I sat on the floor of my temporary room, unable to find sleep. For all the comforts of this new city, it wasn’t able to ease the restlessness of my own mind. Too much had happened, too much had changed, too much had been revealed, and it hadn’t even been a day since I’d escaped. Sleep seemed like an impossible refuge or a trap that would lull me into my memories. Here, in my room, I was safe. But in my own mind… best to stay awake for as long as I could. Not that it was difficult, thankfully.

I stared out the window, the moonlit city settled on the horizon. Such a strange place, at least compared to the filthy alleyways of White Ridge’s slums. But then again, it had been a long time since I had seen anything of her hometown beyond what Halfor had allowed me. I could dimly recall ordered streets, organized guards, fine stone structures, but they were ghostly outlines, nothing more. This… Valadonia was a dream slowly but surely being birthed into reality. It was something different, something new. I had no idea if it would genuinely live up to the ideals it proclaimed. After all, I had only seen the sanctuary, not whatever lurked in the rising shadows of this growing place.

A knock at my door startled me out of my reverie. I cautiously approached, a dirty kitchen knife held in my right hand. I walked forwards, my butter-stained weapon held behind my back.

“Eir,” a familiar voice called. “It’s alright, it’s me.”

It was my saviour.

I opened the door, and lo, there he was. Dressed in that strange feathered cloak, silvery sword at his hip, masked lights glinting with approval.

“You are well?” he asked, focussing on me.

“Um… yes,” I managed, dropping the knife. “Th-thank you for bringing me here.”

He nodded. “I will be departing soon, I have a reunion to make in a few weeks. But I wanted to make sure you would be alright settling in Valadonia, if you don’t mind of course. If you wished, I could return you to White Ridge.”

“No!” I squeaked, then coughed, trying to compose myself. “No, that’s alright, I think I’ll be fine here.”

“You don’t have any other family?” he asked, something sad in his voice. “No one you’d want me to either drop you off with or ask to come here?”

I was about to say no… when I remembered. Sune, my older brother. But I hadn’t seen him for years. There was no way this stranger could possibly find him… could he? Yet I had forgotten that he wasn’t a stranger at all.

He was my saviour.

“A brother,” I answered after a moment, eyes downcast. “But I haven’t seen him in a long, long time. He sailed away, trying to make a living for both of us. He… never came home.”

“May I hear his name?”

“Sune,” I whispered, flinching, remembering how Halfor used to beat me for even mentioning him. “His name is Sune Elgar.”

The saviour was silent for a moment, the lights within the mask vanishing utterly. I was left staring into an icy void, feeling discomforted by his eerie stillness. Yet just as quickly as he had gone quiet, he suddenly reawakened, an alarmed animation to his movements.

“My apologies Eir, but I will be leaving immediately,” he said, hand falling on his sword. It was only then that I noticed his entire right arm was made of a dark blue crystal, with sharp angles running along the beautiful prosthetic. “Your brother lives, and is in great danger. But I give you my word that he will not be harmed and shall return to you safely.”

With that he was gone, leaving me feeling both confused and hopeful.

“Wake up, Sune,” the bastard’s voice snarled.

I groaned, raising my head. That’s all I could do, considering the whole of my body was shackled to the ship’s hold. The chains dragged against the floor, allowing me what simple movements I was afforded in this small place in the vessel. I blinked, adjusting to the meagre lantern light held by the bastard entering my cell. He was a small man–most people were small to me–dressed in dark sailor’s clothing, a cutlass at his hip, a frayed eyepatch over his left socket, smiling to reveal his cracked and yellow teeth.

“Up you get, you beast,” Vant said, kicking my stomach, causing me to wince only lightly with pain. “The boss wants to see you.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, but resisted the urge to question him or snap something. Boredom was as much my enemy on this slaver’s ship, and though I feared the captain of the Midnight Stalker far more than Vant, a meeting promised to be interesting at the very least.

I stood up, allowing him to unshackle the bonds that kept me kneeling on the floorboards. My hands were still bound in front of me, and my legs were still shackled together. I could walk, but I could never run. Even if I did, where was I to go? I had no idea what part of the sea I was on, nor was I strong enough swimmer to make it to the coast. And if we were close to shore? Well, there was no way with my bulk that I wouldn’t make a considerable noise splashing below. I’d be filled with bullets before I could even begin swimming.

Vant pushed me forwards, making a big show of prodding and bullying me through the ship’s hold. We passed by other slaves, chained to the oars, constantly being forced to work to propel the Midnight Stalker towards whatever market or target it lurched towards. I think it gave him some kind of sick pleasure, to push around someone over twice his height and weight in front of others. The night shift slavers laughed at his display, though whether in approval or mockery, I couldn’t say. Then they got right back to whipping anyone who showed even a minor drop in productivity.

