Chapter 17: Maelstrom of Ash and Oath

The dawn broke in silence.

Not the kind born from peace, but from something else—an aching hush before collapse, a breath before the plunge. The sea stretched quiet and black to the horizon, the Duskwind floating atop it like a wounded beast. Smoke from splintered lanterns and charred sailcloth still lingered in the air, drifting like lost spirits.

Mara stood at the bow, staring into that hushed expanse, her fingers wrapped tightly around the railing. Her knuckles were raw, skin cracked from salt and steel. The Crowncleaver lay in a salt-smeared sheath at her side, the metal still faintly warm from yesterday's battle.

Behind her, the crew moved like ghosts.

They patched what could be patched. Hauled the dead with reverence. Whispered prayers to gods they had not spoken to in years. And for once, even Abyr said nothing.

Mara did not mourn. She remembered.

Every name. Every scream. Every soul ripped into the sea by that monstrous maw.

Lirien approached quietly, her steps soft and hesitant. "There are only thirty-two of us left," she said, voice barely audible. "We started with seventy."

Mara nodded. Her voice felt too heavy to use, like it would crack beneath the weight of the names she hadn't yet spoken aloud.

"What do we do now?" Lirien asked.

Mara turned her head. Her eyes, rimmed in exhaustion and salt, burned with something deeper than anger.

"We move."

Echoes of the Maw

The Duskwind limped onward.

Beneath the surface, the Maw still churned. The sea remembered what had been awoken. No creature like that ever truly died—it waited. Nursing its wounds. Watching. Remembering.

"We're being followed," Darion said one night, squinting at the glass lens of his spyglass. His hands trembled slightly, the skin around his wounds dark with bruising. "No sails. No lights. Just a ripple in the water that never fades."

"A second horror?" Abyr asked, voice hard.

"No," Mara replied. "The same one. It wants to see if we bleed."

So they sailed. Toward the east. Toward flame-touched skies and floating bones that marked the Pirate Graveway. Toward the whisper of a name: the Shardbreaker.

A relic. A warship lost during the great rebellion of the Driftborn. Said to hold the last weapon forged before the sea's magic was locked away. Said to sing when awakened.

And now, Mara needed it.

The Graveway

They arrived two days later.

A place where broken ships floated half-submerged, tied together by salt-rotted ropes and prayer chains. The Graveway stank of old ghosts, and even the wind refused to linger. Carrion birds circled, but did not land. The sea itself felt slower, heavier, like it carried the weight of a thousand last breaths.

"No one comes here unless they have to," Abyr muttered, eyes narrowed.

"We're well past want," Mara said.

Boarding the wrecks was like entering another world. Wooden husks groaned under their weight. Bones crunched beneath boots. Seaweed-draped corpses, bound by Driftborn rites, lay untouched by time. The air was thick with the scent of rust and old rot.

And then came the whispers.

At first faint. Then louder. Then everywhere.

Voices, calling Mara's name. Promising forgiveness. Promising power. Calling her "Daughter of the Drowned." Calling her home.

"Ignore them," she growled.

"They sound like my mother," Darion said, eyes wide, voice shaking. "Like she's standing right behind me."

"That's what they do," Mara said. "They take your grief and feed it back to you."

At the heart of the Graveway, they found her.

The Shardbreaker.

Half-buried in coral and riddled with harpoons, her hull was still intact. Her figurehead—a weeping woman carved from driftwood—had no eyes. Inside, a vault sealed in saltglass and bound with blood-oaths. Abyr smashed it open with three blows of his hammer, the sound echoing like judgment.

Inside, lay a cannon forged not with metal, but with the bones of sea dragons. Etched with runes too old to name. And beside it, a blade with a hilt carved from obsidian reef. Its edge shimmered with blue fire.

Mara lifted it.

It hummed.

The crew watched in awe.

The sea did not.

The Drowned Host

Night fell.

And the sea came alive.

Shapes moved through the mist. Not ships. Not beasts.

People.

No—what remained of them.

Eyes glowing like lanterns. Mouths full of salt. Hands clenching rusted weapons. Their skin bloated, waterlogged, their armor still bearing the sigils of the old kingdoms that had once warred and drowned.

"The Drowned Host," Lirien breathed. "Cursed warriors. Sent by the Tide to drag the living under."

Mara stepped forward. "Then let them try."

The Duskwind shook as the dead swarmed the wrecks. Screams erupted. Steel clashed. Bullets sang.

Mara and Darion fought back-to-back, the new blade she wielded glowing with each strike. Each swing cleaved the dead in two, burning them from the inside out. Abyr crushed skulls, roared prayers, bled for every inch they held. Lirien hurled fire from broken lanterns, setting corpses alight.

But they were too many.

Until the cannon fired.

A sound like the end of the world split the air. The shot tore through the mist and turned the water black with fire. A dozen of the Drowned simply disintegrated. A tidal shock rolled out in every direction.

The Drowned Host fled.

Or burned.

Or sank.

The sea swallowed its dead once more.

Oaths in Flame

When dawn came again, the Graveway was silent.

The Duskwind's deck was scorched. Blood soaked into the timbers. Smoke curled from cracks in the planks. But the crew still stood. They bore their wounds like armor, their silence like steel.

Mara stepped to the center of the deck. Held the obsidian blade high. Her eyes glowed faintly now, sea-wind tugging at her hair like it recognized her as kin.

"We have faced the abyss. Faced gods, monsters, the very dead. And we are not done. We carry the names of the fallen in every breath. In every strike."

She looked to the horizon, where the Iron Tide waited with its black sails and shadowed cannons.

"Let them come. We are the storm."

And the sea roared in answer.

The crew began chanting.

Not loud. Not brave. But steady. A prayer to salt and blood and broken promises.

Mara closed her eyes.

The storm was no longer behind them.

It was within.