Grimnir

The sea cracked like thunder. The Leviathan burned. Black sails tore in the frozen gales as Captain Ahab, rogue of the Shattered Sea and once-prince of the southern isles, watched his beloved ship—his pride—sink beneath ice-choked waters.

They came like a storm. Not the navy. Not the Capitol Patrol Guard. But Captain Brask—leading a detachment of the Pirate King's fleet. Warships of impossible size. Spiked hulls. Bone-carved bows. Harpoons that screamed through the sky. Cannons forged in dragonfire.

Ahab stood on his crumbling deck, one eye bleeding, lips curled in defiance. But there was no victory that day. Just fire, ice, and the taste of salt and blood.

Kalindra on the other side, she through the smoke, she danced—barefoot on burning planks, soaked in the blood of their dying crew. Kalindra, vice-captain of the Leviathan. The jewel of the north seas. A woman of few morals and fewer layers of clothing.

Her combat garb—already scandalously minimal—was shredded in the chaos. Silk strips clung to her like whispers, revealing long legs wrapped in black runes, and a stomach carved with ritualistic scars. Her beauty wasn't just fatal. It was weaponized. Entire garrisons had surrendered at the sight of her.

But Kalindra was no helpless siren. She slit a pirate's throat with her boot blade, then reached for Ahab. Then, they jumped—into the freezing abyss—just before the Leviathan sank.

They floated. Days blurred. Time dissolved. Clinging to wreckage, Ahab and Kalindra drifted across the deadliest current in Frost Reign, known to pull even skyships beneath. Frozen. Bleeding. Silent.

Kalindra lost consciousness first. Her pale lips touched Ahab's wrist, the only warmth left between them. He held her there, refusing to let the sea take her. He didn't care about treasure or revenge in that moment.

When their makeshift raft slammed into jagged ice, they were barely alive. The place they landed was no haven. It was Port Grimnir—a forgotten outpost swallowed by the Frost Reign centuries ago. Once a thriving smuggler's den, now a cursed husk. Locals said the wind there could whisper your sins, and fire couldn't survive a full night.

They were found by scavengers—tribal men with bone masks and blue warpaint, dragging them to shelter without a word. Ahab awoke in a stone chamber lit by ghostfire lanterns. His coat was stiff with dried blood. His pistol was gone. The room stank of whale oil and rot.

Across the room, standing in nothing but a fur pelt draped lazily around her curves—Kalindra. She leaned against the icy wall, brushing her long wet hair back with one hand, a dagger in the other. Her legs bare, arms crossed under her exposed chest, her gaze smoldering.

Ahab rose from the stone bed, each movement a fresh ache. His ribs screamed. His mind, slower than usual, burned only with one thought: she's alive.

Kalindra stood by the wall, arms folded under the pelt barely draped over her body. Her skin gleamed like frost under lantern-glow, but her eyes... her eyes were fire.

He limped toward her, each step crunching faintly over frost and grit. She turned her head slightly. Her voice was a low breath, husky and tired. "You shouldn't be walking."

But he didn't stop. Ahab closed the distance, arms wrapping around her bare waist. She didn't resist. Her body tensed for a heartbeat, then melted into his. One hand tangled in her damp hair, the other pressed against the small of her back as he pulled her close—like he could anchor himself to her warmth, her pulse, her life. He kissed her.

It wasn't desperate or fiery. It was slow, cold lips finding warmth for the first time in days. Her fingers curled around his shirt as if she were the one drowning now. "You're alive," he whispered against her mouth.

"And you're a damn fool," she whispered back, her voice cracking.

They stood like that for a long moment, letting the silence say what survival couldn't. Then Ahab's voice returned, thick and low. "Where are the others?"

The room felt colder. Kalindra's arms loosened. She stepped back, eyes duller now, a thin line of breath escaping her lips like smoke. "I... I don't know," she said, shaking her head.

"Helga? Jonas? Briggs? Squib?"

"I don't know."

"Dregor... Old Harsk... Faerin?"