I was pushed up two more levels until I reached the deck. The sun had long since fallen, the ship being guided by the light of the moon and stars. The captain’s crew laboured in brutal silence, moving about their work with an almost admirable efficiency. I might have even complimented them, had I not wanted to split each and every one of their skulls. But I couldn’t let my gaze rest on them for too long. Vant continued to push me onwards, but not to the captain’s quarters. Instead, I was guided to the prow of the ship.

Where two figures waited.

The first I immediately recognized as Captain Ophelia Aethos. A tall, wiry, copper-skinned woman with dark hair, hawkish hazel eyes, harsh and angular features, bedecked in a pale longcoat layered with bronze and gold. Two fine cutlasses hung at her hip, with a bandolier slung across her chest keeping two pistols. Her fingers were bedecked in fine rings, a crested hat with the pale raven sigil emblazoned on it. She claimed to hail from distant shores, a realm of other kingdoms and foreign gods. With the way she spoke, the accent that twisted her words, and the strange tattoos running up her neck, I believed her claims. She gave me a cold, calculating stare, the one many people reserved for counting coppers.

I spat at the ground where she stood.

“You wretch!” Vant screeched, drawing his blade.

Before he could swing his sword, Aethos snapped her hand up, causing the little worm to freeze.

“Thank you for your service, Vant,” the captain said smoothly, favouring him with a smile devoid of warmth. “You may go.”

“But, ma’am-”

“That will be all,” she said, her smile gone.

Vant gulped, nodded quietly, sheathed his blade and scampered off.

“Still defiant, Sune?” Ophelia asked, turning her gaze to me, cocking one eyebrow. “I confess, I had hoped some time rotting in your own filth would have cooled your temper.”

I glared at her, still seeing my friends dead on the floorboards, their slashed and smoking corpses unceremoniously thrown overboard. “I’m going to split you from cunt to scalp, you pirate bitch.”

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She laughed. “Oh, how delightful it would have been to hand you over to the care of someone who would be capable of shattering such delicious spirit. But alas, my new client is paying very well for even a glance at you.”

The second figure stepped forward and lowered his hood, freezing my rage into quiet trepidation.

“What the fuck is that?” I breathed.

The… thing was only humanoid in outline. The majority of its body, thank Valhalla, was cloaked in black. But seeing its head was bad enough. Its skin was deathly pale, translucent to the point where I could see bits of its skull. It steepled its all-too-long fingers together before it, veins of sickly crimson snaking through its skin. And it was eyeless, with no hint of sockets even where I could see bone. It smiled thinly at me, revealing needle-thin sharpened teeth.

“Be not afraid, my child,” it crooned, the quality of its voice sounding as if it was choking on something. “The good captain spoke of a promising specimen in her care, and I was promised observation. And yes, you will do quite nicely.”

I stumbled backwards… but then I froze. Not out of my own volition, no, for my gut demanded I get as far from this thing as possible. But my muscles refused to respond to my will, and even my eyes couldn’t move anymore.

“Now, now, frightened little lamb,” the creature sang, gliding across the deck to stand before before. It reached out, placing both its hands on the sides of my face. It opened its mouth, its jaw unhinging like that of a serpent’s. There, set into the thing’s dangling uvula… was a lidless eye, staring at me with alien intent.

That eye stared into me, and I felt suddenly filthy and exposed as if all that I was an am was suddenly visible to the predatory observance of this horrid abomination. At some moments, it felt as if some barbed worm was slithering through my brain, examining every crevasse and corner of my mind.

“Your estimations were correct, captain,” the thing’s jaw returned to its prior state, though I was still kept torturously still. “This child is indeed a worthwhile specimen. Your work will be greatly favoured in Her eyes. Might I beg of you some… indulgence in his handling.”

“By all means,” the captain’s voice was thick with petty satisfaction. “He belongs to you now, after all.”

Smiling so that the edges of his mouth touched his ears, the creature tilted its head.

Then shoved its hand into the joint between my arm and my shoulder.

Pain exploded from me as the creature’s fingers twisted and shifted inside my body, allowing it to tear my arm from my body. At that moment, my paralysis ceased, and I fell to the deck screaming.

Many of the slavers turned to watch. A lot of them hooted and cheered, some watched with quiet glee, only a few turning their gazes away in horror. None of them mattered. I was roaring in pain, convulsing on the deck as agony blinded me to almost anything else. Through it all, I could dimly make out Ophelia smiling slightly from where she stood, watching as I twisted and wept on her ship.

“Hush now, little one,” the creature said, kneeling down and resting its hand on my bleeding stump.

Surprisingly, the pain began to recede. Even more unnerving, I could feel my skin and flesh growing over the wound to completely close it off. This thing wanted me alive, and that terror was worse than the pain.

