The pirates didn't bother to be gentle. They hauled Elias to his feet, their grips bruising on his arms, and dragged him across the chaotic deck of The Leviathan. He stumbled over discarded nets and slick patches of spilled rum, his gaze fixed on the splintered planking beneath his boots. He would not grant these men the satisfaction of seeing him look upon the stolen goods from his ship, the spoils of their butchery.

They shoved him toward a heavy grate near the main mast. One of the men heaved it open, revealing a dark, gaping maw that led into the ship’s belly. A wave of foul air billowed out, a stench so thick it was almost tangible. It was the smell of the deepest, most neglected part of a ship’s hold—stale bilge water, rot, and the sour odor of too many men confined in too small a space for too long. On The Sea Strider, such a smell would have meant a reprimand and a week of hard cleaning for the men responsible. On The Leviathan, it seemed to be the ship's natural perfume.

"Down," one of the pirates grunted, punctuating the order with a sharp jab in Elias’s back.

He didn't need to be told twice. Resisting here would only earn him more pain, and he needed to conserve his strength. He swung his legs into the opening and began the descent down the steep, slick ladder. The light from the deck vanished almost immediately, plunging him into a damp, oppressive gloom. His hands, accustomed to clean, well-maintained rigging, recoiled from the greasy film on the rungs.

At the bottom, a figure holding a single, sputtering lantern waited. The man was broad and silent, his face lost in the shadows cast by the weak flame. He gestured with his head, and Elias followed him down a narrow, low-ceilinged passage. The constant, groaning symphony of the ship was louder here—the creak of massive timbers under strain, the deep groan of the ballast shifting, and the ceaseless, rhythmic wash of the sea against the hull. These were sounds he knew intimately, but here they felt menacing, the death rattles of a dying beast.

The pirate stopped before a door made of thick, dark wood bound with heavy iron straps. A small, barred window was set in it at eye level. The pirate produced a large, rusted key and shoved it into the lock. The mechanism protested with a grating shriek as he turned it. He pulled the door open and then, with a final, contemptuous shove, sent Elias stumbling into the cell.

Elias caught his balance just before he hit the opposite wall. The door slammed shut behind him with the finality of a coffin lid. The heavy bolt slid home, its metallic clang echoing in the suffocating space. Then, the lantern light was gone, and he was plunged into absolute darkness.

He stood frozen for a long moment, his senses overwhelmed. The air was thick and wet, tasting of salt, mildew, and old despair. His eyes, straining against the blackness, could make out nothing. He reached out a hand and his fingers met the wall. It wasn't wood, but rough, cold stone, slick with a perpetual dampness that seeped through the hull. He slid down its surface until he was sitting on the floor, the thin layer of filthy straw doing little to cushion him from the hard deck below.

The sharp stalks pricked at him through the fine fabric of his trousers. The contrast was so stark it was dizzying. Just that morning, he had been in his cabin on The Sea Strider. A small space, yes, but it had been his. The scent of lemon oil on the polished wood of his small desk, the crisp, clean feel of the charts under his fingertips, the neatly folded blanket on his bunk. It was a world of order, of discipline, of control.

This… this was its opposite. This was a cage built of chaos and filth. A physical extension of the man who commanded this vessel. Rourke’s kingdom was built on a foundation of rot. Elias pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to block out the images of his crew, of Thomas falling, of the flames consuming his ship. But the images were burned onto the backs of his eyelids. The grief was a physical weight, pressing down on him, but beneath it, the hatred was a cold, sharp point. It was the only thing that felt real.

He would not rot in this hole. He would not allow them to break him down into one of the mindless animals that populated this ship. This cell was a prison, but his mind remained his own. He dropped his hands and stared into the impenetrable darkness, his breathing slowly evening out. The darkness was not just an absence of light. It could be a shield. Here, in the stinking guts of his enemy's ship, he was invisible. And from the darkness, he could watch. He could listen. He could learn.

