Tam stood at the bow of the ship, the sea breeze cool when it brushed along the back of his neck, a sensation he was still getting used to since cutting his hair…

His hands were tucked into his pockets and he leaned against the railing, feigning a casual air as the Zinferan pirate captain sauntered the rest of the way over to him.

“Good evening, sir,” the pirate called out. “I am Captain Kwon.” He tilted his head, a smug smile on his face, revealing a gold eye tooth that glinted in the lantern lights that Tam had seen to hanging up to better light the space.

“I am Mr. Voll. I’m a scholar who is hoping to revive the study of astrology in Daxaria. I was hoping I might persuade you that there is nothing of value on this ship aside from the men.” Tam bowed his head.

Captain Kwon ran his tongue over his golden tooth, the short goatee around his mouth shifting in the light to reveal it was spackled with white.

“That could be believable if you weren’t looking so…” he considered how to finish his sentence while eyeing Tam up and down. “Calm. Or if there wasn’t any notice given to the Gondol harbor that you’re arriving.”

“We aren’t going to Gondol. We’re sailing around the south of Zinfera and docking in Junya. As the oldest city in Zinfera, they are more likely to have old texts on the constellations,” Tam lied easily about their destination while mixing in a bit of truth about the city Junya. “And I’m not overly worried because like I said, there isn’t really anything to steal.”

“Well, I don’t know about that. This is a fine boat.” Captain Kwon looked around with an appraising eye.

“You’d spread your crew thin sailing two ships,” Tam stated bluntly.

Captain Kwon’s slanted eyes drifted back to Tam, and after a moment of silent evaluation, he scoffed. “See, there’s that superior attitude that tells me you aren’t just some scholar, and I don’t like being lied to in my waters. Now, how about you let me know who you really are, or…” the pirate pulled his sword, and Tam could tell by the way he gracefully angled his feet that he was damn good at using it. “I’ll kill everyone on this ship and take whatever I find. It won’t be hard to steer a ship to Ori and sell it off anyway. Not since the creature has been lurking around.”

“Creature?” Tam frowned.

Captain Kwon began stretching the wrist of his hand holding his sword, making the blade weave lazily closer to Tam.

“Ah, you haven’t heard about ships disappearing around Zinfera? Gone without a trace… No survivors. The only reason anyone knows it isn’t liberal sailors such as ourselves, is a young deckhand happened to see it happening one day from another merchant ship. After alerting his captain, well… Every spyglass was spoken for.”

Tam felt his heart skip several beats. “What did it-”

With a quick jolt, Captain Kwon’s sword tip dove forward, and stopped abruptly, hovering an inch from Tam’s left eye.

Tam’s hands had seized the rail behind him, prepared to launch himself off the back. His magic surged in him, and the wretched sensation felt like it was trying to tear apart his skin from his muscles…

The captain smirked, and opened his mouth to most likely say something along the lines of how he didn’t feel like talking about the mysterious sea creature plaguing the Alcide Sea near Zinfera’s shores, when he noticed a flicker by the lantern to Tam’s right…

His eyes swiveled to it… And discovered black wisps streaked with silver in the light, fluttering from Tam’s skin.

“What-”

It was Tam’s turn to interrupt Captain Kwon as his left forearm came up in a flash while the captain was distracted, knocking the blade aside and before the captain could recover, Tam had shot his heel into his lean gut.

There were shouts from the pirate ship, and the pounding of boots on the deck of their ship thundered like a coming storm…

But the captain held up his hand, halting the ruckus, his eyes intent, and wide on Tam as he slowly brought himself to standing after recovering from being kicked.

“You aren’t a normal human, are you?”

Tam’s insides graduated to sharp prickles thanks to his magic to the point that it made his brain feel like it was crawling with ants.

“You should go back to your ship and say there is nothing of value here,” the future duke’s voice came out a rasp, and he didn’t dare move in that moment.

He could feel the power leaking from him against his will.

The pirate captain tried to smile with his former bravado but failed horribly. The grip on his sword turned unsteady.

“I’m not leaving until I get something of value from this ship.”

“You don’t value your own life?” Tam locked eyes with the captain, and the man paled.

