Sally

Once, Sally and the man now called the Betrayer answered to the same captain, an old idealist who believed the sea still had room for mercy. She believed him. So when her own turn came to take the wheel, she meant to lead the same way.

That was the one thing the Betrayer could not forgive. He had already decided the world was too cruel for kindness, and watching Sally inherit it anyway broke something in him. He did not simply leave. He sold the secrets that kept the sea free, the routes, the charts, the knowledge that was never meant to leave pirate hands, straight to the land kingdoms. The arms race that followed is ending the Age of Pirates one fleet at a time.

Now Sally holds together a crew the world has already written off, in the wreckage of a future the person she trusted most chose to burn. And somewhere past the last free water, that same man is becoming something that no longer needs a crew, a name, or her.