With folded arms and a sweet wink at his foe across the deck, Zane went over the rules of the race in his mind—rules that had been changed at the last minute by his mother who stood by to watch.

It was a true season’s-end miracle that she was present at all. His mother—the prophetess, vision seer, and steerer of the ship—had become the interim ruler during this freezing quarter until a new captain was selected; a title which should have been Zane’s birthright, but his mother was too mystical and scheming to simply hand such a position over. Reasons ranged from, “It’s not yet time,” to, “You’re still too young,” plus, “I cannot bloody see what you’re hiding from me!”

To be Captain of the Kelidestone was every-bloody-thing. The Kelidestone was a mighty, fearsome ship with bloodred sails—meant for gliding over open seas, chopping through ice-topped lakes, and plunging across the snow dunes by the windmill-wheels hugging the bottom that could be rowed from inside. Zane’s hands belonged at its helm.

The prophetess had come to watch the race, but she had not spoken a word to Zane since she’d ascended from belowdecks where she had spent nearly a full quarter summoning her energies and scribbling visions on parchment. She had not sent for him in all that time, either.

Tigris, however, had been summoned a good measure of times.

In a pinch, his mother would see how foolish she had been to parade Tigris around before the crew; the captain she “foresaw” to inherit the ship in his future, as was spoken to her through a vision. A future not put in stone—but one she would surely craft the way she wanted.

The waves raged in hunger, spurting through gaps of broken ice the Kelidestone had shattered to make space for the duo of pirates to swim. All for this game of theirs. All for this race that Tigris Oran-Mathsideon would lose.

“Are you yet ready, sputtlepuns?” Sembleton held an ice-shredded scrap of flag in his fist that had once boasted a bone skull with a frostlilly as its mouth but was now too mangled to make out.

The ice below cried and groaned as the last of it was snapped and dragged away by hooks and chains to make a large hole for entry into the dark snowseas.

Sembleton raised the tattered flag to the wind, giving brief life to its tendrils, and Zane crouched to dig the heel of his boot against the deck. It was time to show Tigris what a minnow he was.

“Wait.” The prophetess raised a hand, halting the theatrics and the game.

Zane slid his frosty gaze to the woman, eyeing the dark serpentine tattoo reaching up her neck into her pecan hair.