The Stormheart

Kestra Marren has hunted Admiral Halden Rook for six years. Six years of storms, of rumours, of his name in every dispatch that ends with a body. She finally corners him in the middle of the worst hurricane either fleet has ever sailed, and the sea does what the sea does: wrecks them both on the same broken hull. He doesn't beg. He doesn't run. He hands her a folded, waterlogged order with her mother's name in it, and he tells her he didn't kill her. Then he helps her save his crew. They leave the wreck as enemies, which is exactly what they've always been. But six months of fighting each other across every sea in the empire has a way of teaching you what your enemy is worth. When their own guilds sell them out, Kestra and Halden have one storm left, one harbour left, and one awful truth: they cannot survive without each other. She rides the storm. He holds the tiller. Neither of them pretends anything else.