The smell of cinnamon just wouldn't go away.

  It was the thing that bothered Mira the most. On the deck of The White Swan, the crew was busy washing away the remnants of the battle. Buckets of seawater were poured to dissolve the blood starting to dry. The bodies of the remaining pirates had been thrown into the sea, becoming a feast for sharks and scavenging fish that were now gathering around the hull of the ship.

  But the sweet, spicy, and sharp scent of the spices still clung to Mira's hair, clothes, and skin. Every time she breathed in, she could smell the aroma of various foods from last night's festival, but her mind kept replaying the memory of Bosun Half-Ogre's ribs shattering.

  Mira sat on a water barrel, rubbing the red stain on her sleeve with a rough cloth. The stain had faded, but Mira kept scrubbing.

  “Your skin will get chafed if you keep doing that,” Kars' voice came from Mira’s right side.

  Mira stopped. She looked at that man. Kars has changed his clothes. His torn luxurious suit had been replaced with a dark blue clean linen tunic belonging to one of the crew members. He looked calm, as if he had just finished reading a book in the library, instead of breaking the pirates' necks.

  "The old man you saved has woken up," Kars said, leaning his back against the railing. "His ribs are broken in three, but he will live. Captain Vraaxask was still in the cocoon of her recovery. The temperature in the medical cabin is now as hot as a bread oven."

  "Cocoon?"

  "The Glaray race uses their own cocoons to recuperate, either for their physique or their Intian," Kars explained.

  "That’s unique," Mira replied in a weak tone. She didn't look at Kars. Her eyes were glued to the dagger blade in her lap. The knife she used to cut the Bosun's neck, with the addition of Hard Light, of course.

  Kars looked at the dagger, then glanced at Mira.

  "We have a guest in the lower hold," Kars said, changing the subject. His voice dropped an octave, becoming cold and serious. "One of The Banshee Coil's lieutenants, her name is Drek. She got left behind when her friends fled. The crew wants to punish her right now, but I asked for ten minutes."

  Mira looked up. "For what?"

  "To find out why they are targeting this ship."

  "Isn't that obvious? With a ship this magnificent, which pirate wouldn't try their luck?"

  "Not this quickly. And the White Swan is feared because Captain Vraaxask is unbeatable at sea." Kars extended his hand. "Come on, bring your dagger. Don't clean it yet. The dried blood on that blade will be useful for… negotiations."

  ***

  The prison of the ship, The White Swan, was not a solid iron cell. It was merely a storage space for chains at the very bottom of the ship's hull, a damp, dark place that smelled of dead rats.

  The only light came from an oil lantern hung on a rusty nail, casting long, swaying shadows that followed the rhythm of the waves.

  In the middle of the room, chained to the main support beam with a heavy anchor chain, sat a woman.

  She was Drek. A human, her skin pale like the belly of a dead fish, and she had crudely sewn-on handmade gills on the side of her neck—a modification by a Rune Master to breathe underwater. Her face was scarred with pockmarks, and she was missing one ear.

  Her clothes were torn, barely even recognizable as clothing. Mira suspected that the two burly sailors on guard had done something to her.

  “Out,” Kars ordered the guards. “Close the door. Don’t come in unless I want.”

  The sailors hesitated for a moment, staring sharply at Drek, but Kars’s aura of authority made them step back. Then, the heavy door shut.

  Silence. Only the sound of sea water slapping against the ship’s hull just beyond the wooden wall behind Drek.

  Mira looked up. Her eyes were a murky yellow. She grinned, revealing sharply pointed teeth.

  “Is it your turn now?” Drek’s voice was hoarse, wet, like gargling with saltwater.

  Kars smiled faintly. Very faintly.

  “Mira,” Kars called softly. “Use your blue eyes and tell me, what do you see on Mrs. Drek’s neck? Besides those disgusting fake gills.”

  “My-eyes? How?” Mira was confused about what Kars actually knew.

  “Just my assumption. Try to channel your Intian into the blue eye, and focus on the neck. If that doesn't work, try the red eye.”

  Mira stepped forward. She channeled her Intian into the left eye. Her pupil glowed cyan in the darkness of the prison.

  The world became detailed. She saw Drek’s heartbeat pulsing rapidly in her neck artery. She saw cold sweat in her pores.

  But there was something else.

  “There’s a tattoo,” Mira said, pointing to Drek’s neck. “Under that dirt. A small magic circle. Faded red.”

  “Good,” Kars praised. “That’s a Soul Link. Draven bound his soul. If Drek leaks certain secrets, her heart will explode.”