“Such a tortured soul,” it whispered into my ear, placing its other hand on my head and leaning in close. “We know your pain, She knows it. Forced to grow out of your boyhood faster than you should have, all for the love of a little sister. You suffered injury and shame to keep safe the one thing you loved in your empty life. Even your condition here aboard this ship was a consequence of your devotion to her. You would sail to the ends of the earth, to protect the first soul you ever remember smiling at you.”

The tears leaking from me now had nothing to do with the pain fading from my stump.

“Poor, dutiful Sune,” it crooned, slowly retreating from me. “Know that your suffering shall soon end, for She rewards all souls such as you. It is merely a matter of properly sending you to her embrace.”

It rose and turned to face Ophelia. “Bring him to Varkaras, as the winds permit such things. Ensure he is kept alive, but isolated. Whip him no more, lest his spirit be spoiled for my intents. He must be left to his memories to be properly sanctified.”

“Of course,” Ophelia replied. “Will the others be joining us?”

It nodded. “My brethren have recruited nearly the full strength of your alliance. Varkaras promises to be crowded for the next period. Will that be a problem?”

“Not at all,” Ophelia said, something vicious in her grin. “It will be so good to see so many… familiar faces.”

“Excellent,” it said, relish in its tone. “Then we-”

It paused, suddenly wary. Its too-long fingers flexed, darkness solidifying around the creature.

“Emissary?” Ophelia asked, half crouching into a combat stance, a cutlass in her grip. “Is something amiss?”

The monster’s stance reminded me, in my half-delirious state, of a caged animal. All too wary, all too frightened, all too likely to lash out and bite at whatever hand dared approach it. For a moment, I thought it might spring out and slaughter the entire crew. But it eventually relaxed, easing back up into its eerie stance.

“Apologies, captain,” it spoke. “It appears that my senses have been fooling me. Yes, we will see you all on Varkaras. Do not be late.”

Then it was gone.

I barely remembered being hauled and thrown back into the hold, chains once more locking around my limp form. It wasn’t long before I faded into deep slumber.

Yet instead of my usual nightmares, I found myself sitting beside an idyllic lake. The sky above was beautiful, clear blue and dotted with clouds. All around were towering greens virulent with size and life. I sat on the sandy shores, the waves gently lapping at my feet. The sun was warm on my body, the breeze cool, the air alive with fresh scents. I felt… peaceful here, tranquil. It would have been a nice dream, were it not for the stranger sitting beside me.

“Hello, Sune,” the silver-haired figure said, who was a partial blur to my vision. “My apologies for intruding on your mind, but I didn’t want to speak aloud, lest I incur some wrath upon your isolated body.”

“Who… are you?” I managed, my mind groggy.

“A friend of Eir’s,” he replied.

I snapped up immediately, trying and failing to get a solid glimpse of the stranger. “Is this real?”

“Yes,” he replied. “I met your sister while she was fleeing from Halfor. The man seemed disinclined to reason, so I cut off his head when he tried to accost Eir. I then brought her somewhere safe, where she is recovering now. She told me of you, thus I set out to find you.”

I blinked. Halfor, dead? Good riddance.

“Wait,” I said, frowning. “How did you find me?”

“Trade secret,” he replied, and I saw the faintest outline of a ghostly smile. “All I can say is that this is a conjured dream space where you and I can speak privately.” The figure sighed. “Which brings me to the primary reason I brought you here. Right now, you have two choices.”

“Those being?” I asked dubiously.

“I set you free, right here, right now,” he answered. “I take you away, restore your arm, reunite you with your sister, and ensure that both of you can live comfortable lives in the new city if you so choose.”

“What’s the other choice?” I asked, doubting his word.

“You stay on board the Stalker, for a time,” he replied grimly. “I will be with you the whole time, of course. And when the time comes, I shall bring my full wrath upon Varkaras. The pirate crews shall be destroyed, this psychic cult shall be dismantled, and every slave in the holds of every ship shall be set free and given a new chance at life. I can still possibly attempt this if I bring you home, though I may lose track of the Stalker and spend months tracking the island down rather than the likely brief time span it’ll take for you to reach this place.”

I paused, the stranger’s words sound like immutable truth to my ears, despite the dream state I knew I was in. Eir… I could see her again. The one happy thing that I had known in my life. To know that this soul had saved her and was now offering me salvation… I almost spoke up and accepted his offer. I was so tired, the creature had exposed that all too clearly. I wanted to be far from it, I wanted to be far from it all.

But… my crew, my fellow slaves on the Stalker. Those who had toiled beside me, whether they had been part of my original crew or not, I could not leave any of them to the mercies of Aethos or whatever she was dealing with. That just wouldn’t be right.

No one left behind.

“I’ll stay,” I breathed out.

He nodded. “Thank you, Sune. I will leave a mark in your cell to show that I was truly here.”

Sure enough, when I next awakened, there was a pale feather lying on the floor before my face.

And I smiled.

Eir, I’m coming home.