She turned her face away. "Ahab, the last thing I remember—Leviathan was cracking beneath us. Brask's harpoons tore straight through the stern. You yelled something—I think to Faerin—and then... it was water. Cold and black. Then I woke up here."

Silence. Ahab closed his eyes. He could still hear the screams, the smell of burning pitch, the gurgled roar of Dregor as he tried to hold the port side with his bare arms.

But worst of all—"Commodore Pecks," he murmured, almost to himself.

His shoulder twitched as if expecting the weight of the bird. The cursing. The pecking. That little wool scarf Squib knitted from fishing string and rat fur. The tiny gold hoop that shimmered like a sunbeam when he flared his wings. Gone.

"That foul-mouthed bastard owed me a drink," Ahab said, chuckling through tight breath. "Little demon had more sass than sense."

Kalindra didn't laugh. Instead, she stepped closer, pressing her forehead against his chest. "I'm sorry," she said. "I held on to what I could. I didn't see anyone else. Just wreckage... ice... silence."

Ahab wrapped his arms around her again, tighter this time. Just as Ahab's oath still hung in the cold air, the heavy wooden door creaked open. Both turned sharply.

Kalindra's hand went to the dagger tucked under the fur near her thigh. Ahab instinctively shifted in front of her, though his ribs screamed at the movement. The door opened fully with a groaning hinge.

A figure stepped into the lantern light—stooped but broad-shouldered, wrapped in a heavy reindeer pelt that dragged slightly behind him. His beard was white and frost-bitten, long enough to be braided in places, his face lined like cracked leather, eyes sunken but sharp.

He carried a large tray: two steaming bowls of thick stew, a jug of dark mead, and a stack of flatbread still warm from the fire. He said nothing at first as he set the tray down on the nearby stone table.

Then, without looking at them, he spoke—his voice like gravel grinding beneath an avalanche. "Eat. You'll need strength. Storm's not done yet."

Ahab narrowed his eyes. "You saved us?"

The old man gave a snort, not quite a laugh. "Didn't drag you in. Frost tide did. You were near blue by the time you hit the shallows. That one—" he gestured vaguely toward Kalindra, "—would've frozen to death if the dogs hadn't started barking."

Kalindra straightened but said nothing. The man turned toward them finally, eyes settling first on Ahab—then lingering longer on Kalindra. "Not many crawl back from the Grave Current alive," he muttered. "Let alone two half-drowned corpses looking like they took on a warship."

Ahab said nothing. His silence was an answer. The man squinted harder. Then, as if something clicked behind those old, glacier-colored eyes, he pointed a crooked finger. "You... you're the one Brask sunk."

Ahab didn't confirm it. He didn't have to. "You sailed the Leviathan," the old man said grimly. "I heard. Everyone in Frost Reign has."

He walked slowly toward the firepit, back still turned to them, then tossed another log into the embers. "Then hear me now, boy," he said, voice low and thunderous. "Don't even think about avenging your crew."

"Why not?" Ahab snapped. "Because I failed?"

The old man turned back, eyes suddenly sharper than steel. "Because Vorrugal doesn't leave survivors. Brask was just the leash. Vorrugal's the hound."

He stepped closer, letting the firelight reveal the deep scars running down his arms—old burns, bite marks, and worse.

"He commands three to five thousand ships."

Kalindra's eyes darkened. "You've seen them?"

"I sailed with them," the old man said coldly. "Long ago. Vorrugal's fleet isn't a navy—it's a damn legend made of nightmares. You name them, I've fought beside them—or against them."

The old man sighed and sat on a worn bench. "Then don't die for nothing either," he said. "If you must seek blood... don't sail North. Not yet. You need coin. Maps. Allies. Magic, maybe."

"Then where do we start?" Ahab asked.

The old man's eyes gleamed, reluctantly interested.

"You start where all broken blades go to be reforged... Kharvendel."

"The free port. No king. No law. Only debts and deals."

"And after that?" Ahab pressed.

"After that... you better learn to swim in blood, pirate."