I landed in top of Uthera, my fist landing against her cheek. She snarled angrily, grabbing at my fists to stop their descent to her face, but only succeeding in slowing me down. She lifted her feet up, her heels digging into my gut and kicking me back hard. I grunted as my back hit the smoking remains of our fire. I scrambled to my feet, whirling on Uthera, but was surprised when she began to back away from me, scowling. I glared at her, then for the first time, observed the scene around me. My crew and the royals alike were now backing towards me, glaring at the other pirates as they began to retreat.

“I’ll get you next time, Predator. I will.” Uthera growled, backing away towards the woods and vanishing into them.

“Predator?” William asked.

“Sometimes the captains call each other by their ship names.” Elizabeth explained.

“Well, our vacation is cut short.” I grumbled as I wiped the blood from my jaw with my sleeve and turned to my horse.

“What do we do?” Amber asked.

“We leave.” Tanner said, “We get you guys back to your kingdom and everybody goes back to their normal lives.”

“What if we don’t want to go back?” William asked.

“You have to.” Henry said, mounting his horse, “You have no choice.”

Everyone set into a solemn mood as they mount their horses and we set off in a fast gallop back to town.

When we got there, it was almost midday and the town was alive with people. When we moved to the port, I turned my horse sharply back to everybody, stopping all of them in their tracks.

“Sam, you go home.” I ordered.

Sam frowned, “Why?”

“Because Colten’s waiting. Go tell him to come down to port.”

“We haven’t seen each other in four years.”

“I give you thirty minutes. It takes about five to ride up to Henry’s house and five back down so I want Colten back here in at most an hour.”

“You want me to stay?”

I shrugged, “You wanna marry Louis and become the queen of Persia?”

“I don’t know who Louis is, but no.”

“Then yes, I want you to stay.

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Sam sighed as she turned her horse away from us, “Just hurry.”

“We’ll be back in a week at most.” Elizabeth called after her.

We dismounted our horses and gave them to a nearby crew member, who had been watching us from our ship and promised to take the horses home.

“Load up.” I ordered.

“Captain, we don’t have the whole crew.” One pirate called out as I stepped onto the deck of my ship.

“Well round them up. We leave in an hour if nobody is here in time they’ll answer to Tanner and his sword.”

To add emphasis, Tanner flashed a wicked grin at the crew, who immediately dispersed to find their fellow pirates.

“So that’s just it?” Perryn followed me into the captain’s quarters, shutting the door behind him, “We’re just going to leave?”

“You have to leave otherwise you get in deep trouble and the rest of us are hanged.” I pulled out a map form my desk and laid it flat on my table. I began to mark our journey.

We’d sailed this route many times before, but I wanted to get them home as fast as possible.

“So, never to see each other again?”

I glanced up at him from my drawings.

There was a sad, heartbroken look in his eyes that threatened to rip mine in half.

“What did you expect, Perryn? I’m a pirate. A captain, too. I told you before, we could never be together.” It pained me to say it, but I’d rather have him think that I never liked him to begin with rather than have him fight for it.

“But wasn’t there just a little part of you—when Louis came by? When you ran into a freaking sorceress and saw us all come after you? That first training night? Did you never wonder if it could work out?”

“Maybe there was a bit of me, at that time.”

“But now?”

“It can’t happen.”

As I looked up at him, I saw the merry light literally fade from his eyes.

“Alright then.” He turned sharply and left the quarters.

I cursed quietly as I returned to my work.

“Well, that didn’t go as planned.” I muttered.

“You’re right, it didn’t.” A voice said.

I glanced up, not even surprised, “Colten.”

“Serah.” He closed the door behind him as he entered my quarters.

“That was fast.”

“I was already down the middle of the road. Nice surprise, by the way. Sam is back.”

“Yes, I noticed.”

“What are your thoughts.”

I froze, “What do you mean?”

“Right now. What are you thinking? How do you feel about Sam’s return? The fact that you’re about to lose the love of your life—“

“Oh, give it up already.” I snapped, “He’s not the love of my life and this has to be done so don’t make it harder than it already is.”

I stood back to glance over the map one more time before turning to Colten, “I have to make sacrifices for my crew sometimes, okay?”

He looked like he wanted to object, but clamped his mouth shut when I glared at him. Then I brushed past him back out on deck.

Most of my crew had gathered and immediately scrambled to attention when I strode out over the deck. The royals had gathered at the helm with Henry, Elizabeth and Lydia were up in the crow’s nest and Tanner was bickering with Sam about something.

“Weigh anchor and host this mizzen!” I ordered, “Quickly!”

The pirates scrambled to do my bidding and in no time at all, we had pulled out of port and were on our way.

“Darkin.” I said, calling to one of the older pirates, who was often our navigator.

“Aye, captain.” He approached.

“Follow this map.” I gave him my drawings and turned away, towards Sam who was waving me over.

“Captain!” Darkin called after me.

“Aye?”

“This leads to the Persian Kingdom? Shouldn’t we follow our regular route?”

“Nay.” I replied, “Uthera is setting off in the same direction. I want to be there first.”

Darkin’s face clouded over at the mention of our rival pirate captain and he nodded.

“So get us there.” I snapped.

“Aye aye captain.” He scrambled to the helm to set us on course, relieving Henry of his steering.