  Drek laughed nervously. “You’re smart, human. So you know it’s useless to torture me. I can’t speak even if I wanted to.”

  “Exactly.” Kars walked closer, his steps silent. “Physical torture is pointless. Pain won’t make you talk. But…”

  Kars turned to Mira. “Mira. Create a solid, focused light for her.”

  Mira was confused. “Like a light bullet? Hard Light?”

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  “Like the sun,” Kars corrected. “Drek’s eyes have been modified to see in the darkness of the deep sea. Her pupils are extremely sensitive. Candlelight would be blinding for her.”

  Mira understood. She stared at Drek’s yellow eyes. Indeed, like the eyes of a deep-sea creature.

  “Step closer, Mira. Open her eyelids if necessary. This is a lesson on how to understand the outside world, so do it properly.”

  Mira stepped forward tentatively. Drek tried to rebel, her iron chains clinking loudly.

  “Keep that child away from me!” Drek shouted, and she panicked genuinely this time. “Don’t mess with my eyes.”

  Mira didn't stop, even though she was nervous. She still showed a flat face. She remembered the corpse of the ship's doctor who had been pierced by a spear. She saw the bodies of the crew scattered on the deck of the ship. She should not doubt.

  Mira stood right in front of Drek. She raised her index finger, just five centimeters in front of Drek's left eye.

  "Open her eyes," Kars commanded quietly.

  Drek closed her eyes tightly.

  "Okay.” Mira shrugged. "Then I'll burn it through the eyelids."

  Kars smiled faintly.

  In that pitch-dark room, Mira's finger became a tiny star. Its light intensity increased drastically. Heat began to radiate.

  "ARGHHH!" Drek screamed. She tried to turn her face away, but the chain around her neck held her back.

  For ordinary humans, the light was just blinding. But for Drek's eyes, designed for eternal darkness, the light was pure neurological torture. It felt like hot needles being plunged directly into the brain.

  "Stop! STOP!"

  "Draven doesn't want this ship," Kars said calmly, his voice cutting through Drek's screams. "He wants something specific. What is it?"

  "I can't talk, my heart!"

  "Mira, increase the light," Kars commanded.

  The light on Mira's finger changed from white to blue. It was a scorching ultraviolet spectrum. The smell of burning flesh began to fill the air. Drek's eyelids started to blister.

  "FUGITIVE! BATTERY!" shouted Drek, her voice breaking into hysterical sobs. "He's after both of them! Turn off the light! For the Sea God’s sake, turn it off!"

  Mira did not turn it off. She only dimmed it slightly, keeping it as a buzzing threat in front of Drek's face. That woman gasped for air, tears mixed with blood seeping from her swollen left eye.

  "Explain," said Kars.

  "That compass…" Drek coughed, spitting blood. "The Sun Compass… It’s not a mere direction pointer. It points to the Pure Intian. And… and the fugitive, he is a high-class fugitive. Angborg. Breached. One of the fugitives is on this ship."

  "Explain Draven first. Pure Intian?"

  "Draven... he's not an ordinary ice mage," Drek whispered quickly, afraid her heart would explode, but more afraid her eyes would go blind. "He's defective. His core magic leaks. He needs an external Intian intake every month, or he will wither away to death. He hunts Intian users, drains their Intian dry, and discards the corpse."

  Mira felt her stomach turn sick again. “He's a cannibal?”

  “He's a parasite,” Kars corrected, disgusted.

  “And you...” Drek looked at Mira with the one eye that could still open slightly. Her gaze was full of fear. “When you lit your eyes up there... The compass in Draven's cabin went crazy. Its needle pointed at you as if you were the sun itself.”

  “My eyes lit up?” Mira frowned. She didn't know her eyes lit up. “When?”

  “When you fought the Bosun,” Kars replied. That’s why Kars realized that her eyes were not just a marker of two entities in Mira's body, but also an additional power that could be harnessed.

  Drek laughed wetly, the laugh of someone who had given up.

  "You’re not an ordinary target. To Draven, you are a Feast. He said your Intian is limitless. Draven realized it ever since you were at the Adventurers’ Administration Building."

  The room was silent. Only the sound of Mira’s heavy breathing and dripping condensation could be heard.

  ‘What about the fugitive?’

  Everyone was startled. They looked toward the door, where the voice had come from.

  Captain Vraaxask stepped into the room. She was still injured, but she walked smoothly. "Explain to me."

  "A week ago, someone broke into Angborg. Stole something from inside. I don’t know what, all I know is that one of the fugitives is here."

