Sar floated just above the bunk, legs crossed, eyes closed. Her hair flowed in a candy cascade to the floor.
Kraken leaned against a side wall. “Tell me about the others,” he said.

Sar descended to sit on the bunk. She unfolded her legs and put her bare feet on the floor. “I came here to be free, not be locked up. I had a more comfortable prison with the Al’Ri.”

Kraken waited, his head back and eyes closed. Haven spoke of the ocean, the wind, and the argument brewing in the galley.

“Fine,” Sar said. “Ash is the strongest. I’m next strongest, then Leach. We all want freedom. No one forcing us. I thought here would be different. After what you did for the island.” Her hair shifted around her.

“What do you know about pirates,” Gabb said. “Do you think we would have set foot on the island if we weren’t coming for our own?”

Sar’s burgundy eyes darkened, and glowed with deep red light. She looked like poison.

“The others,” Kraken said, his eyes still shut.

Sar glared at him.

“T’Rin is more than useless, he is weak. The grower and Moonglow are malleable. Soul lost.”

Kraken sighed. “Are you angry about the cell? No one forced you in. Prison? Hardly. Your Master was killed, and you freed when we took the island. You traveled the oceans, unbidden, to be a Kraken Pirate. No one asked you to come. You are free to leave at the next port, Y’Ahno. You chose to be here. Be angry with yourself.”

Tension hung in the room. Sar stood and paced in short tight circles. Kor drew his knife and began to clean his nails as if nothing could bother him. Gabb’s eyes turned the all black of a deep ocean predator. Kraken didn’t move.

Sar stopped to face Kraken. “Aren’t you going to ascertain my intentions?”

“Ascertain? Really?” Gabb said.

Kor snorted. “Cousin speak.”

“I have,” Kraken said.

Sar’s hair stilled and hung limp. “But Ash?”

Kraken shrugged. “The boy is a great actor.”

Kraken opened Ash’s cell and stepped in. Gabb and Kor stepped through behind him and flanked the door. Ash jumped up and faced them. Kraken waved a hand and sat on the bunk. Orange eyes glowing in the lamp light flicked between them.

“What can you tell me about the others who came on board?” Kraken asked. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He listened to Haven take to her new course while he waited on Ash to answer.

“As the Captain wishes,” Ash said. “Leach is a leach. She can draw power, health, even life from another. Her place on the island was discipline and torture. Protector cut her to him as an infant. She hated the things he made her do almost as much as she hated him.

“Sar is what the Al’Ri call an Aconitum. Someone beautiful and deadly. She was a guard for one of Protector’s Arch wielders, bound by tether. I don’t know more about her.

“T’Rin talked about his strong pirate, who would be happy to see him. He said their shared affection joined them, and he could use it to find his lover anywhere in the world. He gave directions, but not much else. I would see him cry when he thought no one was around. I know nothing of his power other than it is mid-range.”

Ash paused and looked at Kraken, who still sat with his eyes closed.

“The other two came on the ship as slaves. The one’s that brought them called them servants. Cousin killed the Masters or they couldn’t be here. I don’t know their names, or powers.”

“And you,” Gabb said.

“Me?”

“The arm, boy,” Kor said.

Ash looked at his empty shoulder. “I’ve seen worse. The Masters often cripple their own to stunt their power. My strongest skill was form spell. A wielder moves their hands, arms, bodies through a series of movements. Without the arm?” Ash shrugged.

“You learned a weapon?” Kor asked.

“Yes. Sword.”

“Hope you can fight as well as you act,” Kraken said. “I almost believed you were in pain.”

Ash looked from his shoulder to Kraken. “Always.”

The sun broke startling bright after the news of the Al’Ri ship had settled over Haven. Everyone wore their blacks as the ships came parallel. Haven strained at her anchor eager to engage. Cousin stood by Kraken waiting for the Al’Ri to begin. A thin figure waved an arm, and called a greeting.

“I’ll be sunk,” Gabb said. “Look who it is.”

Cousin didn’t relax. She held her perception tight to the other ship.

“Parley!” the one armed boy called.

“Parley,” Kraken said.

