CHAPTER ONE
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IT WAS TRULY A WONDER MORANA WAS STILL ALIVE. What with living her life amongst criminals of the sea, scourge, and overall rather dangerous folk—and yet, Morana found the most dangerous thing about them was their collective aversion to a proper bath.

As the myth of the Crimson Mirage grew, so did her credibility amongst the pirates of the True Sea—the only ones who knew the Crimson Mirage wasn't an armada but a person.

Well, they didn't know the full truth. No one had come close to figuring out it was all a charade on her part, well-placed illusions to make her claim as a sea witch credible. And thus the Sea Witch, the Crimson Mirage became a figure amongst pirates—respected and feared.

Morana hadn't stayed in Bluebeard's ship for long, as soon as he'd announced they would step foot on land, she had abandoned their ship for another pirate ship they'd been in the process of pillaging and plundering and had made the same deal with their captain.

After a few years, she'd become someone that made the scum of the sea, the worse of the worst, shudder in their boots, frightened and yet yearning to have her blessing their crew with her presence, with her magic, with her power to make each crew richer than the other.

Funny thing was, if anyone found out just how big of a liar Morana was, she would be easily overpowered and slashed open to be thrown overboard as shark bait.

Her problems, for the most part, didn't lie there. They were more along the lines of greed and ambition. Some Captains tried to hold her hostage, trying to keep her locked in a cage like a circus monkey. Yet they remained unaware of her illusions and their true essence, and so they were easily reminded why they feared her in the first place.

She was quick to weave light and shadows, creating mirages that made them stumble around, trying to figure out which one was the real her, where the floor really was, and then the crew was all floating in the sea and Morana was standing over them with her illusion of the tentacled sea witch, sneering.

It was all fun and games really. It was rare anyone died.

Usually, they welcomed her with open arms. Morana loved to aid and abet in ransacking merchant vessels, whalers, other pirate ships, and so on. And her favorite Captain to mess with wasn't a pirate at all.

Sturmhond—the poor fool—liked to fancy himself a privateer. So, like others, he suffered from a lack of knowledge and like the flagged ships believed the Crimson Mirage to be a phantom armada of ships that tricked sailors at dawn. And he believed Morana to be a daughter of the sea, a girl jumping from pirate ship to pirate ship—always there to see him get hit in the head.

The first time Morana Zoreslava had been properly introduced to Sturmhond he had kidnapped her.

She had been in the middle of an attack on a merchant vessel, one he happened to pass by. It wasn't dawn. The phantom armada wasn't there, and as she joined the crew of pirates she had been with on the deck of the merchant vessel she was grabbed from behind and dragged onto Sturmhond's ship.

She had been forced to make her way to his cabin, and all the while she kept spouting out excuses, claiming to be a hostage to the pirate crew, to anyone who'd listen.

Morana had been shoved onto a chair in front of his desk, by a rather brute woman. Huffing in annoyance she put the braid her hair was in over one shoulder, and dusted off her trousers, as she waited for Sturmhond to grace her with his presence.

"Darling, what brings you here?" his voice filled the room, smooth and charming—and utterly infuriating. Morana raised an eyebrow at his familiarity as he walked around her chair and to his desk.

"I was just telling your friend I was kidnapped. Twice now," she added giving him a pointed look.

"You were kidnapped?" he asked, leaning against his desk in front of her, the amused smirk on his face ever so present, the wave of his blond hair mocking her as if it was asking to have her fingers run through it and mess it up. He was handsome, she couldn't lie about that. "And they gave you a sword?"

She jutted her chin forward and nodded. "They wanted me to be able to defend myself. Against the likes of you."

"Likes of us?" he questioned, crossing his arms in front of himself, his lopsided amused grin stamped on his face as his hazel eyes glanced over her. "You mean second-hand kidnappers?"

"Yes."

Sturmhond hummed with a nod and Morana had to fight the urge to look at his arms, they were bare as his shirt sleeves were rolled up. Morana might've wanted to throw the bastard in the sea but she could not deny he had a charm about him. She glared at him.

"I didn't catch your name, darling."

"I didn't throw it."

