The branding iron smells worse than I imagined—like burning meat and the death of everything I used to be. "Hold him steady," Captain Veyre commands, her voice cold as the ocean wind whipping through the cargo hold. Two Tidecaller guards pin my shoulders to the salt-stained table. I don't struggle. What's the point? My own mother signed the contract that put me here, her elegant signature worth thirty thousand gold crescents—exactly what my brother Davin owed after his last trip to the Serpent's Den casino. The iron descends toward my chest, glowing red-hot with the Tidecaller Consortium's mark. I bite down on the leather strap between my teeth and taste blood as the brand sears through my skin. The Stormcrest family crest, tattooed over my heart since I was twelve, bubbles and blackens beneath the new mark. I don't scream. I won't give them that. "Clean him up and put him with the other collateral," Veyre says, already turning away. To her, I'm inventory. A line item in a ledger. *One Kade Stormcrest, second son, maritime training, age twenty-three. Condition: acceptable. Value: debt settlement.* The guards drag me to a cell below deck where five other young men and women sit in various states of despair. Some cry. Others stare at nothing. I recognize two of them—minor nobility from coastal families, probably sold for similar reasons. "First time?" asks a scarred man in the corner. He's older than the rest of us, maybe forty, with the weathered look of someone who's seen too many horizons. "Obviously," I rasp, my chest still screaming. "Name's Torrin. Former ship captain before I borrowed from the wrong people." He gestures around the cell. "Welcome to the Consortium's collection. We dock in Tidecaller territory in three days. After that, they'll assign us to whatever work they think we're worth." "I was trained in maritime commerce," I say. "Navigation, trade routes, contract law." Torrin laughs, but it's not cruel. "Doesn't matter what you were, boy. Matters what they need. Could be ships. Could be warehouses. Could be scrubbing barnacles for the rest of your bonded service." He pauses. "How long they own you for?" "Seven years." "Could be worse. Girl in here last week had fifteen." I lean my head back against the damp wood, feeling the ship rock beneath us. Seven years. By then, I'll be thirty. Davin will be running the Stormcrest fleet, probably into the ground. Mother will be hosting garden parties in our cliffside estate, telling her friends how she only had one son worth keeping. *Worthless cargo.* That's what Elara called me when she broke our engagement contract. Three days before the wedding, she stood in my family's great hall wearing the dress meant for our ceremony and announced she'd chosen Davin instead. "Your brother has prospects," she said, her beautiful face twisted with contempt. "You're just... spare parts." Mother didn't even argue. She signed the new marriage contract that same afternoon. The worst part? I believed them. Believed I was the lesser son, the backup plan, the one who could be traded away when convenient. That was before I found the ledgers. The ship lurches, and someone in the cell vomits into a bucket. The smell mingles with salt and despair. I close my eyes and see those pages again—years of Davin's embezzlement, carefully hidden in shipping manifests and false cargo reports. He didn't just gamble away his own money. He stole from every Stormcrest venture, from our sailors' wages, from our partners' shares. And when the Consortium came to collect, Mother chose to pay them with me rather than expose her golden son. "You've got that look," Torrin says quietly. "What look?" "The one that says you're not planning to scrub barnacles for seven years." I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling. "No. I'm not." ---