Mireia can draw any channel from memory after seeing it once. That single gift is why a corsair flagship holds her as its "guest." The captain leaves her cabin door unlocked, but every oar is gone. And every morning, with a smile, he asks her for another course nobody has ever drawn.
In this age, a sheet of paper decides who rules the sea more than any cannon does. Whoever holds a course nobody has drawn holds the Mediterranean. Mireia has kept her vanished master's workshop going alone with one gift: any coastline or shoal she passes once, she can draw again from memory. Then Kerem, a young corsair captain, captures her. He calls her his guest, but she's his prisoner. He doesn't lock her door. He just takes the oars. And always with a smile, he turns her hands into his fleet's best weapon. But at the end of the course he's chasing lies a secret of his own, one even his crew doesn't know. A single line from Mireia's hand could bring that day closer or tear it all down. The chart board records the wind, the tides, even the day she came aboard. Only one square stays empty to the very end: the one for why he smiles.
- The moment Kerem burns his fleet's list of captured ships over the rail and, for the first time, says your name without a smile.
- The moment you close your eyes, open them, and draw the shoals off Ceuta again, and that one sheet turns twenty ships around at once.
- The night the sail tears, when Kerem throws the cabin door wide open and tells you you're free to leave, and your feet won't move from the deck.
The moment Kerem burns his fleet's list of captured ships over the rail and, for the first time, says your name without a smile.
