Onshore, a storm brewed but Dorian Vance had worse storms dealt to him than open seas. His biggest worry in a hooded silhouette, the words of a dangerous kind whispered only to him.
"I told you I'm not the only one looking for this relic," Dorian said into darkness. Who is after it?
The hooded guy snorted humourlessly. "Anyone that knows it exists".
Dorian's fingers clenched around his cutlass. How did within a nanosecond, he went from never knowing this so-called ultimate treasure to people chasing after it? Whether a trap, or he was already at least one step behind
The figure finally dragged back the black hood. Drake, a name Dorian had not used in years.
Elias had once been one of his best friends in the city, a betrayer to the Empire.
His jaw was clenching. Well you have five seconds to tell me why I should not kill you right fucking here.
The mock surrender of hands. "Honestly, I mean."
An old grudge and unspoken truths welled from thick silence between them.
"Speak."
Elias pulled a scrap of burned and smudged parchment from his coat pocket; Dorian quickly snatched it and started reading into the half-burned map. It led to an island in the sky, as far from Blackreach Bay as you could go.
"The Isle of Echoes."
Dorian had overheard something. A place where the voices of the dead didn't come out, a place no man came back from.
He took a deep breath out. "And you are supposed to believe I would give this to you of my own free will?"
Elias smirked. " Captain, nah. You take your hostage with you.
Lights from across the harbor caught Dorian in his peripheral vision. Figure at the far end of the docks-cloaked in Imperial blue.
Barked the hounds of the Empire
Dorian muttered under his breath and turned back to the encomium. He had two options:
1. Assassinate the rebel and flee.
2.Trust him for now and sail before the Empire closed in.
The hunt for the pure treasure had finally begun-it really was underway.