The oppressive, suffocating heat of Havana clung to Mateo like a wet wool blanket. Inside the Blind Mermaid tavern, the air was a toxic haze of cheap tobacco smoke, spilled dark rum, and the unwashed sweat of sailors, smugglers, and cutthroats. It was the year of our Lord 1715, and the Caribbean was a powder keg of dying empires and rising outlaws. Mateo sat in the darkest corner of the room, his wide-brimmed leather hat pulled low over his dark eyes. He kept his right hand resting beneath the sticky wooden table, his fingers curled tightly around the grip of his loaded flintlock pistol.
At twenty-six, Mateo was a man without a country. Once a celebrated cartographer and navigator for the Spanish Royal Navy, he had been framed for treason by a corrupt admiral and sentenced to hang. He had escaped the gallows with only the clothes on his back and a single, folded piece of vellum hidden in his boot: the location of the Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas, a galleon that had sunk in a hurricane twelve years prior, carrying a cargo of Peruvian silver meant for the King of Spain.
He took a slow sip of his rum, the cheap liquor burning his throat. He was waiting for a smuggler who had promised him passage to Nassau. But as the heavy wooden doors of the tavern violently swung open, Mateo knew the smuggler wasn’t coming.
Standing in the threshold, silhouetted by the blinding midday sun, was Commodore Arthur Sterling of the British Royal Navy. Sterling was a tall, skeletal man with cold, dead eyes and an immaculate red coat that seemed entirely impervious to the tropical heat. Flanking him were six heavily armed British marines, their muskets leveled at the crowd. The tavern fell into a terrified, breathless silence.
“Nobody moves,” Sterling’s voice cut through the smoky air like a razor. “I am looking for a Spaniard. A traitor to his crown, and a thief to mine. Mateo de la Cruz. Hand him over, and the rest of you scum may continue drinking yourselves into the grave.”
Mateo’s heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs. Sterling was a hound. He had been hunting Mateo across the Antilles for three months, undoubtedly tipped off about the map. Mateo slowly thumbed the hammer of his pistol back. Click. It was a quiet sound, but in the silent tavern, it was enough. Sterling’s head snapped toward the dark corner.
“Take him. Alive, if possible,” Sterling ordered, a cruel smile touching his thin lips. “If not, just bring me his boots.”
The marines advanced. Mateo overturned the heavy oak table, using it as a barricade just as a musket ball splintered the wood inches from his face. He fired his pistol blindly, the deafening crack echoing in the confined space, dropping the lead marine. But there were five left, and Mateo had no time to reload. He drew his rapier, the slender Toledo steel humming as it cleared its scabbard.
Before the marines could close the distance, the large stained-glass window at the rear of the tavern shattered inward in a shower of colorful shards.
A figure swung through the broken frame on a thick hemp rope, landing gracefully on the bar counter. It was a woman, dressed in a long, dark blue captain’s coat over a practical canvas shirt and leather breeches. She had wild, sun-bleached hair tied back with a crimson bandana, and her eyes were the piercing, stormy gray of a squall. She held a boarding axe in one hand and a smoking flintlock in the other.
“Commodore Sterling!” Captain Elara Vance shouted, her voice echoing with a fierce, musical cadence. “You really must stop crashing my favorite drinking establishments!”
Sterling’s face contorted in absolute rage. “Vance. You pirate b*tch.”
“That’s Captain Pirate b*tch to you, Arthur,” Elara smirked. She tossed a small, heavy iron sphere onto the floorboards between Sterling and the marines. The fuse was already hissing. “Grenado! Heads down, boys!”
Panic erupted. The marines scrambled backward. Elara didn’t wait for the explosion. She vaulted off the bar, grabbed Mateo by the collar of his tunic, and hauled him toward the shattered window.
“You want to live, Spaniard? Jump!” she commanded.
Mateo didn’t hesitate. They threw themselves through the window just as the grenade detonated, blowing the tavern’s front doors off their hinges and filling the room with blinding white smoke and flying splinters.
They hit the sandy alleyway outside, rolling to absorb the impact. “Run!” Elara yelled, sprinting toward the docks. Mateo followed, his boots pounding against the cobblestones. Behind them, they could hear Sterling screaming orders through the smoke.
They reached the bustling wharves. Moored at the end of the pier was a sleek, black-hulled sloop of war. The Sea Wraith. Its sails were already unfurled, snapping in the ocean breeze, the crew armed and ready at the rails.
Elara leaped across the gap, catching the ratlines. Mateo jumped after her, his hands gripping the rough hemp rope just as a volley of musket fire from the pursuing marines chipped the wooden railing above his head.
“Cast off!” Elara roared to her crew, climbing onto the quarterdeck. “Hard to port! Get us into the wind!”
The sloop groaned, the sails catching the strong trade winds. As the ship pulled away from the dock, leaving the furious Commodore Sterling shrinking in the distance, Elara turned to Mateo. She leveled her boarding axe at his chest, her gray eyes narrowing.
“I just saved your neck, Mateo de la Cruz,” Elara said, her breathing heavy but controlled. “Now, you are going to tell me exactly why the British Royal Navy is willing to tear Havana apart to find you. Or I will throw you right back to them.”