Time became a fluid, shapeless thing in the darkness of the brig. Elias measured it only by the subtle shifts in the ship’s rhythm: the changing of the watch signaled by a series of thuds on the deck above, the distribution of food heralded by the clatter of metal bowls. His eyes, once useless, slowly adapted. The absolute black gave way to a world of deep greys and shifting shadows, fed by the sliver of light that bled from under his cell door and the tiny, barred window set within it.

This window became his world.

He spent hours standing there, his face pressed close to the iron bars, peering into the narrow passageway beyond. It was a main artery of the ship, connecting the lower decks and storage holds to the ladders that led topside. Men passed constantly, their faces briefly illuminated by the swinging lanterns hung at intervals down the corridor. He began to recognize them not by name, but by their gait, their scars, their mannerisms.

What he saw was a study in contradictions. The men were brutes, loud and crude. They swore constantly, their arguments often escalating into shoving matches that ended as quickly as they began. There was none of the crisp discipline of The Sea Strider. No salutes, no "sirs," no clean division of labor. A man might be mending a sail one moment and sharpening a cutlass the next, his work surrounded by a mess of discarded rope and empty bottles. To Elias’s orderly mind, it was pure anarchy, a ship run by wild dogs.

Yet, it ran. He would watch them haul barrels of fresh water from the deepest part of the hold, their movements clumsy but effective, a human chain that got the job done with half the men he would have assigned. He would hear a command bellowed from the quarterdeck—a sharp, clear order from Rourke—and the chaos would instantly coalesce into focused, violent purpose. An argument over a game of dice would be abandoned in a heartbeat if a sail needed trimming. The men would swarm up the ladders, their bare feet finding purchase on the rigging with an instinctual grace that belied their loutish behavior on deck. They moved not with the drilled precision of a naval crew, but with the fluid, predatory economy of a wolf pack, each animal knowing its role in the hunt.

Their devotion to Rourke was the most baffling part of the entire system. It was absolute, woven into the very fabric of their lives on The Leviathan. Elias would hear it in their boasts as they passed his cell.

"…took the eye right out of him, just like the Captain showed me."

"Rourke'll find us a prize soon enough. He's got the devil's own luck."

"Don't let the quartermaster catch you with that. The Captain wants all the good rum saved for Sanctuary."

They spoke of him not as a commander, but as a force of nature they were fortunate enough to be swept up in. The loyalty wasn't just born of the fear Elias had felt when Rourke had pressed a pistol to his head; it was deeper, laced with a fierce, possessive pride. Rourke was their monster, their king. He was the architect of the violence that gave their lives meaning and their pockets coin. Elias had commanded loyalty through competence, fairness, and the shared structure of maritime law. Rourke commanded it through sheer presence, through a reputation for both ruthlessness and reward that had become legend. These men would not just die for him; they would kill for him without a moment’s hesitation, and then toast his name over the bodies of their victims.

The thought was nauseating. It twisted the cold knot of hatred in his gut. Yet, a part of him—the detached, analytical mind of a first mate—could not help but be grimly fascinated. To inspire such unwavering allegiance in a crew of cutthroats and killers was a feat of leadership he couldn't deny, however depraved its source. He was watching a master at work, and the knowledge was a bitter pill to swallow.

He was standing at the bars, listening to the familiar sounds of the evening watch taking their posts, when a different sound cut through the din. Footsteps, heavier than the others. They weren't the shuffling tread of a guard or the hurried pace of a crewman on an errand. These were slow, deliberate, and confident. The sound of boots that knew every plank of this ship belonged to them. The footsteps stopped directly outside his door, and the sliver of light beneath it was abruptly blocked by a pair of tall, dark leather boots. Elias’s hands tightened on the iron bars as the world outside his cell fell silent.

The heavy bolt screeched as it was drawn back. The door swung inward with a low groan, and the sudden light from the corridor lantern blinded Elias. He squinted, raising a hand to shield his eyes. A figure filled the doorway, a silhouette against the light, tall and broad-shouldered. Even without seeing the face, Elias knew. The air itself seemed to grow colder, heavier.

