Talia had been sleeping soundly in one of the many hammocks set up on the mid-floor of the galleon when an astoundingly loud shout shook her, and the rest of the Promises awake.

“Alright, you barnacle-encrusted bilge rats! Time to prove your worth or be tossed into the Abyss!”

Talia almost fell straight to the ground as she tried to look up to see one of the older Water Riders shouting at the top of his lungs.

“Professor Iakopo is waiting to get your sorry mugs wet!”

Fuck, was her only thought as she rose to her feet. I hope they’ll let us have breakfast at least. I’m starving.

***

They did not, in fact, let Talia have breakfast.

She was dragged onto the deck, still half-asleep, while a rough-looking man with messy hair and an unkempt stubble of a beard sitting on a stool, sloshed the content of a bottle against the sun and swore at it.

“Have we run out of rhum already?” The man talked to himself, ignoring the lines of students that had gathered on deck.

Even from afar, he smelled like rum, and something earthy—perhaps seaweed.

His face was marked by a big, jagged scar running from his left temple to his chin.

Despite his rough appearance, however, there was a sharpness in his eyes that contradicted his apparent inebriation.

“Professor Iakopo?” one of the older Water Riders ventured cautiously, clearing his throat.

“Right, right,” Iakopo muttered, pushing himself to his feet with a groan.

He scanned the fresh recruits before him, his gaze lingering on each face.

When his eyes met Talia's, she felt a chill run down her spine.

There was something in that look—recognition? Or maybe curiosity?

There was something that unsettled her.

She felt recognized in a chilling way, a way that didn’t feel good at all.

The next moment, the man grunted, tossing the empty bottle aside.

It clattered across the deck, rolling to a stop at Talia's feet.

She instinctively took a step back to avoid it.

“You shouldn’t break formation,” the Professor told Talia.

“I’m sorry, the bottle—”

“The bottle doesn’t bite,” the Professor said.

A few laughs came from behind Talia.

“Flinching in the face of a little threat means you might get someone killed during your first battle,” Professor Iakopo continued.

“I—”

“So,” he began, his voice gravelly but clear, “you lot think you've got what it takes to be Water Riders, eh?”

He paced in front of them, hands clasped behind his back.

“Well, let me tell you something—”

The man seemed suddenly lost in his trail of thought.

“What was I saying?” He frowned.

“Heh, whatever.”

The man who had woken the Promises up facepalmed and looked away, cringing at the Professor’s theatrics.

“The Water Riders do…”

He let the words hang, drawing the attention of every single recruit who now waited for an important speech.

“Tough stuff,” he concluded.

The recruits immediately started looking at each other with raised eyebrows and whispering about the Professor’s competence and the inebriated state he was currently versed in.

Talia exchanged a quick glance with Fiora, who rolled her eyes dramatically.

Even Takai, usually so eager to please everyone, looked uncertain.

But something her father had mentioned brought her attention back to the man.

“Never trust appearances in the Academy. Never.”

Talia looked at the Professor, who, under the guise of drunkenness, examined his pupils with sharp eyes, one after another.

“Shaker,” Professor Iakopo turned toward the rowdy-looking sailor that had woken them up, “tell them how the Initiation works—I need to sit.”

“Yessir,” Shaker stroked his brownish-blonde beard and laughed, showing several missing teeth from his maws.

Shaker stepped forward, a wicked grin spreading across his scarred face.

“Listen up, you sorry excuses for flotsam!” he bellowed. “Professor Iakopo here's gonna see which of you landlubbers has the guts to become real Water Riders!”

He paced along the line of recruits, eyeing each one critically.

“Now, I'll let you in on a little secret,” he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial growl. “Our esteemed Professor here? He's got quite a reputation. They call him the 'Recruit-Killer.'”

Iakopo, sitting behind on his stool, exhaled.

“It’s an exaggeration – not that many recruits have died under me. They’ve just failed out of the Academy because of me.”

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Shaker looked back at the Professor with an affronted look for having interrupted his speech and then back at the students.

