The Price of Power

The air tasted of salt and something far older, a metallic tang that clung to the back of my throat. The full moon, a leering, skeletal eye in the ink-black sky, cast a sickly luminescence upon the churning sea. The *Sea Serpent*, my ship, my beast of burden, sliced through the waves with an unnatural grace, her tattered sails snapping like the wings of a dying albatross. We were close. I could feel it in the marrow of my bones, a thrumming beneath the deck that mirrored the frantic beat of my own heart. The Obsidian Tide. It whispered promises of dominion, of a power that could command the very breath of the ocean.

"Captain," Peg Leg Pete's voice, gruff but steady, cut through the rising wind. He stood beside me at the helm, his one good eye squinting at the horizon. "The charts are clear. The island of Aethelgard lies just beyond that shroud of mist."

I nodded, my gaze fixed on the swirling vapor that veiled the approaching landmass. "And Thorne's ships?"