The streets of the pirate cove were a rattle of noise and smoke, a chaos that never slept. Coal stoves hissed from open doorways, coughing sparks into the humid night. Brass lanterns swung from chains and crooked rigging, their yellow light spilling in broken circles across mud-slick cobblestones. The air reeked of boiled rum, fried fish, and the sharp sting of machine oil leaking from patched boilers. Somewhere, a fiddler scraped out a tune while a chorus of drunken voices bellowed the refrain half a beat too late.

  The din rolled on unchecked: gamblers shouting over dice, glass shattering against stone, the wet crunch of fists against flesh followed by laughter. No one looked twice. In the cove, a scream was just another verse in the tavern’s song, and a pistol shot was only cause to drink harder.

  Through it all walked Alaric Van Aerden and Mila Weiss. His boots clicked sharp and clean on the cobbles, his waistcoat spotless, his gloves white as though the street itself bent to keep filth from him. At his side, Mila’s platinum hair gleamed under lantern light like a blade drawn in moonshine. Neither spoke, their silence colder than the warmth of the lamps.

  They drew stares, but no one lingered. In a place where questions had shorter lives than coins, curiosity was the surest way to the early grave. The cove’s denizens turned their eyes back to their cups, their dice, their knives. Here, survival meant pretending you had seen nothing at all.

  Alaric paused to watch a pair of knife-fighters circle each other in the mud, their steel flashing dull in the lantern-glow. He smiled faintly, then turned to Mila with a voice low enough to vanish under the noise of the street.

  “Mila, when exactly did our cargo leave the strait?”

  She did not look at him, only adjusted the clasp of her glove. “According to my associates, they left the strait eight days ago.”

  “Hm. I see. They’re probably in front of us then.”

  “Can we rendezvous with them, sir?”

  “Of course we can. Our… collier is fast, but she won’t stray far without her tender.”

  Mila gave the smallest of nods, her gaze sliding over a group of cutthroats who’d paused mid-brawl to glance at them, then thought better of it.

  A rough voice cut through the haze of drink and fiddle-song.

  “Oy, you there—stop.”

  Five rough men stood at the mouth of an alley, faces hard as old rope. Their eyes burned with liquor and fury—Hamish’s crew.

  “Where’s our captain?” one growled.

  Alaric tilted his head, smiling as if the question were an after-dinner riddle. “Ah. I take it you’re associates of Mr… Halibut?”

  “Hamid!” the man barked.

  “Ah yes, him. Don’t worry. He sleeps soundly in the backroom of the Sailor Jack tavern. But if you plan to pick him up, I suggest you find a surgeon. Or at least someone who can impersonate one. Poor fellow slipped and pricked himself in the hand with a knife. Too much drink, you see.”

  The men scowled, exchanging glances.

  “Nah.”

  “No?” Alaric arched a brow.

  The leader turned, raising his voice so half the street could hear. “Oy, listen up, scallywags! This piss-posh bastard here is the richest man in the Aegis Sea. Imagine the ransom we’d get for him!”

  A ripple passed through the crowd like chum spilled in dark water. Dice clattered forgotten, mugs of rum stilled in the air. Faces turned one by one toward Alaric and Mila. Soon a circle closed around them, corsairs pressing in, teeth bared with greedy laughter. The air thickened with the stink of sweat and smoke, the crowd shifting like sharks scenting blood.

  Alaric only smoothed his cufflinks, voice warm and amused. “A bit exaggerated, but thank you for the compliment.”

  Mila’s fingers hovered at her belt, movements precise as clockwork, her gaze flat as steel.

  Alaric’s hand hovered at his hilt. “Mila.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Help me kill them.”

  The words struck the crowd like a match dropped into oil.

  Alaric drew his blades with the grace of a host laying silverware on a table. Solus, heavy and brutal, gleamed dark in his right hand. Luna, quick and elegant, glimmered in his left. Together they promised ruin.

  The first man lunged. Alaric stepped aside as though offering him passage, Luna flashing in a shallow cut across his arm. The man’s knife clattered to the cobbles, his scream cut short as Solus hacked him down with merciless weight.

