Chapter Three: The Pirate Without a Flag
The sky above the drifting skiff bled from black into gold as dawn broke over the Shatterline Sea.
Flint Korran sat on the broken mast like a throne, legs swinging, grinning like a mad prophet who just discovered gravity by jumping off a cliff. Below him, Nyra stared daggers into the fire she'd just coaxed to life in a rusted barrel.
"Are you going to do anything?" she asked, not looking up.
"I am doing something," Flint replied. "I'm planning my grand announcement."
"What announcement?"
"That I'm a pirate captain."
Nyra blinked, slowly. "You don't have a ship."
"This is a ship."
"It's a raft held together by prayer and sea mold."
"I've had worse."
"You don't have a crew."
"I have you."
"I will poison your food."
Flint clapped his hands once. "So you agree I have food. Progress!"
Nyra muttered something that sounded like a curse in an old tongue, but Flint was already busy rummaging through the storage locker beneath the deck. After some grunting and splinter-cracking, he emerged triumphantly with a battered object covered in canvas.
He ripped it free to reveal… a cracked soulglass crystal—a communication relic.
"Don't tell me you're going to—"
"—broadcast to the entire coast? Oh, absolutely."
By noon, they'd beached the skiff on the back of a sleeping sea-beast, a whale-sized crustacean that snored like boiling tar and didn't seem to mind their presence.
Flint stood on its barnacled shell, one arm stretched behind him like he was about to start a rock concert. Nyra sat on the edge of the skiff with her head in her hands.
The soulglass crystal sputtered to life. Light surged. Sparks danced in the air.
A projection of Flint's face—grinning, wind-blown, and full of dangerous charm—suddenly hovered above the central skyway of Port Spire, the nearest trade hub. It also shimmered in front of half the taverns in the region, a dozen black-market channels, and at least three hidden imperial outposts.
All at once, the world saw him.
"HELLO, SEA SCUM AND SKY-KISSERS!"
"This is your soon-to-be-favorite outlaw, FLINT KORRAN, speaking live from somewhere very wet."
"Today, I'm declaring something important. I, Flint Korran, hereby claim the title of Pirate Captain!"
"Yes, I know, I don't have a proper ship yet. Or a flag. Or a crew that isn't threatening to gut me every twenty minutes."
"But you know what I do have?"
"A piece of the Ocean Soul map."
Pause.Shocked whispers. Several traders drop their drinks in Spire. A Warlord's wine glass cracks mid-sip.
"That's right. One of the Seven."
"I'm coming for the rest."
"So if you're a bounty hunter, a Warlord, or some fancy Tribunal bootlicker—come find me. Try to stop me."
"But if you're lost, mad, or looking for something bigger than this broken world…"
"Then I've got one space left on my crew. And you'd better fight for it."
"Captain Korran, out."
He salutes. The crystal explodes in a shower of sparks. Broadcast ends.
Nyra stared at him, wide-eyed.
"You just made yourself the most wanted idiot alive."
Flint leaned back, hands behind his head, watching the smoke from the exploded crystal drift into the sky.
"Good. Now they'll know I exist."
She shook her head in disbelief. "There were Tribunal eyes on those frequencies. Warlord Wrake probably heard you. You just invited death."
"I invited adventure," Flint said.
"You invited a fleet of deathships and assassins."
He grinned. "Same thing, really."
Meanwhile...
On the deck of the Iron Leviathan, a towering warship of steel and steam, Baron Wrake narrowed his molten eyes. The heat from his palms warped the metal cup he held. Below, his elite soldiers stood at attention.
"So," he rumbled, voice like grinding chains. "The brat has the fragment."
The First Mate, a stitched-faced woman named Vorn, bowed slightly. "Shall we dispatch the harpoon fleet?"
Wrake's smile was thin and cruel.
"No. Send the Leviathan herself. I want to meet this so-called captain... personally."
END OF CHAPTER THREE