The students were sure that Professor Iakopo had just said that to reassure them, but because of the way the man carried himself, they were now much more scared than after hearing Shaker call him a Recruit-killer.

In fact, the Professor denying it made them really nervous.

“That's right,” Shaker continued, clearly relishing the fear he was instilling. “Less than one in ten makes it through Professor Iakopo's test. The rest? Well, let's just say the Deep's always hungry.”

He paused for dramatic effect, his eyes gleaming with malicious amusement.

“So here's how it's gonna work. The good Professor cooked up something special for you a lot. You'll be facing your fears and testing your mettle against the horrors of the Deep. And if you're lucky – or tough enough – you might just survive to become Water Riders.”

Talia glanced at Fiora and Takai.

The blonde had her jaw locked in place, her teeth grinding manically.

Takai, instead, looked extremely pale.

“Any questions?” Shaker asked, his tone suggesting that questions were not, in fact, welcome.

A timid hand rose from the back of the group.

“W-what kind of test is it exactly?” a trembling male voice asked.

Shaker's grin widened, revealing more gaps in his teeth.

“Oh, you'll find out soon enough, lad. Let's just say it'll make you wish you'd stayed in your mother's arms.”

As if on cue, a low, ominous rumble began emanating from beneath the ship.

The deck trembled slightly, and several recruits stumbled.

Professor Iakopo, who had been seemingly dozing off on his stool, suddenly stood up.

His eyes were clear and sharp, all traces of drunkenness gone.

“It's time,” he said, his voice carrying an authority that hadn't been there before. “Prepare yourselves, Promises. Your trial begins now.”

The ship lurched violently, and chaos erupted on the deck.

The galleon tilted sixty degrees to the left, so much that it looked like it might capsize.

Most recruits, who had been standing at attention, immediately tumbled to the ground.

Talia, who had seen something coming, immediately called upon the glaive she had left below deck with [Recall].

As soon as the weapon hit her hand, she slammed it into the floor of the galleon, using it to prop herself upright and assess the situation around her.

Things weren’t looking great.

Most islanders, if not all of them, had sailed on boats of all sizes.

That meant that even the most inexperienced recruit wasn’t a land-hugger and, therefore, not completely helpless while the boat tilted. However, even though most had managed to avoid being thrown overboard, the majority slammed into the railing, one against the other, cracking ribs or worse. Some had been close enough to one of the masts to hold onto the rope or the opposite side of the railing above.

But only a few were doing better.

Among those, Fiora. She had jumped as soon as the boat started tilting, sprinting for the rope attached to the main mast.

She clung to it with a raised eyebrow, scanning the others, crossing Talia’s gaze as they both exchanged a knowing nod.

Behind Talia, instead, Takai, who had now fully healed the injuries he had received from the Abyssal Scuttlers, had been lucky enough to be close to the door that brought below deck.

He hugged the casing on both sides of the door with his midriff glued to its jamb.

Talia noticed that aside from the three Initiated, who were at a clear advantage thanks to their Attributes, another teen was faring pretty well, considering the sudden challenge.

The recruit had unsheathed two daggers from his side and planted them hard into the deck, keeping his body low to minimize the outward swing.

“Well,” Professor Iakopo said, still magically sitting on his stool as if it was nothing, “we have eliminated a few already. Careful now—all those who fall into the water are out.”

Then, as fast as the boat had swung one way, it swung the other way.

The ship's violent lurch back to starboard sent a wave of chaos cascading across the deck.

Bodies and loose objects alike became projectiles.

Talia gripped her glaive tighter, setting it deeper into the wooden planks as she braced herself.

She found herself in the path of a hurtling mass of limbs, though – several recruits who couldn’t hold onto the railing of the ship.

With a swift, fluid motion, she pulled her glaive free and used its momentum to pivot her body.

The group of recruits tumbled past, missing her by inches.

Talia's heart raced as she slammed the glaive back onto the deck, panting from the exertion, ever grateful for having invested all her Free Attributes into Strength.

