Anna, her cheek smeared with blood that was not her own, saw a jolly boat bobbing aimlessly on the rising tide. She waded out to it, her scimitar out of its scabbard and trailing in the water. The dawn seemed delayed, as though avoiding the carnage that would inevitably greet it. Numbing herself to everything around her, Anna climbed, trembling, into the battered boat. As she rowed, she could see that something was happening on the shore; something distracting enough to capture everyone’s attention. Grateful for the lack of pursuers, Anna tried to row faster.

However, it was soon obvious that she didn’t need to exert much effort. The fire had severed Medrana’s moorings, and not even her anchor could hold her now. It had collapsed along with the port side of the ship, and had settled at the bottom of the cove. Consequently, the ship was floating ever closer, until Anna could stop rowing altogether and just climb with the best of her ability over the brittle sides. Pulling herself back to her feet, she looked around the wreckage anxiously for a good few minutes before she finally saw him.

“Luke!” A sob was tangled fast in her throat. She ran to his broken body, lying in a heap against the remains of the ship’s wheel. There was a trail of blood; he must have dragged himself there. Frantically, Anna felt for a pulse. For a minute she nearly collapsed with grief, for it seemed that there were no signs of life at all. Biting her lip, she kept trying, until at last she found it: the faint flutter of his heart, still beating after all.

“Luke...it’s Annie...please, hang on...” Anna sobbed quietly. With strength she had forgotten she could muster, she pulled Luke to the broken rails, only to be faced with a dilemma. How would she ever get him down to the rowboat? She wasn’t strong enough to swim them both back to shore. And dropping him down into the water was completely out of the question. Bracing herself against what must have been a barrel, she tried to keep her balance as the ship’s listing grew worse. It would overturn soon, at this rate. And then Anna realized that her problem could be easily fixed.

Shifting Luke’s weight further, she leaned in the direction of the list. The ship groaned, and she could hear timbers hitting the water as they began to slide down...eventually Medrana was nearly level with the water, her deck practically perpendicular to the cove. Anna laid a free hand on the blackened wood and whispered a small goodbye, then let herself and Luke slide down to the sea. A long reach wasn’t required to get to the rowboat, and Anna managed to heave Luke into it. When she turned around, the ship was gone.

It was as she hauled herself out of the water and into the boat once more that it happened. Anna lost her balance as suction from the sinking ship churned the already choppy water. A rogue wave tossed the rowboat into the air, pushing it at a dangerous speed towards the shore. Anna hit the bottom of the boat head-first, jarring her locket open.

On the beach, the Pirate King looked up at the beam of light arcing through the gradually brightening sky, and broke free from the fighting all around him. He swept right by Lee, who immediately took off after him. A few yards away, Jesse looked to the sea and saw the tiny rowboat being propelled back to the beach, and then the mass of soldiers now moving to intercept its passengers. He, too, ran in that direction.

Anna fumbled to close the locket, but couldn’t. The boat had hit the wet sand of the shallows, and suddenly they were surrounded by enemies. Above them, dawn had finally arrived, heralding the rise of a blood-red sun.

They were caught in a terrifying standstill. One by one, the enemy muskets clicked. The waves lapped helplessly against the battered little boat, and Luke groaned as it rocked with the rising tide. Anna felt sluggish, her fingers somehow unable to move in the right direction to close the locket. The beam of light was slender but strong, rising up just inches from her ash-streaked face. There was a cut just above her eye, and a line of blood was trickling from it, following the curve of her cheek. It seemed to her that she saw everything through a veil of smoke, or a screen of fog. There were many faces staring back at her, but they all blurred and blended together, until she could recognize none of them.

The Pirate King broke through the wall of men, forgetting his wounds. “ANNIE!” His bellowing cry echoed over the beach, and Anna blinked her eyes several times until her father’s face suddenly surfaced, clearly, before her. She found that focusing on anything else but that face only made her dizzy, recklessly dizzy– dizzy enough to give up and tumble blissfully into nothing...

The presence of the Pirate King seemed to trigger a thousand events into motion. The rifles, already cocked and ready to fire, now aimed at his unprotected back. The remaining pirates, snarling, angled notched blades to unprotected throats. And only yards behind now came Lee, running, his javelin raised.

Jesse would have seen him, but it was he who intercepted the first bullet that exploded into the gray morning air. He took it in the arm, and gritted his teeth in pain, but did not fall. He raised his cutlass high and cut the man down. Outraged, both sides now clamored for the victory– the circle of friend and foe tightened around the splintered boat. Jesse, his arm burning with pain, fought in a blind frenzy. He knew only that he had to keep his family safe.

Tracks of tears were cutting through the layer of ash on Anna’s face. Her throat felt hoarse from screaming, her limbs leaden with exhaustion, and everything, her whole body, numb with shock. Behind her, a brother lay dying; before her, a thousand things that could be lost, and lost forever; a past beginning to crumble, and a future too weak yet to shine through. The Pirate King was shaking her, shaking her. She felt his fist close around the locket at her throat, his blistered and calloused hand blocking the light that persisted to shine even through his fingers.