*Gabriel*
The storm breaks just after dawn, the sky bruised gray. Its first pale lights are swallowed by roiling clouds that claw across the horizon–smoke from Neptune’s fire. I grip the wheel of the ship with both hands, my boots braced against the slick deck as she bucks beneath me like a beast fighting its leash.
Waves crash over the bow, slamming the hull hard enough to make the timbers groan. Salt and rain blind me, the sting of it slicing across my cheeks, soaking me to the bone. The wind shrieks in my ears, howling through the rigging like a thousand screaming eels, and the sails snap and twist above, struggling not to tear.
“Brace the mainsail!” I bellow over the thunder. “Double reef it—now!”
The crew scrambles like ants in a kicked nest, slipping across the deck, their voices
