Morgan, the first officer burst through the map room doors, rain still clinging to her coat like guilt.

  “Admiral! The Thorn of the Sea has been sighted, Petalcrest’s colours confirmed!”

  Safara Tanzanight didn’t look up right away. Her gloved fingers hovered over a compass as the tension flooded her body. Then she spoke, voice low, precise, lethal. “Where?”

  “Directly ahead. And Admiral…” she hesitated, “they’ve got a hostage.”

  At that, Safara looked up. The lamplight caught the purple streak in her dark hair, a proud mark of being a Tanzanight. “Who?” she asked.

  “We think it’s Marina Skylar.”

  Safara turned toward the window, where lightning lit the harbour like a photographer’s flash, a frozen image of rigging, smoke, and restless waves.

  “Ready the fleet,” she said. “All of them.”

  Within minutes, the docks roared to life. Steam vents hissed, furnaces thumped awake, and crewwomen shouted over the whistle of boiling pressure. Brass-framed gangways slammed into place as engineers primed the turbines.

  Safara stepped aboard her flagship, The Billionaire Blue, a monstrous blend of iron and oak, its hull etched with filigree that glowed faintly indigo when the engines stirred. The air smelled of oil, ozone, and impending glory.

  “Signal the Laizer and the Heart of the Ocean, we sail in formation delta,” she ordered, sliding her mechanical gauntlet into a socket on the helm. Gears locked into place with a hiss, syncing her commands to the ship’s inner systems.

  “Ma’am, the barometer’s dropping fast,” her navigator warned. “A squall’s moving in from the west. Could be ugly.”

  Safara allowed herself the smallest smile. “It’s always ugly when Petalcrests are involved.”

  By the time the fleet cleared the harbour mouth, the wind had become a living thing — shrieking through the rigging, slapping waves against the hulls hard enough to make the timbers groan. Lanterns swung wildly, casting the decks in feverish motion.

  From the quarterdeck, Safara watched lightning fork across the horizon. In the flashes, she saw the black silhouette of Azalea Petalcrest’s ship — sleek, predatory, a wolf cutting through foam.

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  “Ma’am!” cried officer Morgan, clutching a rail for balance. “The storm’s worsening. Shall we turn back now?”

  Safara didn’t turn. Her eyes stayed fixed on the phantom shape ahead.

  “How long have I hunted that woman?”

  “Three years, Admiral.”

  “And how many ships has she taken from us?”

  “Four.”

  “And now she has a Skylar.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Safara exhaled slowly, mist curling from her lips in the cold.

  “Then tonight we don’t turn back. If I save that girl, the Skylars will owe my family. When the city starts eating itself, we’ll need friends with coin and influence. Prepare the guns.”

  Steam howled through the pipes as the fleet shifted formation, each ship moving like clockwork cogs in a colossal mechanism. Semaphore arms flashed orders through sheets of rain.

  Safara gripped the railing. Her cloak snapped in the wind, heavy with water, her eyes twin embers of focus.

  “Hold steady. Wait for the lightning.”

  Another flash, the Thorn of the Sea appeared broadside, sails shredded, but its cannons gleamed.

  “Range: six hundred yards!”

  “Raise the front ballast, I want her higher!”

  The Billionaire Blue lifted on compressed air, hissing like a dragon taking breath.

  “Ready main batteries,” Safara said.

  “Ready!”

  “Fire on my mark.”

  Then a voice from the lookout tower, hoarse, terrified:

  “Admiral! Someone is about to go overboard!”

  Safara’s head snapped up. In the next lightning flash, she saw her, Marina Skylar, small and pale against the roiling dark, tearing free of her captors, leaping from the pirate ship’s deck.

  A brief silhouette midair. Then gone. Swallowed whole.

  Safara froze, every calculation in her mind shattering like glass.

  The storm screamed around her, the cannon crews waiting, hands on the triggers.

  “Orders, Admiral?” Morgan shouted over the wind.

  Safara’s jaw tightened. Her eyes flicked from the empty waves to the enemy’s looming shadow.

  The Billionaire Blue rose and fell on the waves like a living heartbeat.

  Then, nothing but her whisper, carried by the gale:

  “Hold fire.”

  Lightning flashed once more. Safara wasn’t sure what to do next.