“We should go there,” Cousin said.

“Aye,” Kraken said. “Gabb! Make us tight!”

“Aye, Captain.”

“If you will, my love.”

“Aye.” Cousin pulled Kraken to her, and they floated over to the other ship. Those on deck scattered as Cousin disabled traps, turning them against those who set them.

Kraken grasped hands with the boy. “You’ve grown almost as tall as me,” he said. “Another couple of years and you’ll make a fine man.”

“A man who brings enemies to his friends,” Cousin said.

The boy shrugged. “Knew they wouldn’t be a problem, and I couldn’t sail a ship by myself.”

Cousin frowned. She looked him over with a predatory appraisal. Crystalline orange eyes that sparkled in the bright sun were framed by jet dark hair. His thin adolescent form showed the first signs of maturation. His right shoulder bore a discolored, jagged scar where an arm use to be.

“My name is . . . well the name they gave me is Ba’Rthew.” He glanced at Kraken. His eyes were wide open. “My name really is Ash’Km.”

Kraken looked around the ship, and at the others on the decks. No flag and drooping sails were the most distinguishable features. “What brings you here Ash?”

“Ash,” he said. “I like it.”

Kraken waited.

“I came to find Haven,” Ash said. “To see if I was old enough to join her crew. You said I wasn’t ready before. I think I’m ready now.”

“Join up, you say. Haven doesn’t work that way. I pick. I decide. I invite. No one on Haven came aboard by asking to.”

“Oh.” Ash’s eyes lost some of their shine.

Kraken shifted and looked into the faces pulling closer. Some were fearful. Some eager. Some were open. Some were cruel beneath feigned innocence. Ash was none of that. “Granted no one has hunted me down in the middle of the ocean before.”

Ash looked up, surprise the only thing on his face.

“My love,” Kraken said, “ideas?”

Cousin looked over the ship. “All here are Al’Ri. Most from the island we freed. Ash is not the only one here you can trust to be honest to his intentions. It is his intentions you need to ascertain.”

Kraken nodded as if her words were the basis of his thoughts. He glowered down at his boots, and pretended to think.

Cousin played along. “I can ascertain his intentions if you wish, Captain.”

“Yes,” Kraken said. “Continue.”

Cousin moved with preternatural speed, and seized Ash’s arm. She jerked him around and locked eyes with him.

Ash screamed long and loud. He screamed with the same pain as when his arm had been taken. Most of the other Al’Ri backed away, many crying mercy. When Cousin released Ash’s arm he fell in a heap gulping great breaths.

Kraken pointed to three others. “What about you? You want your intentions ascertained?” He looked sideways at Cousin with an expression that said: Ascertained? Really?

Two women stepped forward.

“Cousin?”

“No,” she said. “Have Ash do it. I’m feeling lazy.”

Kraken laughed long and loud. He held a hand out to Ash. “Well, what do you say? Want to be a Kraken Pirate? It will be dangerous. You could die.”

Ash grasped Kraken’s hand and stood at if nothing had happened. “Yes. I want to be free.”

“And them?”

Ash turned. He saw who Kraken spoke of. “Yes. I trust them. We are all wielders. We have all been conditioned to fight. We have all been stunted.”

Cousin kept her flare of anger from her face, the spike of power out of the air.

Kraken ran a hand down her arm as if in show. “I don’t need wielders. Your duties will be assigned by the Quarter Master. No one shirks on Haven.”

“Aye, Captain,” Ash said.

The women walked forward when Kraken motioned them forward.

“I am Leach,” said a woman with short, jagged, mouse brown hair, and hazel eyes. “I am ready.”

“I am Sar,” said the other. “I am ready.” She stared at Cousin with wide burgundy eyes. Her long powder pink hair moved around her.

Kraken looked at them a long time. He listened to the ships on the water. Haven beckoned in the back of his mind talking of empty spaces. “Leach? Sar? You want to be Kraken Pirates? It will be dangerous. You could die.”

“Yes, Captain,” they said together.

Kraken looked to Cousin. “The ship is yours – to your best judgment.” He gathered Ash, Leach and Sar with his power and went back to Haven.