Captain Rourke stepped into the cell.

He didn't duck his head to clear the low frame; he simply entered as if the space was made for him. The door was left open, a guard visible just beyond the threshold. Rourke’s presence seemed to shrink the already small cell, his dark coat absorbing what little light made it inside. He moved with a predator’s economy, his eyes scanning the space before they settled on Elias. They were the same eyes from the deck of The Sea Strider—dark, intelligent, and utterly devoid of warmth.

Elias lowered his hand from his face and straightened, forcing himself to meet that gaze. He would not cower. He would not give this man the satisfaction. He kept his hands loose at his sides, his posture defiant.

Rourke’s lips twitched, a faint, almost imperceptible hint of a smirk. He didn't speak. He simply watched Elias, his gaze moving from Elias’s face, down the length of his stained but still well-cut clothes, to the filthy straw at his feet, and back up again. The silence was a weapon, designed to unnerve, to make Elias desperate to fill it. Elias held his tongue, his jaw tight.

Finally, Rourke gestured with his chin toward the floor. "Comfortable?" His voice was a low rumble, laced with a mockery that was more insulting than any shout.

Elias said nothing. He stared back, his expression a mask of cold fury.

The smirk widened slightly. Rourke seemed to find his silence amusing. He leaned a shoulder against the damp stone wall, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked less like a captain inspecting a prisoner and more like a buyer assessing merchandise.

"You were first mate on the Strider," Rourke stated, not asked. "You know the shipping lanes out of Port Royal better than anyone."

Still, Elias was silent. He would not confirm anything. He would not engage.

"They're sending twice the usual number of galleons south for the season," Rourke continued, his tone conversational. "Heavy with sugar and tobacco. They hug the coastline, thinking the shallow draughts will protect them from ships like mine. But there are channels. Deep ones. Too narrow to be marked on any Royal Navy chart." He paused, his eyes fixed on Elias's. "You know the ones I mean."

The information was accurate. Frighteningly so. It was knowledge Elias had used just last season to shave three days off their journey, earning a hefty bonus for his captain and crew. The fact that Rourke knew of the channels’ existence was unsettling. That he was asking Elias to confirm their locations was outrageous.

"I will not help you plunder innocent ships," Elias said, his voice low and hard. Each word was a piece of stone chipped from a wall of ice.

Rourke laughed. It wasn't a loud, booming laugh, but a short, sharp bark of amusement that held no joy. "Innocent? They're merchant lords and governors, growing fat on the labor of men they've pressed into service. The same men who would see you hang without a second thought for the crime of being captured. Your loyalty is… misplaced."

"My loyalty is to the law," Elias retorted. "Something you and your pack of animals know nothing about."

"The law," Rourke repeated the word as if tasting it, and finding it foul. "The law is a convenient fiction written by the rich to protect their own. I write my own laws." He pushed off the wall and took a single step forward, closing the distance between them. Elias stood his ground, refusing to retreat, even as the captain's shadow fell over him. Rourke was close enough now that Elias could smell the salt and the faint, metallic scent of old blood on his leather coat.

"I'm not asking for your loyalty," Rourke said, his voice dropping lower, becoming almost conspiratorial. "I'm asking for your expertise. There's a difference. Tell me about the currents around the Serpent's Teeth. The Crown's ships are too wide in the beam to navigate them, but a sloop could slip through. A sloop laden with silver from the Spanish mines."

The air crackled. This was it. The test. Rourke wasn't threatening him with a blade or a whip. He was tempting him with knowledge, trying to draw him into a professional discussion, man to man, sailor to sailor. It was a more insidious attack on his principles than any physical threat.

Elias looked directly into Rourke's eyes. "Go to hell."

The silence that followed was absolute. The faint amusement vanished from Rourke's face, replaced by a stillness that was far more menacing. His gaze was flat and hard, like chips of obsidian. For a long moment, Elias thought the man might strike him. He braced himself for the blow.