"Hence why I didn't catch it, do keep up," he told her with a patronizing smile as he tilted his head her way.

Morana rose an unimpressed brow at him and looked up at the girl holding her down on the chair. Her hair was short, allowing Morana to glance at the amplifier behind her ear—Grisha, how lovely.

"Hello there, gorgeous," Morana said with a smile as she looked up at the woman and the latter's brows rose to her forehead. "Can you tell your Captain I won't be any trouble at all? I just need to go back to the ship of my first-hand kidnappers."

"Tamar won't be much help, you're not her type," Sturmhond interrupted the conversation and Morana turned to face him with a frown as Tamar snorted.

"I'm everyone's type," she told him. Then she pursed her lips and rolled her eyes, "Just return me to my kidnappers."

"No can do, lovely. We're long gone," said Sturmhond as he opened the shutter in the window of the room and Morana spotted the ship she was in far into the horizon. She sighed in annoyance.

It had taken her hours of negotiating for the Captain of the ship sailing away to forgive her for letting his best men throw themselves to the sharks in a previous encounter when she hadn't been on their side. And now, they were gone, and she had been left to the mercy of a privateer.

It wasn't as if Morana despised legislation, but truly... She didn't obey the laws of nature by existing, her whole being was something unruled by the laws of nature. A Grisha who fiddled with Small Science yet suffered from it, a girl who had power specific to herself. So, Morana didn't despise legalities, she just preferred when rules could be broken without a second thought—it made everything easier, at least in the sea and Ketterdam it did.

Sturmhond returned to his place against the desk in front of her. "So, what's your name, darling?"

"Anastasia."

"She's lying," said Tamar from beside her and Morana groaned, realizing the girl was a Heartrender.

"She's a hostage and a liar." Sturmhond clicked his tongue and shook his head. "Quite the character you are."

"Yes. Quite."

"I'll ask again since we're being difficult. Really, darling, this," he gestured around the cabin, "is a place of trust. You can share your deepest secrets and I give you my word I will sell them to the highest bidder and split the profit with you."

"How generous," Morana said dryly. Sturmhond nodded.

"One of my very best qualities."

"Along with humility, I'm sure."

"It's a close second that one," he said, "The first being I'm devilishly handsome."

"What a shallow pirate you turned out to be," she replied with a disappointed sigh—making a point of getting his title wrong to hopefully send him off her scent. "Here I thought your best quality would be your rum."

He hummed with a nod, "Privateer. And yes, the rum is quite good. Would a glass help you blurt out your name, perhaps?"

"I don't quite trust you not to poison me. I'm Morana," she said through gritted teeth and Sturmhond grinned at her, a lopsided smile that made her want to punch him. She pursed her lips. "And who are you?"

"I'm surprised you don't know me," he told her, "did your kidnappers hit you in the head?"

"My head is perfect, thank you. It's just hard to keep track of all the wankers I meet in my life."

"You're quite snappy for someone who's been taken hostage. Shouldn't you be arguing your case? Telling me a tale of woe so I save you?" said Sturmhond as Morana leaned back on the chair and glanced to the side when the door opened to see a man walking in the room and coming to stand next to Tamar. They looked similar, siblings perhaps judging by the matching necklaces and lack of intimacy.

"Do you honestly care for tales of woe?" she questioned turning her attention back to the privateer.

"Not at all."

"Then why should I bother?"

She shrugged as she crossed her legs in front of her, making herself comfortable. She looked around for a moment, taking in the well-decorated office cabin. She nodded in approval before turning to him again and asking the most useless question she could find seeing as she knew the answer already.

"What's your name?"

"I, darling Morana, am Sturmhond, scourge of the True Sea."

"Sturmhond?"

"Yes."

"That's your name?"

"Yes, Morana."

"What did you do to deserve such a horrid name?" asked Morana, trying her best to keep him talking so he could forget that she was on the pirate crew and just drop her off somewhere unscathed and not hand her over to the authorities—privateers and their legality.

"I fed a dog."

"Don't you have a real name? One perhaps that doesn't suggest your parents hated you?"

"I do."

"And?"

"Sturmhond."

