The jungle sang with no mercy.

  Birds screamed overhead while distant drums pounded a rhythm that no heart could follow. Steam rose from the canopy, mingling with the stench of sweat and blood that hung heavy in the humid air. The pirate base wasn’t a camp — it was a wound carved into nature’s skin. Shanty towers of driftwood and bone pierced the greenery, with hammocks strung like webs across blackened palm trunks. Fires crackled beneath slabs of meat still dripping from their kills. This was no resting point — it was a feeding ground.

  Captain Yvonne Blackwell walked through it all like he owned the jungle itself.

  He was barefoot, his heels slapping soft against the muddy ground, dreadlocks trailing behind him like ropes of midnight. Woven into the strands were beast fang charms and gold bands that glinted beneath the torches. His coat was long and navy-blue, tattered at the edges, but embroidered with golden thread that shimmered as he moved. Across one shoulder, scale armor shimmered — harvested from a fallen sea beast that had nearly taken his arm.

  Nearly.

  His right arm pulsed with something else now. It was not flesh. It was something foul — a cursed limb of churning black mass that stretched from shoulder to fingertips. It shifted when it wasn’t supposed to. Twitched when it wasn’t touched. It pulsed against his skin, feeding off him like a parasite, or a pet. No one knew the full story. He didn’t tell it.

  He passed the holding area without slowing, eyes flicking left to right. Elven children huddled in one cage, skin too pale for this climate, clothes torn but eyes alert. Their ears twitched at every sound — every laugh, every shout, every footstep.

  In the next cage were two of his favorites: the woman with the fire in her eyes, and the one who stared like she was already planning to escape.

  Thessia and Neyxa.

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  Both were chained, hands above their heads, glyph cuffs designed to suppress mana. Their clothes were stained from the skirmish on the water, cuts still fresh, dirt smudged across their skin like war paint. Thessia had spit at one of his men earlier. Neyxa hadn’t said a word — but he’d seen how she watched. She didn’t look for exits. She studied habits.

  That one was dangerous.

  Most of the other captives were gone. Dead in the sea. Their blood still stained the hull of the pirate ship that had brought them here. A few survivors were already put to work, stripped of gear, dignity, and freedom. They moved crates and tended to jungle fires while being whipped or cursed or ignored.

  But the prize — oh, the prize — wasn’t with them.

  Yvonne moved past the barrows and into the inner hold, ducking beneath a canopy of jagged leaves where only captains were allowed. Past rows of tents sewn from stolen sails. Through the altar gates, where carved bone idols grinned with animal teeth.

  And there he was.

  Suspended in the vault chamber by chains anchored to the ceiling, wrists spread, feet dangling just inches off the dirt floor — Rell.

  The boy hung with his head down, muscles slack but not limp. His chest was rising. He was breathing. Not broken. Dried blood flaked from his side where a blade had cut too shallow to kill. His hands were raw from pulling, but not trembling. The torchlight flickered across his jawline, sweat gleaming under his collarbone.

  Yvonne exhaled once through his nose.

  He stepped forward.

  Chains clinked softly as Rell raised his head.

  Their eyes met.

  One pair glowed with crimson weariness.

  The other gleamed with blue fire.

  Yvonne grinned and tilted his head slightly.

  Yvonne: “How’s it going,” he said, smirking.

  Rell: “Just hanging around.”

  Yvonne barked a single laugh.

  Yvonne: “You have the manners of a beast… but the vocabulary of a scholar.”

  Rell (eyebrow twitching): “Wait… you can understand me?”

  Yvonne didn’t answer right away. He just kept staring.

  And then he walked forward, cursed arm flexing slightly as if annoyed by something unseen.

  Rell tensed.

  Yvonne: “Oh, I understand more than you think, jungle boy.”

  He studied him — not like prey, but like investment. A smuggled weapon too dangerous to sell whole.

  Yvonne: “You’ve got something in you. People follow it. They die for it. And I make coin off both.”

  Rell: “You’re just another greedy bastard hiding behind excuses.”

  Yvonne: “Greed is just hunger with better timing.”

  Rell’s jaw tightened.

  Rell: “Where I came from… people like you were the rot. I didn’t come back to rot again.”

  Yvonne stepped back, amused.

  Yvonne: “Back, huh? Interesting…”

  He turned slowly.

  Rell: “What’s your plan then?”

  Yvonne didn’t stop walking.

  Yvonne: “Simple. Sell every last one of you. Turn screams into silver. Blood into bounty.”

  Rell didn’t speak. His silence said enough.

  Yvonne paused at the doorway — just long enough to leave one last scar.

  Yvonne: “If you want to save ‘em, boy… you better break before they do.”

  He vanished into the dark.

  Chains creaked once.

  Rell closed his eyes.

  Chapter End.