CHAPTER 48: [48] A BIG FISH IN SMALL WATERS

Stepping into the tavern was like being submerged in honey. Amber panels on the walls bathed everything in a warm, liquid gold. The air was thick with the smells of expensive wine and beeswax polish, a low murmur of conversation the only sound.

Moreau chose a corner table where shadows pooled despite the warm illumination, gesturing for Raven to sit across from her. Moreau didn’t so much walk as flow, her scaled hand resting on the back of a chair as she slid into the booth.

"Wine?" Moreau asked, already pouring from a bottle. The wine caught the light as she poured, the dark red turning to molten copper in the tavern’s amber glow.

Raven accepted the glass but didn’t drink. Old habits. "You mentioned complications."

"Always straight to business." Moreau’s laugh was layered with a convincing warmth that didn’t quite reach her golden eyes. "I do admire that about you, darling. Very well. The Dawn Sea has been... educational. A lovely little pond where I could perfect my methods, test my theories. But ponds grow stagnant, don’t they?"

She leaned forward, her golden eyes reflecting the amber light like twin suns. "I’m tired of being a big fish in small waters. My sights are on the Great Sea, where real power lives and breathes."

Raven’s expression remained a carefully neutral canvas, but a knot of ice was forming in her gut. Beneath the table, she dug a thumbnail into her index finger—a small, sharp point of pain to keep her grounded.

The Great Sea. Where the Ten Marquis ruled from their archipelago, where ancient monsters slept beneath the waves, where a single successful venture could set someone up for life. Or kill them in a hundred creative ways.

"Ambitious," Raven said.

"More than ambitious. Inevitable." Moreau’s smile sharpened. "I’m not talking about mere piracy, Raven. Any fool with a ship and desperation can rob merchants. I’m building something greater. A legitimate power base. A new kingdom on the waves, if you will."

The scaled woman traced patterns on the table’s surface, her movements hypnotic. "The Navy demands taxes and offers protection that never arrives. The Marquis demand tribute for the privilege of being ignored. I demand only one thing: excellence. And in return, I offer something they never will: a share in the spoils of a world remade."

"And you think you can do better?"

"I know I can." Moreau’s voice dropped to that intimate murmur that somehow carried more weight than any shout. "But not alone. I need partners, not subordinates. I need minds that see the world not as it is, but as it could be."

Moreau gestured toward the amber-lit window. "The miners work longer hours, the merchants pay their tithes on time. The people are productive. They are safe."

Raven glanced through the window. It wasn’t safety; it was the sterile quiet of a well-managed prison.

"You have the talent to read more than ocean currents, darling," Moreau continued. "You understand the currents of the world itself. Don’t waste that gift on small-time heists and temporary crews."

"What would you need from me?"

"Your skills, naturally. But more than that - your perspective. You’ve survived by reading people, understanding what drives them. That insight would be invaluable as we expand our operations." Moreau’s eyes glittered. "And of course, complete loyalty. Partnership requires trust, after all."

Raven slowly nodded. The wine in her glass, the calculated words, the controlled quiet of the village—it all clicked into place. This wasn’t a pirate. This was a monarch in waiting.

But something nagged at her. The timing felt too convenient, the offer too perfect.

"Why me?" she asked. "You could have your pick of navigators."

The warmth vanished from Moreau’s smile. Her lips curled back just slightly, a flicker of something ancient and hungry in her golden eyes.

"Because you’re not just any navigator, are you?"

⚓

Aboard the Crimson Sparrow, Pierre stood at the bow watching the waves lap against their ship, his fingers absently tracing the weathered railing as his mind churned with unease. The vessel rocked gently beneath him, its crimson sails furled tightly against the mast, waiting like a slumbering predator for their next move. Each creak of timber and splash of water against the hull seemed to whisper warnings he couldn’t quite decipher.

Something was wrong. It wasn’t the prickle of immediate danger at the back of his neck. This was a deeper, structural wrongness—the faint tremor in a house of cards just before it collapses. The dread of a punch you know is coming, but can’t yet see.

Jack Steelheart, a brawl on the docks, a desperate, cornered navigator. That’s where he was supposed to meet her. The script he’d memorized from that awful webnovel was clear on this point. A chance encounter, a damsel to rescue, a crew member gained through the protagonist’s heroic intervention. Classic, predictable, and utterly stripped of agency for the woman involved.

The sea breeze carried the scent of salt and amber, ruffling his vivid red hair, but Pierre barely noticed.

Raven wasn’t alone this time. She came here confident, with backup, with a ship. I changed her circumstances completely. Made her valuable instead of vulnerable. Gave her agency where the original story took it away.

He thought he was saving a damsel, freeing her from a bad story. Instead, he’d armed a professional. He hadn’t erased her from the board; he’d turned her from a pawn into a queen, valuable to other players. To players like Lydia Moreau.

There was no script anymore. No safety net. He hadn’t just changed the story; he’d completely broken it. They were sailing in uncharted waters, and he was the one who had smashed the compass.

But isn’t that what I want—

"Pierre!"

"What is it?"

Alyssa stood on the deck, her platinum blonde hair whipping around her face in the strengthening wind. She pointed toward the shore with a trembling hand, her pale green eyes wide with alarm. "There - look at the docks."

A longboat had pushed off from the main pier, cutting through the harbor water quickly. The Black Serpent flag flew proudly from the boat’s stern, the emerald serpent emblem snapping in the evening breeze like a living thing hungering for prey.

Ah shit,this is definitely not in the script.