“This Daxarian crew can’t hold up against-”

“I don’t need the crew to deal with you.” Tam knew it was dangerous to take a step closer to the captain. Knew he was hanging on by a thread to his magic… but he needed to wrap things up quickly. He needed to go to a small, safe room, and get his magic to stop trying to tear him, and anything around him, apart.

The captain made the grave error then, in interpreting Tam’s desperate gaze, to mean that he had the upper hand.

Unbeknownst to Captain Kwon, over his shoulder, Tam noticed someone emerging from below deck…

Luca.

Eli was scrambling up behind him… The boy must have thought he could run up and help. He had probably heard the earlier commotion on the boat beside them and thought the fighting had started.

The five men that the pirate captain had boarded with all looked at Luca and Eli, and their swords lifted.

Tam’s grasp of control dissolved.

“Men!” the captain roared, intending to follow up the call with orders…

However, he discovered his sword was on the ground, and his attention was suddenly consumed with the sight with Tam’s pale face, with eyes filled with obsidian, and black and silver smokey tendrils fanning out from his body, seemingly consuming the world around him. How had he moved so quickly…?

Captain Kwon soiled himself, and then he was thrown overboard before he could even recognize that he’d done so.

Tam swallowed with difficulty, still battling against his power…

The pendant underneath his shirt glowed as he started to utter guttural words and turn toward the stairs that would take him back down to the main deck where four of the captain’s men that had previously been heading toward Eli and Luca had bolted up to help their captain.

Tam pulled out his two knives from behind him, still murmuring under his breath, making the glowing crystal under his shirt gleam brighter, and brighter.

By the time the pirates had reached his deck, Tam had successfully battled back the darkness that had poured from him, but his eyes remained filled with inky pools that, when they fixed on the first two pirates, made them falter. Their murderous expressions falling to fearful ones.

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He approached them, fluidly flipped a blade in his hand, and when they attempted to return to their senses in order to lunge at him, found they were too slow, and they, too, joined their captain in the cold waters of the Alcide Sea– alive, thankfully.

The next two on the stairs following their crewmates happened to be more seasoned in skirmishes, and so, when Tam’s black gaze turned toward them, while they were taken aback, they recovered in an instant.

Gripping either side of the railing, Tam swung his legs up, and when the pirate in front tried to slice Tam’s leg off just below the knee, had his blade kicked aside with Tam’s left boot heel, and his chin smashed with his right, sending him tumbling back into his fellow pirate.

Tam glanced over where he had last seen Eli and Luca, and was momentarily relieved to see that his assistant had somehow managed to shove Luca back below deck despite her not being all that large herself, but when Tam saw Eli staring up at the pirate that easily had more than a hundred pound advantage approaching her, he leapt over the pirates that were still recovering on the deck at the bottom of the stairs, and sprinted toward her.

He wasn’t successful in getting to Eli, however, before more of the pirates had stormed the gangplank. Luckily, some of the crew on Tam’s ship had sprung into action to stop the entire pirate crew from coming on, but the ones that had made it over had already seen what Tam had done to their fellow pirates, and identified him as the biggest problem to handle.

Three of the pirates appeared in front of Tam. Unbeknownst to the future duke, his eyes had temporarily returned to normal, but three obstacles with poor hygiene appearing in his sights between himself and Eli had them flickering back to blackness.

“Gods… it’s the devil…” One of the pirates gasped while his two accomplices standing on either side of him shared nervous glances.

“Get off this ship.” Tam couldn’t tell what he looked like in that moment, but he hurriedly reasoned out that if they already looked terrified of him and were calling him the devil, there was a chance he could get them to flee without having to fight them.

Sadly, the seasoned sea dogs were determined to uphold their dignity as pirates, and so with gritted teeth, the two Zinferan pirates lunged toward Tam with their curved swords.

Luckily for Tam, neither of them were quite as skilled as their captain, and so he was able to step back, then to the side out of their reach, his eyes darting to Eli just in time to see her dodge a swipe of another pirate’s sword, followed by Captain Pinnel’s arrival and interference to save her.

The time it took Tam to see this had distracted him long enough that the next slash that came directed toward his middle, he wasn’t quick enough in dodging, and as a result he felt the awful, stinging pain of getting sliced across his abdomen.

