Ten minutes had passed, and Blake now stood in the center of the Call of Sea. The walls of the stone amphitheater rising around him like the jagged teeth of a beast. Above, the sky was overcast, casting a muted gray light over the assembly. Around him, seated in the semi-circular rows carved into the mountain, were some one hundred and fifty lords—each representing their own pirate ships or coastal territories. Their faces were hard, weathered by wind and salt, and their eyes bore down on him with a mix of curiosity, suspicion, and hunger for what was to come.
Blake felt their gazes like the weight of the ocean itself, but he stood firm, his back straight, shoulders squared. This was the moment he had been waiting for. The murmurs among the lords, their whispers of doubt and excitement, buzzed around the stone chamber.