  Mila was already moving. Her twin wavy-edged daggers—foreign, serpentine, and perfectly mirrored—spun like a pendulum in her hands. She stepped into her first attacker’s chest, sliding a blade under his ribs in a perfect upward thrust. He gasped once before collapsing.

  Another came at her with a rusted cutlass—she caught it between her crossed, rippling blades, twisted, and slit his throat in the same breath. The man toppled, throat bubbling red, as she turned with machine-like poise to the next.

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  The crowd roared. Hamish’s crew had wanted ransom, but now blood had been spilled, and the cove had a taste for it. A dozen more corsairs surged from the edges, knives, belaying pins, and broken bottles raised high.

  Alaric welcomed them with a smile. He pivoted into the rush, Solus cleaving down with a brutal chop that split a cudgel in half and the arm that swung it. Luna danced a silver arc across another man’s cheek, carving a line so fine the fool didn’t realize he was dead until he collapsed in the mud. Alaric moved like a conductor, orchestrating the chaos with each strike—a symphony of screams and steel.

  Mila was no less relentless. A sailor twice her size tried to grapple her; she twisted free, one wavy-edged dagger slicing open his thigh while its twin buried itself in his throat. She pulled the blade free without breaking stride, stepping past him as he collapsed, choking on his own blood.

  Another corsair swung low with a boarding axe. Mila leapt aside, letting the blade spark against stone, and rewarded him with a mirrored pair of cuts from her twin curved blades—one hamstring, one kidney—that left him writhing.

  Bodies piled at their feet. The lanterns swung wildly as corsairs shoved closer, drunken rage fighting against rising dread. A bottle shattered near Alaric’s head, spraying glass across his shoulders. He laughed, stepping into the thrower’s reach, and repaid him with Solus through the gut.

  The ground grew slick with blood, the stink of iron mixing with oil and rum. Shouts turned to screams, then to silence as the boldest fell.

  At last, the press broke. Those still standing stumbled back, muttering, their courage drowned in the mud. The last of Hamish’s men bolted into the shadows, boots slipping on cobblestones, the crowd parting gladly to let him go.

  Mila adjusted her gloves with the same clockwork care she used to end lives. “Are you all right, sir?”

  Alaric wiped a fleck of blood from his sleeve, more annoyed at the stain than the fight. “I’m fine, thank you. And you?”

  “I’m fine, sir.” She tilted her head ever so slightly, platinum hair catching the lantern-light. “You and your loud mouth, sir.”

  Alaric chuckled, amused, the sound warm and utterly out of place among the corpses. “Is that an improvement I see?”

  Mila brushed it off without a smile. “What next, sir?”

  “Well…” Alaric glanced at the crowd, at the whispers curling like smoke. “We probably pissed off half the captains of this cove. I say we initiate Plan B.”

  From beneath his coat he produced a brass flare gun, polished and gleaming like a duelist’s toy. He leveled it skyward and pulled the trigger.

  The shot cracked like thunder. A streak of scarlet fire arced into the night, exploding high above the cove in a brilliant flare. The crowd flinched, faces turned upward, shadows leaping in every direction as the false dawn burned overhead.

  Alaric smiled beneath the crimson light. “That should get their attention.”

  A heartbeat later, a deep thump rolled across the harbor like the growl of something waking. Then—

  Boom!-Boom!-Boom!. A cannon’s voice thundered from the bay, distant yet commanding.

  Whoosh, boom! Whoosh, boom! Whoosh, boom!

  The sky split with fire. Heavy shot screamed down from above, trailing sparks and smoke before smashing into the cove. Roofs splintered. A tavern wall burst outward in a rain of stone and timber. One cannonball plunged into the dock, geysering black water and shattered planks. Another struck a rusted crane, toppling it into the street where it crushed men like beetles.