But it didn't come. Instead, Rourke gave a slow, deliberate nod. He took a step back, the tension breaking as he turned toward the door. "A sharp mind is a terrible thing to waste," he said over his shoulder, his voice once again casual. "Especially when it's all you have left."

He walked out of the cell without a backward glance. The guard slammed the heavy door shut, and the bolt slid home with a deafening clang. Elias was plunged back into darkness, his heart hammering against his ribs.

He stood there in the suffocating darkness long after the footsteps faded, his breath coming in ragged bursts. The confrontation had left him hollowed out, a raw nerve exposed to the damp, salty air. Rourke hadn't laid a hand on him, yet Elias felt as if he'd been struck. The pirate captain’s calculated approach, the probing questions, the casual dismissal—it was a more effective assault than any simple brutality. It was designed to strip him of his professional pride, to reduce him to a mere repository of useful information, a tool to be wielded.

Days bled into one another, marked only by the meager rations of hardtack and brackish water slid through a slot at the bottom of the door. The idleness was a poison, seeping into his bones. His life had been one of constant motion, of purpose defined by the wind and tides, by manifests and crew rosters. He was a man who solved problems. Now, the only problem was his own powerlessness, and it had no solution. The frustration was a physical thing, a coil of energy in his gut with nowhere to go. He paced the three steps his cell allowed, the movement doing nothing to quell the useless anger churning inside him. He was a caged animal, and his mind, his most valuable asset, was turning on itself.

He would not break. He would not give Rourke the satisfaction of seeing him waste away. He had refused to give the pirate his knowledge; that was his one victory, his one act of defiance. But it wasn't enough. He needed more than defiance. He needed purpose.

His gaze drifted upward, to the small iron grate set high in the outer wall of the cell, just below the deck level. It was his only window to the world, a small square of sky and sea. During the day, a sliver of sunlight would creep across the opposite wall. At night, if the sky was clear, he could see a handful of stars.

At first, he had ignored it, a taunting reminder of the freedom he’d lost. But now, staring at it from the filth of the floor, an idea began to form. It was a faint spark in the overwhelming darkness of his situation, but it was enough.

The next morning, he was waiting. He watched as the first rays of dawn touched the grate. He used a sharp edge of a loose stone to scratch a mark on the floor where the rectangle of light first appeared. Throughout the day, he tracked its slow, deliberate progress across the stone floor and up the far wall, marking its position every hour. He knew the length of his own stride, the approximate size of the stones. With those crude measurements, he could estimate the time. He could feel the gentle, rhythmic list of the ship and knew they were on a port tack. The angle of the sun told him their general heading was south-by-southeast.

It was painstaking work. His tools were shadows and memory. But as he worked, something shifted within him. The suffocating frustration began to recede, replaced by a cold, sharp focus. He was a navigator again. He was charting a course. It was a chart no one else could see, drawn in his mind and on the grimy floor of his prison, but it was his.

At night, the task became more difficult, but more rewarding. He would stand for hours, his neck craned at an uncomfortable angle, his eyes pressed to the bars of the grate. He searched the patch of visible sky for familiar patterns. There. The Navigator’s Cross, low on the horizon. And there, a sliver of the Serpent’s Tail. He noted their position relative to the ship’s mast, which he could just see swaying against the darkness. He listened to the commands being shouted on deck, the creak of the ropes as sails were trimmed. He felt the subtle shifts in the ship’s movement as the helmsman corrected their course.

Each observation was a piece of a puzzle. Each star identified, each change in the wind’s direction, was a small victory against the man who held him captive. Rourke thought he had locked Elias away to rot, to become useless. The pirate king was wrong. Elias was gathering intelligence. He was honing his skills. He might be a prisoner, but he would know exactly where in this vast, unforgiving sea he was. The knowledge was a weapon, and he was sharpening it in secret, waiting for the moment he might get to use it. He was no longer just a captive. He was a watchman, keeping his own silent, solitary vigil in the dark.

