The sea was quiet again.
But it wasn't peace — it was the kind of silence that follows after something has died.
Harrow sat on a piece of driftwood, soaked to the bone, blood dried along his temple. Around him, the surviving crew huddled on the rocky beach of a nameless cove, far from the smoke and screams they'd fled. Some were bruised, others wounded, all of them broken in spirit.
No one spoke.
The fire crackled in the center, but it did nothing to warm them.
No one asked about Syrena. No one dared.
Harrow stared at the water for hours, expecting—hoping—to see a figure rise from the waves. A sign. A shadow. Anything.
But she didn't come back.
And Sawyer...
Sawyer was gone.
Aboard the Spanish Flagship
Cheers echoed across the deck. Spanish soldiers lifted mugs, celebrating the surprise victory. Their boots pounded the planks in rhythm. One of them sang off-key. Another fired a pistol into the air just for the sound of it.
In the middle of it all, Sawyer sat in silence.
Shackled. Bloodied. Soaked.
He didn't move. Didn't speak.
A cut on his cheek bled slowly. His wrists were raw from fighting his chains during the ambush, but now he barely seemed to notice.
A few soldiers threw insults at him, called him devil, coward, pirata muerto. One even spat at him.
He didn't flinch.
The captain of the Spanish fleet stepped toward him at one point, smug and slow, crouching to meet Sawyer's dead-eyed stare.
"You fought well," he said in thick, accented English. "But you lost. I hope she was worth it."
Still, Sawyer didn't speak.
He couldn't.
He had seen her die.
The only soul aboard who'd matched him stride for stride, blade for blade. The only one who didn't look at him like a monster. The girl who mopped blood off his floor, cursed him with her eyes, and fought beside him with fire in her lungs.
Thrown into the sea like nothing.
He had promised himself he would die at sea — not shackled, not defeated.
But right now… he wasn't even sure he wanted to live at all.
Back at the Cove
"We need a plan," someone muttered.
"For what?" another snapped. "We've got no ship, no captain, and no idea where they took him."
"They'll kill him."
"No," Harrow said hoarsely, rising to his feet. "They won't kill him. They want him humiliated. They want to parade him. That means we still have time."
One of the younger crewmen, eyes wide and red-rimmed, looked up. "What about Syrena? She— She's not really…"
Harrow looked at the sea.
And for a moment, just a breath, he thought he saw a ripple that didn't belong. Like something had slipped beneath the surface.
"I don't know," he said quietly. "But if there's even a chance she's alive… we don't stop fighting."
He turned back to the crew.
"We get Sawyer back. We burn the bastards down. And if she's out there…"
He swallowed.
"We bring her home."