"I'm not calling you that," she told him and heard the two siblings behind her snort in amusement.

"You can call me whatever you want, lovely. I love pet names."

"Surely, you must. Sturmhond is a dog's name."

"A rather dangerous dog," said Sturmhond with a grin, and Morana scoffed.

"Or an overcompensating one."

"Are you calling me a dog?"

"Are you admitting you're overcompensating for something?"

"Oh, I see it now." Sturmhond clicked his tongue as he nodded, pushing off the table and circling his desk as he poured himself a drink. Morana raised an eyebrow at him.

"Do you?"

"Yes. Your quick wit. That's how you survived Bluebeard's crew—my condolences, I heard the Crimson Mirage got to him."

"Excuse me?"

"Yes. You were in his crew. And all the other pirate crews. You're not a very good liar, Morana. If you want to pretend to be kidnapped at least lose the pirate attire. And attitude."

Morana looked down at the trousers she had tucked into her knee-high boots, laced up, and the shirt she was wearing below her corset. Pirate attire? She was dressed to depress—as in everyone would've fallen into a wallowing mess when they saw her look so nice. The only pirate attire on her was the sword on her hip.

"What? Being naked is supposed to argue my case?" she asked incredulously and the man beside Tamar chuckled.

"She gives him a run for his money," he said in Shu to his sister and Morana scoffed.

"You should think to find out whether your prisoners speak Shu," she told them in Shu, and they both turned to look at them with surprised expressions.

The man smiled widely at her and offered her his hand, "I'm Tolya."

"Morana," she replied as she shook his hand only to be called back to the attention of the privateer in the cabin as he cleared his throat.

The rest of their talk had been more of the same. And by the end of the day, Morana was chatting with Sturmhond's crew as they headed to Shu Han harbors where she would be dropped off—fortunately not to the authorities.

And as the years passed they kept meeting along the same lines, as Morana made a point to target Sturmhond's ships with the pirate crews she was in, haunting him with her Crimson Mirage, and nearly always someone tried to kidnap her.

Rarely did they manage it but when they did the process was repeated. Sturmhond tried to get answers out of her and vice versa and then she was dropped off in the nearest port to fend for herself. And every time she would steal something from him, something they had to grab on their next kidnapping meeting.

Sturmhond had become the bane of her existence—the pirates had been right—but their encounters were the best part of her years out at sea—especially when she was able to distract him enough that he got a blow to the head and his ship ransacked; especially when they parlayed over a bottle of rum and from arguing like rivals, over stolen possessions and kidnapping, their conversation fell into friendly banter as their words slurred together.

And now Morana was about to say goodbye to their routine, to her days out in the sea.

She'd woken up one morning, a faint buzzing in her ears, a tug in her stomach and she'd realized what it meant instantly. She was being beckoned, by something that called for her unnatural side, something that felt the same way. She was being beckoned by the past her mother had run from, the past that had been the reason she'd died.

The past that created Morana from darkness and unbalanced power. Forcing nature to intervene and give her vulnerabilities, to give her weaknesses.

Something was calling for, a connection stronger now than ever before. And Morana couldn't ignore it, for the furthest she got the louder the ringing blared in her ears, the stronger the tug in her stomach was, to the point that once she'd tried going to Ketterdam it had been as if she had been stabbed.

Something was pulling her in two directions. One that worked like a tide, growing stronger from time to time, waves of power running through her and calling her—Like calls to like, her mother used to say. The other ever so present, ever so certain—that was the first one she would follow.

And Novyi Zem was the place to be, every time she turned that way, the blaring in her ear grew quieter. Something was beckoning her to Novyi Zem and Morana's mission was to kill it, so she could be free to roam the True Sea once more.

The tidal connection she could deal with, she didn't mind the feeling of getting stabbed from time to time, neither the horn in her ears (it was a rather good alarm clock if she thought about it); but the one thread pulling at her ever so relentless, that one needed to be severed.

So, for the first time in a while, Morana Zoreslava stepped foot on land and perused the harbor of Weddle with curious eyes as she clutched the compass hanging from her neck for good luck—a little souvenir from the privateer she lived for vexing.

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