She had barely regained her balance when a heavy coil of rope slid across the deck, almost sweeping her off her feet.

Quickly jumping up and tucking her knees to her chest as the rope whipped beneath her, Talia avoided the object by a narrow margin.

It briefly impacted the glaive, but thankfully, the weapon only budged a little, making the floorboards below creak ominously.

On the other side, Fiora, lithe and nimble as a Flashscale, swung gracefully on her rope.

With catlike reflexes, she twisted her body, narrowly avoiding a flailing recruit who careened past her.

Not far from them, the dagger-wielding teenager showcased a different kind of grace.

As a heavy crate skidded toward him, he didn't panic.

Instead, he waited until the last possible moment before executing a tight roll. The crate scraped by, missing him by a hair's breadth. He came up in a crouch, daggers still firmly planted on the deck.

Who is that? Talia thought, still looking at the railing, expecting perhaps something – or someone – to fall.

But as the ship stopped its tilt at the sixty-degree angle, she saw that all the recruits on the above side of the railing were gripping the wood as if their life depended on it – which, given the circumstances, it might as well have.

Talia allowed herself a moment to catch her breath.

A wry smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

I wasn’t that far from being eliminated, she thought, sighing.

It was in this moment of relative stability that the impossible occurred.

A large wooden barrel seemed to materialize from the very air itself.

Talia couldn’t believe her eyes, scrambling to figure out what had just happened.

She knew, with absolute certainty, that no such barrel had been on deck mere heartbeats ago.

Yet here it was, all too solid, all too real, and hurtling directly at her with frightening speed.

Time seemed to slow as Talia's instincts screamed at her to do something.

But the barrel was too close to do anything.

She could only watch, eyes wide with disbelief, as the barrel bore down upon her.

In that stretched moment, she noticed some details with unnatural clarity: the wood grain, a spot of pitch on one of the iron bands, and the way the sunlight gleamed off its curved surface.

Then, time snapped back into its normal flow, and the barrel struck her.

The impact was devastating – a sledgehammer blow that sent shockwaves through Talia's body.

Air exploded from her lungs in a pained gasp.

Her grip on the glaive, so sure just moments ago, was torn away as if it were nothing more than a child's toy.

Talia felt her feet leave the deck, and her body launched into an uncontrolled arc through the air.

As she tumbled, the world became a dizzying blur of sky and sea.

Talia's stomach lurched, her sense of up and down completely disoriented.

Through the chaos of her flight, one thought crystallized in her mind with terrifying clarity: she was going overboard.

The Deep was to receive her, her aspirations, and all her dreams of making it into the Academy.

“Talia!” Fiora's voice cut through the chaos.

Talia saw Fiora release the mast, sprint across the deck, and grasp a coil of rope.

With a fluid motion, Fiora sent the rope snaking through the air.

It cut a graceful arc, uncoiling as it flew, aimed towards Talia's tumbling form.

Hope surged in Talia's chest as she saw the rope approach.

Her hand stretched out.

For a breathless moment, it seemed she would make it.

The rough fibers of the rope brushed Talia's fingertips, so close she could almost close her grip around it.

But then, inexplicably, impossibly, the rope moved.

It twisted in mid-air as if imbued with a life of its own.

It curved away from Talia's desperate grasp.

Her eyes widened in shock and disbelief.

In that fractional moment, a certainty settled in her gut: this was magic.

Subtle, insidious, and undeniably intentional.

The rope's unnatural trajectory left Talia grasping at empty air, her fingers closing on nothing but the salt-tinged breeze.

Her momentum, unabated, carried her past the point of no return.

She felt the exact moment when her whole body tipped over the railing, suspended for a heartbeat between ship and sea, as her gaze locked with Fiora's.

She saw shock there. And fear.

Then, she realized something.

Fiora had seen it, too – the unnatural movement.

It’s foul play, she realized.

And then, as gravity reasserted its hold on her, Talia plummeted toward the roiling waves.