The Stormrider sliced through the darkened skies like a blade of brass and blood, the storm behind them now a distant bruise on the horizon. Steam hissed from its engines, gears clunked in steady rhythm, and the scent of oil and gunpowder still clung to the deck like an unshakable ghost.
Alistair Von Wolfenstein stood at the bow, his cutlass now cleaned and resting in its scabbard, though his fingers still twitched with the memory of battle. The fight with Varik had been too close a reminder that the skies were as treacherous as the people who sailed them.
But it wasn't just Varik gnawing at his thoughts.
It was the two women standing on either side of him.
Seraphina Blackthorn leaned against the mast, her dark hair whipping in the wind, her twin daggers spinning idly between her fingers. She was like a storm barely contained dangerous, alluring, and entirely unpredictable.
Then there was Isolde Greaves a woman of ice and fire. She stood at the edge of the deck, her coat trailing behind her like a dark flame, a hand resting lightly on the hilt of her rapier. Her smile never quite reached her eyes.
The silence between the three of them was louder than the hum of the ship's engines.
It wasn't the kind of silence born from peace.
It was the silence before something broke.
"You should be thanking me, you know."
Seraphina's voice cut through the quiet like a knife through silk. She hadn't looked up from her daggers, but the sharpness of her words was unmistakable.
Alistair arched a brow, his trademark smirk tugging at the scar along his jaw. "For what, exactly? Firing a shot at Varik, or nearly shooting me in the process?"
Her eyes flicked to his, dark and glittering. "I never miss."
"Good to know," Alistair drawled. "I'll sleep easier tonight."
Isolde chuckled softly the sound a blade wrapped in velvet. "You two always flirt like this, or am I witnessing something special?"
The tension coiled tighter.
Alistair opened his mouth to smooth things over or to pour more fuel on the fire, he wasn't sure but Seraphina beat him to it.
She pushed off the mast, sauntering toward Isolde with a lazy kind of grace. "I don't flirt," she said, stopping just a breath away from the other woman. "I warn."
Isolde's smile didn't waver, but Alistair caught the way her hand drifted just a little closer to her sword.
"Ladies," Alistair said, stepping between them half a peacekeeper, half a man who knew too well the danger of standing too close to two unsheathed blades. "Let's save the bloodshed for Varik."
Seraphina's gaze lingered on Isolde a moment longer before she stepped back, her smirk returning. "He's not the only threat in these skies, Captain."
Later that night…
The sky had darkened to an obsidian void, broken only by the faint, flickering lights of distant floating cities and the occasional crack of skyfire illuminating the clouds. The Stormrider drifted quietly, the crew keeping their voices low as if the storm they'd escaped was still listening.
Alistair retreated to his quarters a cabin more suited to a rogue than a captain. Maps were strewn across the oak table, a half-empty bottle of black rum tipped on its side. Gears, clockwork parts, and scraps of skyship schematics lay in organized chaos.
He poured himself a glass, the liquid burning his throat but warming the cold knot in his chest.
Then the door creaked open.
He didn't need to turn to know who it was.
"Couldn't sleep, Lady Blackthorn?" he asked, his voice smooth as silk, though his pulse betrayed him.
Seraphina stepped into the cabin, closing the door behind her with a soft click. "Sleep doesn't come easy when you're sailing with a man who seems determined to get himself killed."
Alistair chuckled, swirling the rum in his glass. "Careful that almost sounded like concern."
She crossed the room slowly, the candlelight casting long shadows across her face. "I'm not concerned, Alistair. I just need you alive long enough to find the Iron Tempest."
He set his drink down. "And after that?"
Seraphina didn't answer right away. Instead, she stepped closer too close. Close enough that Alistair could see the scar along her collarbone, the faint sheen of sweat from the day's battle, the way her lips parted ever so slightly.
"After that," she whispered, "we'll see."
Their eyes locked a storm of tension, unspoken words, and something far more dangerous than any skyship battle.
Alistair's hand brushed the small of her back a test, a question.
Seraphina didn't pull away.
But before either of them could close the distance, a knock shattered the moment like a cannon blast.
The door swung open.
Isolde stood in the doorway, her gaze flicking from Alistair's hand on Seraphina to the rum bottle on the table.
"Well," Isolde said softly, her voice a blade hidden beneath silk, "I hope I'm not interrupting."
Seraphina stepped back, her face an unreadable mask, though Alistair caught the flicker of something frustration? Amusement?
Alistair's smile didn't falter. "Not at all, Lady Greaves. Care for a drink?"
Isolde entered the room, her every step a slow, deliberate threat not of violence, but of something far more complicated.
The cabin, suddenly too small, was now a battlefield of a different kind.
And as Alistair poured another glass, he realized the war for the Iron Tempest wasn't just raging in the skies it was right here, in this room.
Three hearts, each with their own secrets.
Three blades, each hidden beneath a smile.
And one storm, growing ever closer.