn't speak. Not when the wounded cried. Not even when Rouen slammed a bottle beside him and said, "You did good, kid."
His gaze drifted to the tiller—cracked, but still intact. "I thought of the rebuilt docks in my hometown," he said quietly. "Wondered if they'd survive this growing war."
Below deck, the glyph still glowed faintly.
Amina slept fitfully. She'd muttered in her fevered dreams: "Some speak of the Eye's birth, but none dared say what happens when it truly opens."
Yusuf looked out at the endless sea.
He understood, now. This wasn't just a hunt.
It was a reckoning.
And they were already too deep to swim back.