Leo's lungs burned as the icy waves dragged him under.
Above him, the silhouettes of the Red Maw's crew laughed, their voices muffled by the churning water. Coward, they'd called him. Useless. Their boots had struck his ribs like hammerfalls before tossing him overboard like rotten cargo.
Should've kept your mouth shut, Leo thought bitterly, clawing at the dark. The storm had swallowed the ship whole, leaving him alone in the endless black. His fingers brushed something slimy seaweed or a corpse's hair and he recoiled.
Then, the voice came.
Pathetic.
Leo's eyes flew open. The word hadn't been heard it had ruptured inside his skull, guttural and dripping with disdain.
You'll die faster than a gutted fish at this rate.
A flash of lightning illuminated the depths and for a heartbeat, Leo saw him. A man with eyes like tarnished silver, a tattered captain's coat billowing in the current, a scar splitting his grin ear to ear. A ghost.
Leo screamed. Water flooded his throat.
His vision tunneled.
This is how I die.
Leo woke up vomiting saltwater onto splintered wood.
He was alive. Somehow.
The storm still raged, but now he knelt on the wreckage of a ship's figurehead a snarling wolf with one eye missing. Its remaining pupil gleamed, tracking him.
Took you long enough, the voice growled.
Leo scrambled back. Wh-who's there?!
Elias Dusk. The name echoed like cannonfire.
Captain of the Black Tide. King of the Forgotten Armada. A pause. And currently, your uninvited guest.
Leo's hands flew to his throat. No no no this was delirium. A drowning hallucination.
Then his right arm moved on its own.
His fingers no, not his twisted into a swordsman's grip. Shadows pooled in his palm, solidifying into a jagged cutlass wreathed in blue flame.
Lesson one, boy, Elias purred through Leo's lips.
Never turn your back on the sea.
Leo barely had time to process the words before his body spun and slashed.
A monstrous figure loomed behind him a sailor with barnacle-crusted skin and hollow eyes. A drowned one. The phantom cutlass cleaved through its chest, and the creature dissolved into foam.
Leo's heart pounded. What the hell was that?!
The first of many, Elias said. Now run.
The wreckage beneath them trembled. From the abyss, a ship emerged its sails torn, its hull studded with glowing runes. The Red Maw. But not as Leo remembered it.
Gone were the laughing crew. Now, corpses manned the decks, their jaws unhinged in silent screams. At the helm stood Captain Goran, his flesh peeled back to reveal pulsating kelp.
Ah, Elias mused. The sea's taken your old friends. Pity.
Leo's legs moved without his command, sprinting across floating debris as the Red Maw gave chase.
They collapsed in a sea cave, Leo's body heaving. Elias's presence had receded, leaving him hollowed-out and shaking.
Get out of my head, Leo demanded.
Gladly, Elias snorted. But we're stuck like this until we find my crew. Or my body. Whichever comes first.
Your body?
I didn't just die, boy. I was unmade. Scattered across the ocean by Vale's cursed blade. A beat. You're the first flesh-bag I've managed to cling to in a century.
Leo gagged. So I'm just… a host?
For now. Elias's tone turned sly. But help me, and I'll make you more than a cabin boy. I'll make you a legend.
Outside, the Red Maw's bell tolled a funeral knell.
Leo clenched his fists. What's your plan?
First, we find Syren.
Who's?
The figurehead's lone eye blazed. A woman's voice, singing in a language Leo didn't know, slithered from the wood.
Elias laughed. Oh, she's close.