Stumbling back, his free hand seizing his wounded gut, Tam saw the sword swinging back toward him a second time, but he was able to move quickly enough that he dodged it, and succeeded in plunging his knife into his assailant’s kidney.

The pirate crumpled onto his side, taking Tam’s blade with him, and giving the two other pirate comrades a better opportunity to strike him.

Fortunately, Tam had been trained for such circumstances, and so he lowered his head, leapt over the body of the man he had just stabbed, and rammed his shoulder into the nearest pirate, toppling the two over together much in the same way he had with the other two pirates on the stairs.

By the time this happened, the first mate of Tam’s ship, Declan, appeared and was able to give the killing blow to the pirate that had fallen as a result of his crewmate being shoved at him, but the one Tam had shouldered had already recovered and drew a knife from his boot, shot upward, and thrust the blade toward Tam’s throat.

Seeing this, Tam seized the pirate’s arm with his left hand, then elbowed back with his right arm, breaking the pirate’s nose.

Declan ran the final man through right in time for them to hear shouts from the pirate ship beside them that they had already steering away from.

“WE’RE TAKING ON WATER!”

Tam released a breath of relief to see that the pirate ship had already moved far enough away that no one could jump or throw hooks that could reach them. After a quick scan around himself, Tam saw that the other pirates that had managed to get on board had been dispatched by the crew, though there was a Daxarian man Tam had seen on deck of his own ship managing the sails that was lying quite still near the railing where the gangplank was…

Closing his eyes in both pain and guilt, the future duke tried to steady the world around him as it began to spin.

Only, it occurred to him then that the first mate wasn’t saying anything despite his passenger being quite obviously injured…

Opening his eyes again, Tam squinted and peered at Declan who flinched in response.

If he hadn’t been focused on the throbbing pain that was radiating from his middle, Tam would’ve felt his stomach churn at the fear in the man’s eyes.

However, Tam decided that was something he could worry about later as, with shuffling steps he made his way toward the stairs that would take him below deck, where he would first check on Eli and Luca, and then maybe see about bandaging his wound.

The stickiness of his blood and the metallic smell grew stronger in Tam’s nose, and while it was far from his favorite scent, he was at least somewhat used to it.

With a shaking right hand, Tam seized the railing, and started to descend down below deck.

“My lord! My lord, I brought bandages, a needle, and thread! I put Luca back in your cabin– I’m so sorry he came above deck, he heard the commotion and got worried about you and-” Eli had rushed up the stairs to his side, but when she noticed the blood staining his shirt stopped talking abruptly.

Tam halted on the second step and leaned his head against the wooden wall. He shook his head slowly, and immediately regretted it as the urge to be sick started to build.

“Not… Your fault… You’re fine? He’s fine?”

“Yes, my lord,” Eli assured with a firm nod, though she was looking a mite shaken herself.

“Good… Good. Let’s go to your cabin. I don’t want Luca seeing this…” Tam swallowed and then resumed his journey back down the stairs, wondering if he was going to vomit or faint first.

“My lord, I… Luca did not see it, but I… I saw something when you faced the captain… It was like everything around you and he went black… Was that-”

“I don’t ask about your magic, you don’t ask about mine,” Tam managed as he touched down on the corridor deck that would take him to Eli’s cabin.

“I-I wasn’t sure if it was your magic. My apologies, my lord… I was confused. Especially when it seemed like that necklace you’re wearing was glowing like a mage crystal.”

Tam halted his progress, and looked at Eli.

Surprisingly, she didn’t flinch.

“If we’re asking questions now, does your magic somehow make you lighter on your feet?”

Eli’s lips pressed shut, and Tam, having expected this reaction, proceeded forward to her cabin.

He just wanted to deal with the pain of getting stitched over with so he could go to bed.

Hopefully the following day he could have some time to rest and think about everything that had transpired.

Though unbeknownst to him, the surviving pirate crew and even the members of the vessel he rode were all discussing how the mysterious passenger with dark power, had to be none other than the devil, son of the Gods, creator of evil. Though the pirates still hadn’t the faintest idea what Tam’s true identity was.