A week passed in this manner. He had constructed a crude but functional mental map of their journey. They had rounded the southern tip of Hispaniola and were now sailing west, likely toward the lawless waters of the Turtle Isles. The knowledge was a cold comfort, a secret victory in a war no one else knew was being fought.

He was so absorbed in his calculations one evening, trying to get a clear fix on a star through a break in the clouds, that he didn't hear the footsteps approaching his cell until the heavy bolt was being drawn back. He spun around from the grate, his heart seizing in his chest. Food was always slid through the slot. The door was never opened.

A stocky, grey-bearded man stood silhouetted in the doorway, holding a lantern in one hand and a wooden plate in the other. He wasn't one of the younger, more brutish pirates Elias had seen on deck. This man was older, his face a roadmap of scars and wrinkles carved by sun and sea. He wore a simple shirt and breeches, but carried himself with an air of quiet authority.

The man stepped inside, placing the lantern on the floor. The cell was suddenly flooded with warm, flickering light, revealing the filth and damp in stark detail. It also illuminated the faint scratches Elias had made on the stone floor. The man’s eyes flickered down to the marks for a brief second before meeting Elias’s gaze. There was no surprise in his expression, only a quiet assessment.

"Quartermaster Silas," the man said, his voice a low rumble, like stones grinding together. He held out the plate. On it was a chunk of salted beef, a piece of hard cheese, and a heel of bread that looked almost fresh. In his other hand, he carried a tin cup that smelled of ale. It was a feast compared to the swill he’d been surviving on.

Elias stared at the offering, then at the man. "What is this?"

"Supper," Silas said simply. "The captain thought you might be tired of weevils."

Elias didn't move to take the plate. Every instinct screamed that this was a trap, another one of Rourke's games. "I want nothing from your captain."

Silas let out a short, dry sigh. He set the plate and cup on the floor, a safe distance from Elias. "Suit yourself. But it's a waste of good beef." He didn't leave. Instead, he leaned against the wall, mirroring Rourke's posture from his last visit, though this man’s presence was less overtly threatening, more weary. "Heard you had a chat with him."

"We had a disagreement," Elias corrected, his voice tight.

"Aye, that's what I heard." Silas rubbed a hand over his beard. "The captain, he values a man with a spine. Can't lead a crew of jellyfish. But there's a difference between a spine and a foolish neck."

His gaze dropped again to the marks on the floor. He gestured toward them with his chin. "Smart. Using the light. Tracking the stars. Most men would just sit in the dark and curse their luck."

Elias felt a chill. His secret wasn't a secret at all. "I'm keeping my mind sharp."

"That you are," Silas agreed. "And the captain appreciates a sharp mind. He's got the sharpest one I've ever known." He paused, letting the weight of his words settle in the small cell. "But a sharp tool is only useful if it does the job it's meant for. If it refuses the hand that tries to wield it, it's just a dangerous piece of metal. Best thrown overboard before it cuts the wrong person."

The warning was clear, delivered without malice but with the unmistakable finality of truth. This wasn't a threat from a pirate; it was a piece of professional advice from an old sailor who understood the laws of this ship better than Elias understood the laws of any nation. The law here was Rourke.

"He won't ask you again, lad," Silas said, pushing himself off the wall. "Next time he needs something from you, he won't ask. He'll take it. And you'll have no one to blame but the man who was too proud to see the tide was turning."

He picked up his lantern, his shadow looming large against the walls. "Eat the beef," he said, his tone softening almost imperceptibly. "A man needs his strength when he's charting a new course."

With that, he was gone. The door boomed shut, the bolt slid home, and Elias was once again alone, the scent of food and the weight of the quartermaster's words filling the darkness. He stared at the plate for a long time before slowly sinking to the floor and picking up the piece of beef. It was tough and salty, but it was real food. As he ate, he considered the warning. Silas hadn't been trying to scare him. He'd been trying to save him. And that, more than anything, was the most terrifying thing that had happened to him yet.