He blinked, looked away from the horizon. He was sea-dreaming. Imagining things that would hurt him later.

Now, even.

“There’ve been stories about you.” The captain was squinting at him. “Well before the storm.”

It disconcerted Arin, the way people had begun to look at him. There was this shining expectation. He wasn’t sure how much of it really had to do with him. Maybe when people have nothing precious, an idea takes its place. Arin wasn’t ready to be an idea. They’re just stories, Arin wanted to say, but the words died on his lips. He knew better than to deny his god.

It was as if the captain had heard Arin’s thoughts. “God-touched, you are.”

Arin said nothing, yet beneath the shyness lay an undeniable plea sure.

The ship slipped between the Empty Islands and dropped anchor to the east of one island large enough to hide the ship from view of any vessel that might come from the Valorian capital. The crew waited.

Arin still had no shoes. His feet were too large for the few spare boots on board. He ripped rags, tied them around his feet, and walked carefully.

He tried to go over the plan with the captain, who interrupted him with a dismissive flick of the hand. “That’s not a plan. That’s simple piracy. You needn’t teach me that.”

Arin was taken aback. “Before the war, the Herrani were the best at sea. We gained wealth through sea trade. We weren’t pirates.”

The captain laughed and laughed.

The ship came. It sailed from the west. A large vessel, weighty with double gundecks.

The cry came down from the crow’s nest aboard Arin’s ship. The crew heaved at the capstan, weighed anchor, luffed the sails, and drove toward the Valorian vessel.

Arin’s ship was lighter, which made it faster. But it was lighter because of its single gundeck. Catching up to the Valorian vessel wasn’t the hard part. Boarding her without being blown out of the water would be. If the Valorians were surprised to see the Herrani ship move out from behind the island and ride in their wake, their surprise wouldn’t last long. They’d be ready for an attack.

Arin went below to the gundeck. The gunports were open now, the mouths of a row of cannons yawning wide. Arin and the crew prepared them. Black powder down a cannon’s belly, a wad of cloth jammed in tight and shoved home with a rammer. The cannonball. Arin cradled it between his palms, smooth and heavy, then pushed it in. All rammed down. He primed the cannon. Hauled on the gun tackles. The sailors dragged each cannon forward until its barrel slid into the gunport and its carriage met the bulwark.

Arin snuck a look out the port. He didn’t see the ship yet. But he prob ably wouldn’t see it until his captain brought his ship broadside to broadside, the gunports of one ship mirroring the other.

He looked away and caught sight of the gray face of the sailor nearest him. Sweat trembled on the man’s brow. He looked ill. He didn’t look how Arin felt. Arin wished he could share what he felt: a dark greed.

The ship slowed. They must be drawing abreast of the Valorians.

His lungs were taut, eager. The world was made simple. Arin, who with other things had gone so badly wrong before, who had judged and misjudged and misunderstood, wouldn’t fail at this. Maybe it was his god, or maybe it was only ordinary human determination, but his need to fight felt ready and strong, like sprung steel that wanted to cut its way out of him.

He smiled encouragingly at the sailor.

A blast burst through the bulwark. The sailor exploded into bloody chunks. Shards of wood whizzed through the air, driving into Arin’s flung-up arm.

“Fire,” Arin shouted. He lit his cannon, got out of the path of its recoil. It shuddered and boomed. The sailors were doing the same, and then doing as Arin did: dragging the shot cannon back, swabbing it out, stuffing it again, dragging it up against the bulwark. It went on like that for some time. It was impossible to see what damage the Herrani inflicted. Another blast ruptured a hole in the bulwark. They were high enough above the waterline not to take on the sea, and the Valorians would want to seize his ship as much as he wanted theirs, but they’d sink it if it came to that. Arin reloaded. Fired.

Then he stepped wrong. A sharp object pierced his rag-covered foot. He glanced down at his right foot. The rags were staining red. He paused, slow now for some reason he couldn’t quite comprehend, but Arin had come to trust these moments when part of him understood something before his mind did. He reached down, dragged out a bloody bit of metal (a bent nail?), and gave it a good brief stare. An idea spread within him, curved. A malevolent sort of smile.