Jake sat on the Darkwhale’s deck beside Grevik for perhaps twenty minutes, watching the sun continue its descent toward the western horizon and painting the bay in shades of orange and gold that made the water look like it was on fire.

The shadow serpents he’d manifested remained in position around the deck, their autonomous behavior keeping them alert and ready but not aggressive, creating a barrier that both crews respected without needing additional instruction.

The door to the captain’s quarters opened, and Maureen appeared, her face showing signs of recent crying but her expression calmer than it had been, carrying the particular exhaustion that came from emotional confrontation rather than physical combat.

She looked at Jake and gestured for him to come inside.

Jake stood, dismissing half his shadow serpents to conserve energy, and followed Maureen back into the cabin, where Elisabeth was still sitting at the table with a fresh bottle opened and three glasses refilled.

The pirate queen looked up when Jake entered, and something in her expression had shifted—not quite vulnerable but less armored than before, the conversation with her sister having stripped away some of the protective layers she normally operated behind.

"Sit," Elisabeth said, gesturing to the chair Jake had occupied earlier.

"Maureen and I have been talking, and there are things I need to tell you. Things that are relevant to why I recognized certain abilities you demonstrated during our brief encounters."

Jake settled into the chair and picked up his glass, taking a drink while he waited for Elisabeth to organize whatever she was about to say.

Maureen sat beside her sister with the particular closeness of someone who had just reconnected with family after decades apart and wasn’t quite ready to have physical distance between them.

"You’re a reincarnator," Elisabeth said, and it wasn’t a question.

"Someone brought from another world by a god or goddess, given a second life here along with abilities that natives of this world don’t naturally possess. The shadow serpent manifestation, the way you move and fight, the tactical thinking that feels slightly wrong for someone who’s supposedly only been doing this for a few weeks—all of it points to someone who has knowledge and experience from somewhere else."

Jake kept his expression neutral. Though he was surprised that she picked up all that in just a few minutes.

"I’m asking," Elisabeth said, "because I’m one too. Should I say I was one? Though, my relationship with the goddess who brought me here ended badly, and I’ve been operating without divine support."

Jake’s eyebrows rose slightly.

"Which goddess?" he asked.

"Naktuna," Elisabeth said, and something bitter moved through her expression when she said the name.

"Goddess of vengeance and justice, or so she claimed when she recruited me. She found me in my first life after I died—murdered by someone I’d trusted, which apparently made me a good candidate for her particular brand of divine sponsorship. She offered me a second chance in a world where I could build power and live better than in the first."

She took a drink before continuing.

"It worked well for the first ten years," Elisabeth said.

"I built the foundation of what became my fleet, I developed abilities she granted me, and I pursued the mission she’d given me. But then I started making decisions she didn’t like—targeting people who deserved it but who were politically inconvenient for her divine agenda, refusing missions that would have benefited her at the expense of people I was trying to protect. We argued. She threatened to withdraw her support. I told her to do it if she wanted because I wasn’t interested in being a puppet for divine politics."

Elisabeth’s smile was sharp and humorless.

"She took it personally," she said.

"Withdrew all her support, stripped away the abilities she’d granted directly rather than through the system I’d built, and hasn’t spoken to me since. I’ve been operating on what I developed myself plus whatever baseline advantages reincarnation gave me, but without active divine backing I’m limited in ways that people with active goddess support aren’t."

Jake processed this information and found himself entirely unsurprised by the story.

Gods in this world seemed to operate with the same petty, self-interested motivations that powerful beings in any world operated with, and the idea that a goddess would abandon an agent who stopped being convenient politically was completely consistent with what he’d observed of divine behavior.

"Gods are fools," he said and meant it.

"Short-sighted, self-important, more concerned with their own status games than with the people they’re supposed to be supporting. Asurani’s better than most from what I’ve seen, but even she’s primarily interested in me because my strength feeds hers. The partnership is real, but it’s also transactional."

Elisabeth looked at him with something like approval.