  The cove dissolved into chaos. Pirates shrieked, some diving for cover, others scrambling to grab weapons or flee. The reek of powder choked the air as fire leapt from shattered lanterns to catch on thatched roofs and tarred rope. Steam hissed from ruptured pipes, mixing with the screams and the thunder of collapsing stone.

  “All right,” Alaric said, his tone as calm as if announcing the end of a ball. He brushed his gloves together and offered Mila his arm. “That’s our cue. Let’s go, darling.”

  Mila slid her blades back into their sheaths and followed, the two of them moving at a brisk pace, cutting through the panic like dancers parting a crowd. They ran through the smoke, past men clutching wounds, past pirates who shouted and shoved but dared not stand in their way.

  Then the thunder rolled again.

  Another broadside. Thirty guns this time, the shots coming in a storm. The night ripped open with shrieking iron. Cannonballs smashed into warehouses and taverns, collapsing entire walls. A row of gambling dens erupted in flame, their roofs flying apart in showers of sparks. The harbor’s waterfront vanished beneath splinters as docks shattered and boats capsized, spilling corsairs into black water that boiled with wreckage.

  The earth itself seemed to quake. Dust rained from the stone walls, and in the confusion, men screamed accusations at each other—some yelling for revenge, others begging for retreat.

  A cannonball struck a building just ahead of them. The wall burst apart in a roar of splinters and flame, shards of timber and stone raining across the street. Alaric and Mila threw up their arms against the blast, coats snapping in the pressure wave as smoke billowed over them.

  “Are you all right, darling?” Alaric asked, his voice smooth even as embers drifted past his shoulders.

  “I’m fine, sir. How about you, sir?” Mila replied, brushing a splinter from her hair as though it were dust.

  “I’m fine.” He chuckled, the sound dry and amused despite the fire roaring around them. “A bit too close, is it not?”

  “Well, it is your idea, sir.”

  “True,” Alaric admitted with a tilt of his head. “But I said to bombard the harbor, not the entire cove. Still…” His smile widened as another broadside thundered in the distance. “They are having… a blast, it seems.”

  Mila gave no answer, only adjusted her gloves and kept running at his side. Behind them, flames climbed higher into the night, painting the cove in a furious glow.

  They broke free of the smoke and wreckage and at last reached the harbor.

  The entire waterfront glowed an angry red, lit by fire and flare. Flames devoured the warehouses, docks smoldered in broken lengths, and the sea itself reflected the inferno in a rippling mirror of crimson. In the middle of it all, untouched, a ship floated serenely—a five-masted silhouette, proud and perfect, like a swan upon a burning lake. The Royale Nocturne.

  Alaric stopped to take it in, the reflection of fire dancing across his polished boots. “Bloody Hel…”

  “Something not to your liking, sir?” Mila asked, her voice steady despite the chaos.

  “They sunk all the ships and boats.”

  “As per your order.”

  “Yes,” Alaric sighed, “but at least leave some for us to get back to the ship.”

  “Shall we swim our way, sir?”

  “And let my swords rust in salt water?” His laugh was half genuine, half irritated.

  “Did you have any other idea, sir?”

  “Oh well, fine.” Alaric adjusted his cuffs, eyeing the burning piers with a hint of distaste.

  With a sigh that was more annoyance than fear, Alaric tied a handkerchief to the scabbard of his blade, tightened it and stepped off the pier into the sea. The cold bit sharply, brine rushing up to his chest as his boots sank against the silt. Mila followed without hesitation, stroking forward with the steady, mechanical precision of a soldier drilling through water.

  The harbor was a graveyard of wrecks—splintered hulls, overturned skiffs, charred rigging drifting like seaweed. Flames crackled above them, glowing embers hissing as they touched the waves. Ahead, the great silhouette of the Royale Nocturne loomed, her masts proud against the firelit sky.

  They were halfway to her when a shout rang from the deck.

  “Mr. Van Aerden on the water!”

  “Cease fire! Cease fire!”

  “Throw the ladder!”

  A rope ladder uncoiled and splashed into the sea, the lantern-light catching its wet rungs. Hands reached over the rail, eager to haul them aboard.