Extra Chapter: Pirate Brotherhood

My name is Edward.

I was born in Cradena, a bay that now rots under the shadow of piracy. But it wasn’t always this way. Once, this city thrived under the rule of the Garthram Empire, where crime existed but was kept in check by the weight of law.

That changed when King Nikola Aikahn, father of Prince Martin Aikahn, made a decision that would alter the fate of Cradena forever. We never knew the details, but his reign was troubled, and as desperation took root, the empire loosened its grip. Crime festered like an open wound, spreading until the city crumbled into filth. The once-prosperous bay transformed into a lawless slum of tangled alleys, choking on its own corruption.

Faced with this decay, the king severed ties. No soldiers. No taxes. No law.

Cradena became a place where only the strong survived—a refuge for outcasts, exiled nobles, gang lords, and failed revolutionaries. A city of thieves and murderers, where blood paid for everything, and trust was the most expensive currency of all.

For my brother Garrick and me, life had never been kind, but after that, it became unbearable. I called him my younger brother, though we were the same age—twins by birth, yet bound by something deeper. I was the stronger one, the one who fought for us both. We were each other’s only family in a world that wanted us dead.

Our mother, Miranda, worked in one of Cradena’s brothels. A woman with a sharp tongue and a sharper temper, she was not the kind of mother that sang lullabies or whispered words of love. One night, she took in a client—a soldier of the Marine Corps, the empire’s naval force.

That night changed everything.

Their affair was brief, forgotten the moment the man left, but it left her with two lives growing inside her. When she sought him out, hoping he’d take responsibility, he vanished without a trace.

Thrown out of the brothel for her mistake, she took work where she could find it—selling herself from the confines of our home. Garrick and I grew up knowing when to disappear, forced into the streets whenever a stranger came knocking.

But if there was any peace to be found, it was by the docks, watching the endless tide of ships rolling in and out of the bay. We dreamed there, in the salt-kissed air, whispering the same foolish fantasy over and over again.

We would join the Marine Corps.

We wanted to escape this life. To fight for something greater. To prove—to our father, to the world—that we were more than the dirt we were born in.

But dreams mean nothing in a city like Cradena.

The Marine Corps serves the kingdom it swears loyalty to, its duty unwavering—to protect trade routes, coastal cities, and merchant vessels from pirates, smugglers, and the horrors that lurk beneath the waves.

To be a Marine meant honor. Strength. Order.

I never considered myself naive. I understood the world was unfair. I was born the same year as Prince Martin Aikahn, yet our lives could not have been more different. He was raised in luxury, a future carved in gold, while I clawed my way through the filth of Cradena, scraping by on scraps. Fate had gifted him everything and given me nothing.

But I refused to believe that blood alone determined worth.

Even when people whispered about me and my brother—about our black hair, a rarity in a world of vivid colors. To some, it was a mere curiosity. To others, a curse. Superstitious fools muttered that children born with hair as dark as ours were destined to bring misfortune.

Yet despite everything, Garrick and I clung to our dream. We would become Marines. We would rise above the streets of Cradena and prove ourselves worthy.

But dreams are fragile things.

I remember the night our world burned as if it happened just yesterday.

Dinner that evening was simple—bread and water, a meal so pitiful that others might have called it punishment. For us, it was normal.

Then the door burst open.

The stench of salt, sweat, and alcohol poured in before I saw them—pirates, their boots heavy against the wooden floor. They filled the small space like a flood, shoving aside what little we had. Instinct took over. I lunged, fists swinging. I was strong for my age, and I managed to take down two of them before I was overwhelmed.

Then he walked in.

Even at fourteen, I could feel it—a presence that swallowed the room whole. He was tall and broad, his skin tanned from years at sea, his long red hair tied back in a loose ponytail. One of his eyes was a striking green, but the other—white and scarred—had long since lost its sight.

I knew his name before he even spoke it.

Jack Bloodgrave.

A legend. A butcher. A pirate whose name alone was enough to turn men pale. He was not the type to steal quietly into the night. When he took, he did it openly, with steel and fire.

He drew his sword without ceremony and, with a single strike, cut Miranda in half.

She never had a chance to scream.

I should have felt horror. I should have mourned her.

But all I felt was relief.

Garrick and I didn’t move. Didn’t cry. Didn’t fight back. The source of our misery had been erased in an instant. We had been born into a life with no purpose—perhaps it was only fitting that we would die without one, too.

But Jack Bloodgrave had other plans.

Miranda, it turned out, had gambled away more than she could afford. She had built a debt with the Bloodgrave crew that even her life could not pay.

And yet, Jack didn’t kill us.

He had seen something in me, something in the way I fought against his men to protect my brother. I had spilled blood with my bare hands, and at fourteen, I was already taller and stronger than most grown men.

He turned to his crew, voice like rolling thunder.

“Take these two as our slaves.”

Garrick and I were taken as slaves by the Bloodgrave crew.

At first, our purpose was simple: clean the damn ship.

Scrub the decks. Wash the blood from the wood. Polish the rust from the cannons. Repeat.