  "Angborg is an impregnable prison. How is that possible?" Mira whispered. Even though she was from the south, Mira knew the stories about Angborg, from both real stories and legends.

  “How do you know?” asked Captain Vraaxask.

  “The best hiding place is the most obvious hiding place, right?”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  Drek grinned widely. “We have informants. The latest information said he’s here.” Let it be, let Drek die here. What matters is that he leaves a trace that will haunt them. Suspecting and accusing each other, it’ll be thrilling.

  “Enough.” The captain looked at Kars. “Kars, come with me to my office,” Vraaxask requested.

  Mira turned off the light at her finger. Darkness enveloped them again, but this time it felt more menacing.

  “Rune on her neck,” Mira said suddenly. She pointed at the red tattoo on Drek’s neck. “You said it would blow her heart up if he spoke?”

  Kars nodded. “It should.”

  “Why isn’t she dead yet?”

  Drek grinned, showing his sharp teeth. "Because I’m not spilling Draven’s secrets, kid. I’m just reporting his medical condition. And about you being a target? That’s not a secret. That’s an invitation.”

  Kars turned, walking toward the door. "We’re done here. I know what I need to know.”

  "Wait!" Drek shouted. "What about me? I’ve talked! Let me go! Drop me off on the nearest island!"

  Kars stopped at the door. He didn’t turn around.

  "Mira," called Kars.

  "Ya?"

  "What did he do to the ship’s doctor during the battle?"

  Mira fell silent. The image appeared again. The old doctor with thick glasses was trying to bandage a young sailor’s wound then stabbed from behind by a spear. A spear held by a Goblin, but commanded by Drek, laughing behind him.

  "She ordered the medical team’s massacre," Mira replied flatly.

  "That's right," said Kars. He unlocked the door. "In this world, Mira, there are unwritten rules of war. You can kill soldiers. You can hijack cargo. But you don’t touch unarmed healers."

  Kars looked at Drek with a stare colder than Draven’s ice.

  "I won’t kill you, Drek. That would be too quick."

  Kars gestured to the two burly guards outside.

  "Take her to the upper deck," Kars ordered the guards. "The injured passengers need some entertainment to distract them from their pain. And I hear the sharks down below are still hungry."

  Drek's face turned ghostly pale, whiter than before. "NO! YOU PROMISED! BASTARD! YOU—"

  The guards dragged her out. Drek's screams echoed through the narrow corridor, pleading, cursing, then finally fading, swallowed by the sound of the waves and the wind.

  Mira still stood in the dark cell. She stared at the empty chains on the floor.

  "Was that necessary?" Mira asked quietly.

  "Feeding her to the sharks?" Captain Vraaxask said, shrugging. "That's maritime law. Walk the Plank. Cruel, but fair for what she did."

  Kars looked at Mira. He saw doubt in her eyes, but he also saw hardening resolve. Mira didn’t protest the decision. She just questioned it to check her own moral compass.

  "Draven will come again," Mira said. "He needs a new 'battery.'"

  "He has to fix The Banshee Coil first. And heal his wounds," Kars placed a hand on Mira's shoulder. "We have time. But not much."

  "Three days," Mira murmured, repeating the estimated travel time to Port Rodan.

  Mira picked up Drek's dagger lying on the evidence table in the corner of the room. The dagger was rusty, serrated, and ugly. She plunged it into the wooden wall.

  "I don’t want to be food," Mira said. The rune behind her ear glowed briefly, responding to her emotions. "If he wants to eat me, I’ll make him choke."

  "That’s the spirit," Kars said with a thin smile, this time a genuine and slightly proud smile. "Now, go up to the deck. Get some fresh air. Wash your face. Your training starts at dawn tomorrow."

  "Training for what?"

  "You can manipulate light to burn eyes," Kars said as he walked out. "Now imagine if you could do that from five hundred meters away, unseen, and penetrate a skull."

  Mira fell silent for a moment, imagining that potential—a sharpshooter.

  She followed Kars and Captain Vraaxask out of the prison's darkness.

  Above, the sun was beginning to set, coloring the ocean with the hues of blood. The White Swan sailed in somber silence, carrying a cargo of spices and a young woman who had just realized that she was no longer human, but the most valuable prey in the sea. Indeed, in the world.

  Mira touched her chest, feeling her own heartbeat. The heartbeat of the dragon mark. The heartbeat of V’nyr and Er’ryn. For Draven, it was the sound of the dinner bell. But for Mira, it was a countdown.

  She stepped onto the deck, letting the sea breeze clear the smell of cinnamon and death from her nose.