The sky was a scar of black and silver.
Clouds churned like an unholy sea above the Stormrider, and the air crackled with a strange, electric charge not the wild chaos of a natural storm, but something ancient, something wrong.
And at the heart of it, a shadow loomed.
Alistair Von Wolfenstein gripped the wheel, his knuckles white, his jaw tight. The map the cursed map Seraphina had thrust into his life was pinned to the desk behind him, its cryptic symbols glowing faintly now, as though reacting to the storm.
They were close. Too close.
"Cap'n," Rogan growled from the engine room's hatch, his face slick with oil and sweat. "Whatever we're chasing it ain't natural."
Alistair's lips twisted into a grim smile. "Rogan, nothing about my life is natural."
From behind him, a voice like velvet and steel: "It's not the storm you should fear, Captain."
Seraphina Blackthorn.
She stood beside him, her dark cloak clinging to her like a second skin, twin daggers resting at her hips. Her hair was wild in the wind, her eyes sharper than the blades she carried.
Alistair chuckled, though his heart pounded beneath the humor. "And here I thought you liked my fearless streak."
Seraphina didn't smile. "Fearless and foolish are often the same thing."
Before Alistair could offer another quip, Isolde Greaves appeared on his other side a perfect mirror of Seraphina's stormy presence, though colder. Always colder.
"Are you two planning to flirt through the apocalypse?" Isolde's voice was a blade wrapped in silk.
Alistair bit back a grin. "A man must have his comforts."
But even his charm couldn't slice through the tension crackling between the three of them a storm of its own, made of unspoken desire, old scars, and danger.
And then, they saw it.
The Iron Tempest.
It wasn't a ship.
Not in any way Alistair had ever seen.
It hung in the sky like a monolith, an ancient vessel of black steel and twisted brass. Its hull was an amalgamation of sharp angles and glowing runes, and its sails if they could even be called that were vast sheets of metal, rippling and shifting as though alive.
Gears the size of buildings clicked and spun within its body, and strange blue lightning arced between the plates.
It was less a skyship and more a floating fortress a war machine forgotten by time.
And yet, it breathed.
A low, pulsing hum echoed across the sky, like the beat of a massive, mechanical heart.
Alistair's blood went cold. "It's… alive."
Seraphina's voice was barely a whisper. "The legends were true."
Isolde's hand hovered over the hilt of her rapier, her jaw tight. "We shouldn't be here."
The Iron Tempest seemed to respond to their presence, the glowing runes along its hull brightening, the storm around it twisting into an unnatural spiral.
And then
A voice.
Not from the ship.
From the storm.
"So, you found it."
The voice was deep, smooth a cruel purr that sent a shiver down Alistair's spine.
A ship emerged from the clouds, sleek and black with a serpent's figurehead: The Black Marauder.
Captain Varik.
He stood at the bow of his ship like a dark king, his long coat flaring behind him, his clockwork eye glowing a sinister red. Beside him, his crew sky pirates armed to the teeth with steam-powered rifles and blades that hissed with some dark, arcane energy.
Alistair gritted his teeth. "Of course you'd show up now."
Varik's smile was all teeth. "Did you really think you'd be the only one to reach the Iron Tempest, Von Wolfenstein?"
Alistair's hand tightened around the wheel. "Varik, you never did know how to make a polite entrance."
Seraphina's daggers were already drawn. "We need to move. Now."
Isolde didn't take her eyes off Varik. "He's not here to negotiate."
Varik's ship inched closer, cannons sliding into place along its hull.
"You have something I want," Varik said. "Give me the map and I might let you live."
Alistair barked a laugh. "I'd rather kiss a sky eel."
Seraphina's voice was low. "You'd kiss anything with a pulse."
Isolde smirked. "I'm not sure a pulse is required."
Alistair grinned despite the danger. "Ladies, I'm starting to feel ganged up on."
Varik's voice cut through their banter. "You have ten seconds."
The Stormrider's cannons creaked into place.
Alistair's heart thundered. "Rogan?"
The first mate's voice crackled from the engine room. "Cannons hot, Cap'n."
Alistair's grin sharpened. "Good."
Varik raised his hand a signal to his gunners.
And then
The Iron Tempest roared.
The sound wasn't human, wasn't machine it was both.
A pulse of blue lightning erupted from the ship's hull, slamming into the sky between the Stormrider and The Black Marauder. The shockwave sent both ships reeling, their crews staggering.
The storm twisted into a vortex, clouds spiraling around the ancient ship like a hungry beast.
And the runes along the Iron Tempest's hull began to shift.
Letters.
Words.
A language older than the skies themselves.
Alistair felt a hand on his arm Seraphina's.
Her voice was steady, but her grip was like steel. "We're not in control anymore."
Isolde's rapier gleamed, though her voice was softer now. "Whatever's inside that ship… it's waking up."
Varik's ship steadied, but his expression for the first time was uncertain.
And then, the Iron Tempest's main hull began to open.
A doorway tall, dark, and waiting.
Alistair's heart thundered.
"Looks like we're going in," he muttered.
Seraphina's smile was fierce. "After you, Captain."
Isolde's was colder. "Try not to die."
And as the Stormrider inched closer to the Iron Tempest's waiting maw with Varik's cannons aimed at their backs and the storm howling all around them Alistair knew one thing for certain:
The real battle had only just begun.