It was mindless, exhausting work, but we learned quickly. In Cradena, hesitation meant weakness, and weakness meant death. We didn’t speak unless spoken to. We didn’t question orders. We survived.

For months, that was our existence—nameless, beaten, discarded when we weren’t useful.

Then came the Pirate War.

Cradena had always been divided. Countless crews operated within its borders, each controlling their own slice of power, each running their own filth-ridden businesses. But two names ruled above all others—Bloodgrave and Black Hawks.

The balance between them was fragile, held together by an unspoken understanding: neither could afford a full-scale war. The smaller crews, desperate for power, were the ones that finally shattered that peace.

And when the first cannon fired, all of Cradena was thrown into chaos.

Factions clashed in the streets. Ships turned into floating battlefields, their masts burning against the night sky. It was a war of greed and vengeance, and though many fought for dominance, only two crews truly mattered.

Bloodgrave vs. Black Hawks.

For Garrick and me, the war should have meant nothing. We were slaves. Tools to be used. But fate has a cruel sense of humor.

One night, while cleaning the deck, death came for my brother.

A Black Hawk assassin had infiltrated our ship, moving like a shadow in the darkness. I heard the whisper of his blade before I saw him—a flash of steel aimed straight for Garrick’s throat.

I didn’t think. But my body moved on its own.

I threw my arm up, putting it between the blade and my brother.

Steel met flesh.

And shattered.

The dagger broke against my skin, fragments clattering to the deck. For a moment, there was only stunned silence. Then rage took me.

I lunged, my fist colliding with the assassin’s ribs. I heard the sickening crunch of bone snapping, felt the warmth of his blood on my knuckles as he crumpled at my feet.

By morning, word of the attack had reached Jack Bloodgrave.

I still remember the way he looked at me, his one good eye gleaming with something close to satisfaction.

“My instincts were right,” he muttered, a grin cutting across his face. “That boy is something else.”

That was the moment everything changed for me.

I was no longer just another slave.

Jack had seen my worth, and from that day forward, he put me on the front lines.

They called me a monster—a man who fought without armor, without weapons, without fear.

The war became my crucible, and I emerged something new. Something feared.

The Iron Fist.

The war was long. Brutal.

Men screamed as they were cut down. Ships burned, their wreckage swallowed by the sea. The streets of Cradena ran slick with blood, the scent of death clinging to the air like a curse. We fought. We killed. We survived.

And in the end, Bloodgrave won.

With the Black Hawks crushed, Cradena belonged to us.

I had risen from nothing—from a slave scrubbing filth off the decks—to Jack Bloodgrave’s right hand. And with my rise, I was given something that meant more than gold, more than power.

A surname.

Dreadmoor.

The terror of the seas.

But time is a tide that spares no man. Jack Bloodgrave—the legend, the butcher, the unbreakable force—grew old. His body weakened, his mind dimmed, and the sea that had once been his domain now threatened to pull him under.

Before death could claim him, he made one final choice.

He handed his empire to me.

And just like that, I became Captain Edward Dreadmoor, ruler of Cradena.

The first thing I did was name Garrick my right-hand man. He had never been a warrior, never thirsted for battle the way I did, but his mind was sharp—sharper than any blade.

And with that mind, we built something greater.

Garrick’s ideas turned Cradena into an empire of shadows.

We became dealers in flesh. The nobles of Garthram—the same nobles who preached virtue and order—came to us, cloaked in secrecy, to purchase our merchandise.

Children.

We turned a profit from innocence, from stolen futures.

Bars, stores, the black market...

Everything in Cradena belonged to me.

The whispers of my name spread beyond the bay, carried on the wind, etched into the nightmares of men. Blackbeard, they called me—a name spoken in hushed, fearful tones.

We were untouchable. Unchallenged. Undisputed.

Or so I thought.

Then the news came. A whisper first. Then a murmur. Then a truth too horrifying to ignore.

A boy—one boy, alone—had decimated an entire ship of my men.

And among the dead, there was one name I never expected to hear.

Garrick.

I felt my stomach turn to iron, my breath shallow, my pulse a hammer in my skull.

I grit my teeth so hard my jaw ached, my fist clenching until the knuckles turned white.

“How is that possible?” My voice came out low, strained, barely contained.

Louise, the water mage in my crew, stood before me, shifting nervously. Even she—who wielded the sea itself—looked terrified.

“I... I don’t know, sir,” she stammered. “Our informants say he did it all by himself...”

One boy.

One damn boy.

I forced my breath steady. Forced my rage to simmer instead of explode.

“Listen carefully, Louise.” My voice was ice now, sharp and deadly. “Tell the crew to start searching for this Ozymandias. I want him alive.”

She swallowed hard and nodded. “O-okay, sir...”

Then she was gone, leaving me alone in the vast silence of my office.

I had lost many men before. Lost ships. Lost battles. But never Garrick.

My brother—the last piece of my past, the only thing that still tied me to the boy I once was—was gone.

And for that, Ozymandias will suffer.

I swear it.