Beneath A False Banner

**Captain Blackthorn**

James’s blade had pierced the Heart of Shadows. I felt the dark magic recoil, a wounded beast thrashing in agony. It snarled around me, coiling tighter and tighter until the very air was wrung from my lungs. The world dissolved in black fire. When my eyes opened, the sea was gone. I was no longer on my ship but cast back upon that cursed island, the place where I had first unearthed the Heart. The relic lay before me, its once-blinding power dimmed to a faint, sickly throb. Its heartbeat was ragged, but it lived. Oh yes, it lived.
I rose to my knees, sand clinging to my bloodied hands. My chest heaved, not only from the lingering grip of the magic but from the rage burning through me. James, Isabella, their betrayal echoed louder in my skull than the ocean ever had. She was pregnant with my child, and yet she chose my brother. I did not know how many hours, days, or weeks had slipped past while the shadows carried me here. Maybe even months. Time mattered little. What mattered was escape. What mattered was reclaiming what was mine. My ship, my crew, my name carved into the bones of the sea.
I pressed my hand against the weakly pulsing Heart. Its power flickered, but it answered me still, whispering promises of vengeance. I would take back what James had stolen. I would make Isabella remember who owned her. I had fallen once. I would not fall again. The island had given me little, sand, stone, and the fractured whispers of the Heart, but fate had not abandoned me. At dawn, when the horizon bled gold, I spotted a frigate flying Vesperian colors, her sails fat with wind, her guns gleaming in the sun.
A predator’s grin cut across my face. Providence had set her upon my waters. Dragging the weather-beaten rowboat from the shore, I heaved it into the surf. Each stroke of the oar was agony, my body still raw from shadow’s grip, but rage carried me farther than strength ever could. The frigate loomed larger with every pull, her hull a dark wall of polished oak.
“Hoy there!” a sailor barked above, peering down from the rail. Muskets bristled behind him.
I raised one hand, showing them empty palms. “Castaway,” I rasped, letting the salt sting my throat for effect. “Ship went down in a storm. Weeks at sea. No food.”
They conferred in low tones, their suspicion sharp as cutlasses. Still, the Vesperians prided themselves on honor. That would be their weakness. Ropes were thrown. Calloused hands hauled me up, dripping and ragged onto their deck. I let my body sag, the perfect wretch, while my eyes drank in every detail, the armaments, the captain’s polished boots, the way the men moved about the rigging. This vessel was no ordinary merchant ship. She was war-forged, disciplined. Perfect.
As the crew questioned me, I dipped my head, hiding the shadow of a smile. The Heart pulsed faintly at my chest, feeding me, whispering. This ship would be mine.
With it, my vengeance.
The Vesperian frigate cut clean through the waves, her crew proud and orderly, her captain strutting the deck as if Neptune himself had blessed him. The night is when pride rots, when men grow careless. I waited. The moon hung high, silver on black waters, when I rose from the hammock they had so generously granted me. A borrowed blade lay hidden beneath my ragged shirt, lifted from the armory while the quartermaster’s back was turned. Its weight felt right, cold, eager. The ship was quiet save for the creak of rigging and the groan of timbers. I moved like a shadow, steps softened by years of prowling decks not my own. At the captain’s quarters I paused, listening. A faint snore rumbled within.
The door opened to me without protest. He slept with one hand on his pistol, a fool’s precaution. I was faster. The knife slid into his throat before he could stir, his eyes bulging wide in the moonlight.
I pressed close, whispering, “The sea takes her due, Captain. Tonight, it takes you.”
His life spilled hot across my hands. I let him fall back into his bed, the sheets blooming crimson. The first mate was next, too loyal to be spared. He died on the quarterdeck, wind choking his scream before it carried. The others were easier, one by one, the shadows devouring them. By the time the lanterns flared and the crew realized death stalked among them, their chain of command had already been severed. I stepped into the light of the main deck, the dead captain’s coat on my shoulders, blood still wet on my sleeves.
“This ship is mine now,” I thundered, the Heart’s pulse beating through every word. “Those who swear loyalty live. Those who resist, join your captain in the deep.”
They hesitated, blades half-drawn, eyes darting. Then one by one, fear broke them. Knees bent. Heads bowed. The frigate belonged to me. With her, the seas would once again whisper the name Blackthorn.
The Vesperian frigate bent to my will faster than I had dared hope. A few executions saw to that. Fear is the best bosun, and I lashed it tight around their throats. Within a day, they pulled their weight for me as though I had been born their captain. It was during the evening watch that I finally wrung the truth from a trembling quartermaster. He had heard word in port taverns, whispers passed from sailor to sailor, that my ship, The Black Serpent, had not been sunk in battle as I had thought. She had been taken.
Docked under new command. My blood boiled hotter than any cannon’s roar. The Serpent was mine, my blood, my soul carved into oak and tar, and I would see her back beneath my boots or burn the seas themselves trying. For two days we cut across the waters, the frigate pressing onward under full sail. Every hour was torment, every wave a cruel reminder that my ship had been stolen, paraded under another’s hand. I scarcely slept, pacing the quarterdeck like a caged beast, the Heart’s pulse hammering against my chest.
At last, near dusk on the second day, I saw her, on the horizon, proud and sharp against the dying light, she rose from the sea. Her black hull gleamed, her lines as fierce as the day I first claimed her. My Serpent. Even as my chest swelled, my eyes narrowed. She did not fly my colors. Another banner snapped in the wind where my serpent’s sigil once reigned. A different master held her leash now. My hands clenched around the rail, knuckles white, as the sea air filled with the taste of iron and smoke yet to come. The Black Serpent would know her captain again, through blood, fire, and death.