"Your goddess, does she speak to you often?" she asked.

"Her name is Asurani and she is good in some way."

Elisabeth thought for a moment and said, "Wait, the goddess who is at the bottom of the divinity realm."

"That’s her," Jake confirmed.

"She has a better reputation than Naktuna," Elisabeth said.

"I guess lower gods are better than the stronger ones. They wouldn’t abandon you in the middle."

The system pulsed in Jake’s awareness with sudden urgency, screens materializing in his vision without him calling for them, and he looked at the notifications appearing with growing interest.

[AGENT OF ABANDONED COVENANT DETECTED]

[Elisabeth "ELISE NAILER" - FORMER AGENT OF NAKTUNA]

[COVENANT STATUS: DISSOLVED]

[COMPATIBILITY ASSESSMENT: HIGH]

[RECOMMENDATION: COVENANT TRANSFER AVAILABLE]

[SERPENT KING AUTHORITY PERMITS RECRUITMENT OF ABANDONED AGENTS]

[QUERY: EXTEND ASURANI COVENANT INVITATION?]

Jake read through the notifications twice, making sure he understood what the system was offering.

Elisabeth had been abandoned by her goddess, which apparently created a category of person who could be recruited into a different divine covenant under certain circumstances.

His Serpent King title carried authority that permitted such recruitment, and the system was assessing Elisabeth as compatible with Asurani’s covenant.

The implications were significant.

If Elisabeth joined Asurani’s covenant, she would regain access to divine support and the enhanced development that came with it. She would also become connected to Jake through that shared covenant in ways that would probably strengthen both of them. And Asurani would gain another agent with decades of experience and an established power base.

It seemed like an arrangement that benefited everyone except Naktuna, who would lose any remaining claim to an agent she’d already abandoned.

Jake looked at Elisabeth across the table.

"If you could join a different divine covenant," he said, "one where the goddess was less likely to abandon you over disagreements and more interested in supporting agents who delivered results, would you be interested?"

Elisabeth’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

"Hypothetically? Yes.

In practice that’s not usually possible—covenant bonds are difficult to break and even harder to transfer once they’ve been established, and most goddesses won’t take agents who’ve been abandoned by others because it creates political complications."

"Asurani might be willing to make an exception," Jake said.

He focused on the system prompt and selected the option to extend the invitation, and immediately the screens shifted. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

[COVENANT INVITATION INITIATED]

[REQUESTING DIVINE PRESENCE]

[ASURANI: RESPONDING]

The cabin’s atmosphere changed.

The air thickened with a presence that was distinctly other, the same quality Jake remembered from when Asurani had visited him in Raaya Villa, and pale gold light began gathering in the center of the room above the table where they sat.

The light intensified gradually until it resolved into a form that was recognizable as humanoid but clearly not constrained by normal physical rules.

Maureen was watching all of this fascination in her eyes. It was all new to her and the amount of information dumped on her today was overwhelming, so she just sat there, reeling in the scenes before her.

Asurani appeared, floating cross-legged above the table, her form wrapped in that characteristic pale gold luminescence, and when her eyes opened, they were bright with the particular amusement that seemed to be her default expression when dealing with mortals.

"Jake," she said warmly.

"You’ve been busy and now you’re trying to recruit abandoned agents into my covenant?"

She looked at Elisabeth with interest.

"You collect interesting situations the way some people collect coins."

Elisabeth stared at the goddess floating above her captain’s table with an expression that cycled rapidly through shock, recognition, and something that might have been hope mixed with wariness.

"Lady Asurani," she said, and there was respect in her voice that suggested she knew exactly who she was looking at.

"I didn’t expect—that is, I’m honored by your presence in my cabin."

"Naktuna abandoned you," Asurani said, not unkindly but stating it as fact.

"Fifteen years ago, over a disagreement about target selection and operational independence. She took it personally when you refused to be her obedient tool and withdrew support rather than negotiate a better working relationship."

"Yes," Elisabeth confirmed.

"That was foolish of her," Asurani said.